i boarded the ship on wednesday, january 31 for orientation. i’ve only been off the ship once since then. january 31 was not only my first day on the job, but it was the first day on the job for every other staff and faculty person who will be working on this shipboard campus. combine that with the fact that classes start on february 6, and you have one unique situation. like most academic institutions one’s first day on the job and the beginning of the semester entail a considerable number of meetings. thus, in between figuring out how the hell to do my job, or i should say in between figuring out how the hell “we” (erin, the one other librarian) run the library, i’ve been to a few meetings. the meetings have been about campus life, and have very little to do with how to run the library. finding out about shipboard life, who’s responsible for what, campus policies, procedures, departments, etc, is good, but it doesn’t change the fact that when consulting another department or faculty person, that it’s their first week on the job too – this is the institute for shipboard education’s (ise) means of building community. it seems to be working, we’re all definitely in the same clueless boat – or i should say ship (they're very sensitive about certain terminaology). thus far I haven’t met anyone that i want to seriously avoid.the shipboard library, is small, 12,000 volumes, seating includes two tables, and a few barstools at the reference desk. in the ship’s previous, pre-semester at sea life, the space the library is located was a casino. there is no work space for processing materials, and there is barely enough space for one librarian behind the reference desk, let alone two. oh, did i mention that we were assigned five work study students (one from camarillo) yesterday who we are suppose to train to do jobs that we haven’t even figured out how to do ourselves. i suspect over time they will be our saving grace, but more on them later, at least a picture.
given the size of the library, erin (the head librarian) and i have to do everything, including library tasks we don’t do in our regular library jobs (erin’s the head of cataloging at university of virginia, and i’m a reference, collection development and instruction librarian at ucsb), tasks that wouldn’t be difficult if we had someone to train us and a solid library infrastructure to work within. thus, we’ve had to figure out things like how to set up course reserves, print (haven’t really figured this out yet) and electronic (got this down), scanning, how to check in and out books (just figured that out yesterday, day 4), and where to get basic supplies like pens and post-its (took longer to find the time to actually go get them; sent a work study student once they arrived). internet access is limited, but there is a campus intranet, that is offline, and is where the electronic reserves are located, but requires one to map access to the drive (and three others where more campus resources are located), something most computer users have no experience doing. so we’ve been spending a considerable amount of time teaching faculty, individually, how to do it, as well as how to set-up the university of virginia’s proxy server on their computers – annie, I feel ya. we’ve also learned how to and taught faculty and staff, again individually, not in an organized instructional group setting, how to set-up their computers to print to the computer lab printer.
i’m exhausted. if i had to cook, clean or do laundry for myself, i probably would have quit by now, or at least i wouldn’t be as good humored about it all. however, when i get back to my cabin in the evening, my bed is made, my bathroom is clean, my mail has been delivered, and my carpet is vaccumed. the food is great, the coffee not so, but i haven’t tasted the coffee at the pool bar, where we can "purchase" expresso drinks. i don’t think i’ve been over eating, but i need to cut back on the scrumptious desserts that are available at every meal. i’m not use to eating desserts weekly, let alone at every meal, then there are free coffee and cookies that are available in between meals.
there are seven decks on the ship. everyone takes the stairs. i didn’t even notice the elevator until yesterday. at first i was reasoning that all of the up and down stairs will burn off the dessert, but i’m going to try and avoid the desserts all together and hope that i can lose a few pounds. it’s very easy to eat healthy because there are lots of fruit, salad, veggie, poultry and fish choices, the problem is volume.
erin and i worked a few hours this morning and are taking the rest of the day off, while students are boarding and parents are visiting. i got off the ship for a bit to grab some stamps at the hilton and a newspaper (white people should just refrain from talking about black people), but am now nesting in the faculty staff lounge with archbishop desmond tutu, my laptop and the sunday miami herald (i miss the la times). the archbishop is sending an important email and not to be disturbed. i first met him yesterday after a meeting. during the meeting we were informed that he recently arrived from receiving an award in india, was exhausted after making his way here to nassau, and would be resting until the reception for him later that evening. after the meeting i went up to the faculty staff lounge (the only student free zone) and there he was sitting alone with his laptop. i mentioned that he was suppose to be in his room resting. he replied that there was no wireless there – another ise community building strategy.
