Organization Monkey

Q: How many loose journal issues have you moved over the last couple months?

We have about 2000 journal subscriptions in our library.  Let’s say that one of our average journals comes twelve times a year.  That’s 24,000 loose issues that we check in, theft strip, label and shelve EVERY YEAR.  Ideally, that’s the number of loose issues we would box for storage in one year also, removing the older issues from the shelves as the newer ones are received.

Removing the older issues of journals hasn’t happened in our library for a number of years so we are dealing with pulling those issues now, to be boxed and ready for the move to the new library.  On our shelves was about five years of old issues mixed in with the current journals.  That means we’ve pulled about 120,000 loose issues from the shelves recently, leaving behind only the current year.  We have many, many shelves of loose issues as a result.  Here’s what they look like, ready to be boxed:

(please send chocolate. we are all tired of looking at journals.)

The purpose of Data.gov is “to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.”

Point 7 of the Data Policy is laudable:

Public Participation
In support of the Transparency and Open Government Initiative, recommendations from individuals, groups and organizations regarding the presentation of data, data types, and metadata will contribute to the evolution of Data.gov.

Go check out the searchable catalog of datasets to see if it’s a useful resource to you!

the project of identifying 150,000 books that will be moving to the basement of our new library has been completed. we put green tape on the spines of books that were deemed “low use” items. when the movers come they’ll pull the green taped books to go to the basement (to be a paged collection) and the rest of the books will go up to the browsable book stacks.

this is what the book stacks look like now, with the green tape on the spines.

if you’re like me, by the time you roll into work on monday morning you’ve completely forgotten what you did on friday and what your goals were for the upcoming week.  the last thing you want to do first thing on a monday is figure that out.  help yourself!  on friday afternoon, 15 minutes before you leave work, set your monday morning schedule.  i use the calendar in my email program to lay out tasks for myself for the entire day but only commit to completing the ones i’ve set for the morning.  on mondays when i get in to the office i don’t even have to think about what i’m supposed to be doing; i just pop open my calendar and follow my own lead.  try it!

screen shot of my calendar for Monday morning

“for thousands of years mathematicians and families have searched for a single volume that could contain all the numbers imaginable.”

rainn wilson talks about the cinco library’s encyclopedia of numbers.

direct link to the video

marie-kennedy.com, the site i created to showcase my digital photographs, is now a shiny new blog!  go and grab an rss feed to put some digital photography into your feedreader.  you’ll feel better, i promise.  enjoy the primary page where i will post color images as i make them, as well as the portfolio pages of my previous work.

the images on the site are mainly good for making a little print for yourself to hang in the office to brighten your day.  if you want a bigger print, check out the paypal link on the main page and i will send you an archival inkjet print.

all of the images on marie-kennedy.com are licensed under creative commons: attribution-noncommercial-share alike 3.0 united states.  that means that you may use, share, or remix anything you find on the site without seeking permission, but you should attribute the original to me and share any remixes with the same kind of license.

as always, feedback and collaboration are welcome.