jadesfire

So it turns out, when a major academic publisher holds a 60% off sale of their rather pricey inventory, academics and librarians will go a bit nuts and break their website.

And they'll do that AFTER I've filled my cart with the 45 books that I want, and now can't even see to screenshot the list because the site is broken.

For even more fun, I haven't shopped with them directly before, so I wasn't signed in, so I can't go home until the site is back up and I can see my basket on my work computer, where it's saved.

Oh, and of course, the US is now mostly online, and this is an international publisher, so it's not like the traffic is going to die down.

So if anyone needs me, or wants to bring me dinner, I guess I'll be here, refreshing the page FOREVER.

Trying to compile end of year figures here, and none of them make sense. Because in theory, if we add numbers a) and b) together, we should get the same as when we add numbers c) and d) together. But we don't. Of course we don't.

It might help if either my boss or I understood where the hell the numbers were supposed to come from and what they were supposed to mean. Instead, we are reduced to staring at them, swapping them around, staring at them again, shaking our heads and wondering what we did last year. We can't even work out where the figures that we're supposed to be using come from. I'm reminded strongly of Yes, Minister:

Sir Humphrey [complaining that a local council haven't sent their statistics back]: But if we don't get their forms back, the government figures will be a nonsense.
Jim Hacker: Government figures are always a nonsense.
Bernard: I think Sir Humphrey wants to make sure they're a complete nonsense.

Have promised faithfully that I'll sort it out on Tuesday :S Here's hoping...

Current Mood: rushed

It's not a full moon tonight, is it? Cos I'm feeling decidedly daft...as the below proves.

Warnings for great silliness and mild hyperbole.

( Shelving: A True(ish) Story )

Current Mood: annoyed

...so now I'm hoping the electrical engineers will forgive me. Yes, we are very grateful that readers will no longer be bumping into bookcases and staff will no longer get eyestrain from looking at labels in the dark. Maybe the idea was to string it out for so long that, by the time they did manage to change the bulb, we'd be so completely and pathetically grateful after having been in the dark for so long that we'd offer them chocolates. Sorry, lads, no eating in the reading room.

Now all we have to do is teach readers about volume control ("did your mother never tell you that you shouldn't shout in a library?") and how to ask questions ("yes, surprisingly, since I work here, I do know where the stairs are. I can even point you in the direction of the toilets and the books, if you ask really nicely.") *sigh*

Current Mood: silly

I have just spent an hour in the dark. I'm not being metaphorical about this; half the light bulbs on the ground floor have gone, and so some of the book shelves are in near total darkness. This, as you can imagine, makes re-shelving fun. It didn't help that, last week having been brought to us by the letter 'P', this week seems to be brought to us by the letter 'k'. It's the beginning of one of our classification marks, and I'm surprised there was actually anything on the shelves at that point. It's also the part of the book stack that's in the deepest darkness. After twenty minutes or so, I emerged, blinking, into the main library, blinded by the 60 watt bulbs.

If the designer of the library is out there, I'd very much like to meet him. I'd like to hear why he designed book cases that reach all the way to the ceiling, and so block the cages over the florescent bulbs. How many electrical engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to look at the ceiling and tut, the other to explain to the staff that, because of the lousy design, they can't actually change the damn things at all. So far, we've lost about six florescent tubes and sixteen small round lights. Can't wait to find out what happens when the rest of them go....

( On a more Houseian note (including spoiler: ye be warned) )

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Chained to the desk

Thank you, OUP. Thank you so much.

The Whole Story

From the evening shift

And there was light...

Fiat Lux. Please?

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