Day One

My first day on the new job and I literally feel like I might cry. Not because of the stacks of paper, which seem to have no organization to them; not because the previous librarian (who left in January) left no decipherable notes about what the heck she was doing; but because I'm trying to analyse the library's databases and the best thing they have is JSTOR. Which they don't even access directly! They have remote access to the Boston Public Library, which happens to have JSTOR. This system is going to have to change.

Beyond BPL's remote databases, most of which are innapropraite for deep scholarly research, the actual direct access subscriptions are sort of underwhelming. I fail to see the purpose of a subscription to EBSCO's Literary Reference Center for an Economics Library. Generally, if Shakespeare appears in the logo, it's probably not relevant to the social sciences.

I've still got five to look through, and the titles alone give me some hope, but at the same time, the pit in my stomach is growing larger. While the titles may sound impressive, I've only actually heard of one of them. And frankly, if it didn't come up in Marilyn Lester's overview of databases, or at least in my Government docs class, I'm not sure how I feel about it.

On a more positive note, Massachusetts is beautiful and if I manage to stay afloat amidst my endless sea of paper, I think I might enjoy living here. The fact that my closest neighbors are turkeys freaks me out a little bit, but when I venture down the mountain into town, it's pretty cute. Sort of Wicker Park meets Little House on the Prairie. There's an actual Cheesemonger.