Brian D. Striman
Head of Technical Services and Associate Professor of Law Library
Marvin & Virginia Schmid Law Library
University of Nebraska College of Law
Lincoln, NE
Runaway Time Machine
Law Library Journal Spring 1997
March 4, 1997—Try to find a typical day in the life of a law librarian. Looking at any week's worth of days, they all seem to be about the same. Yet when you focus on a particular one, it doesn't seem very typical at all. Oh well, how about this one?
The biggie for today is that the ABA accreditation team will be visiting the law college. It's a normal seven-year accreditation activity for us. We've done all our reports and paperwork in advance, so for me it's just a matter of getting together with the library accrediting team person, Gary Gott. The day unfolds . . .
My coat is barely on the coat rack in the workroom when the LAIII (Library Assistant III) starts in on a report of what happened on Friday while I was on vacation. The LAII is within earshot and soon enters into the discussion about the problems encountered with the new Windows version of our stand-alone binding software program. The reports-feature printout continues to be difficult to decipher—in fact it's nearly unreadable. We mess with it and soon discover that activating that portion of the program now begins to lock up the entire binding program. We discuss options for fifteen minutes and decide that I had better call the manager at the bindery and see how we go about returning to our DOS version for binding and continue using the DOS version until all the Windows bugs are cleaned up. (Don't you hate Windows with bugs?)
I unlock my office and turn on the computers and peripherals. I start with e-mail and find over four hundred messages. Yikes! I normally cruise at about 175. You know how it usually goes: thirty to forty e-mails from law-lib, another twenty or so from AUTOCAT, then maybe fifteen to twenty personals, some from the main university library with its staff of 150, and, of course, there are the internal messages from the law library staff. Add in a Friday off plus a weekend and there's an extra two hundred messages in the mailbox. But no problem. I simply activate my "MDO protocol" (a.k.a. Mass Delete Operation) where I instantly delete huge bunches of law-lib reference questions and other law-lib messages where the subject headers don't convey meaningful content. I just don't have time to look at the e-mails that say "help" or those that have wording that don't convey contents of the e-mail. The letter D on my keyboard seems more faded than the other keys. I click away for awhile when . . .
The government docs assistant is in my doorway: "Hey B-man, I added some check-in records you need to look at. Also, there are some questions about binding and retention for some of them. Check it out for me okay?" "Okee-dokee," I say, barely turning away from the e-mails to look at her. Phone rings. It's a serials cataloger from the main library who wants to set up a time to talk about me giving a program in April on "how to catalog law materials" for the Nebraska Library Association Technical Services Roundtable program. Sure, no problem. I return to e-mail. Phone rings again. It's the binding staff person from the main library who wants to come and see our new Windows version of LARS, the binding program. I tell her we're not too happy about it. She wants to come this Wednesday anyway. Fine. More e-mail. Cripes! I'm no where near being at my cruising status of around 175. In fact, after all my rapid-fire work, I'm only down to 289. Keep moving, Brian. Keep moving. (The morning is speeding by, reminding me of the scene in The Time Machine with the time-lapse images of clouds and suns and moons and stuff we see through the laboratory window. Gad!)
Go to tech services workroom. Problem-solve about a batch of new microfiche containing U.S. Supreme Court records and briefs, and then deal with a reissued volume of the Nebraska Revised Statutes. The state didn't include any instructions with this new reissue volume, so I have to call the revisor of statutes to get the scoop on what the new volume replaces and what now officially constitutes a complete, current set of the statutes. I whip out a memo to the faculty so they'll know what to do with their old volumes.
Okay, let's catalog. I do my stuff on OCLC and attempt to download a couple of rush materials. What? The downloader isn't responding. We've lost the port connection. This can be tricky. This often means having to contact my "favorite" person at Information Services to get the port "unlocked" so we can download bib records into our local Innovative system. Sometimes this person isn't around, beeper or not. I dink around and in about ten minutes it's working. Thank you oh great mysterious CyberOne! Finish up the rush stuff.
Look through some piles on my desk and perform some paper shuffling—February stats sheets need to be put away, candidate info and notes for our associate director opening put away, go get coffee, get out new cataloging production sheets for March, look through my in-box papers, scan the faculty route folder from the Dean's Office, look at priorities, and shuffle more paper around so I sense what I need to do next. I hear my name being called from the other room; I get up to go answer cataloging questions from the LAII, who's doing copy cataloging. Next, go out to the stacks to check on what may be a classification problem with some bankruptcy materials. While there, a student asks me to send a letter of reference for him to attend the library science program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yeah, I'll be glad to write a letter. Bye. Yikes! It's noon.
Head upstairs to attend the all-faculty sandwich luncheon in the faculty lounge with the ABA accrediting team. I say a casual "hello" and introduce myself to one of the team while hunting for the best sandwiches. Find a "strategic" seat in the lounge (we don't want an upset stomach). Everything's cool and the luncheon is over before I know it. Returning to my office with spare soda pop in hand, it isn't but a moment before I sense Gary Gott is at my office door wanting to talk to me as part of his ABA investigation.
Gary stands in my doorway, looks around: "Hi Brian . . . [pause]. What a . . . [pause] . . . colorful office you have." I tell him it's also been called a "busy" office since I have all kinds of stuff on the walls and in my shelves. After small talk, we sit down together and talk about the law library and how far I think we've come since the bad old days in the mid-1980s and I answer some of his ABA accreditation questions. We talk for about an hour and Gary leaves for his next appointment. He seems happy. I guess I'm happy, too.
I get back to my e-mail, dealing with some new e-mail buildup (is this like plaque?) and responding to some of the previous weeks' messages that have waited perhaps a bit too long. I end up spending way too much time on e-mails. I didn't set my kitchen Robertshaw Lux "minute minder" timer, so a little more than an hour is shot. I did answer some questions and help out some folks though. Guilt quotient goes down. I hear commotion in the workroom. I hear my name. Hmmmmmmmm . . .
The LAII's phone message program isn't working. This won't be a fast fix, as her phone line is a CENTREX-shared voice message system with two other phones. Seems she can't get into her waiting voice messages. We dink around with that for half an hour, but finally get everything straightened out.
What's left of the day is an hour or so of miscellaneous this-and-that. You know what I'm talking about! I know you know. I can't even remember most of them . . . they were just thises and thats. Finally it's 5:30. I'm pooped. I'm going home. Goodnight Chet. Goodnight David.
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