Journal, week 14
Taking the bus downtown was bittersweet this morning because I knew today would be my last day at the library (and my last day living in Rhode Island, so there was an additional layer of finality here). Allison and I agreed to make today, Tuesday, my last day working because she'd be out on Monday recovering from her week volunteering at NecronomiCon. She had bought a cake for everyone to share but texted me apologizing profusely just before I arrived because it had fallen out of the fridge. Of course, there was no harm done!
After the weekly staff meeting, Allison and I spent the morning going over all of the work I had completed throughout the past week. I had reshelved everything that had new plates and call flags, and pulled all of the call cards for items whose call numbers I had changed; after she approved each updated record for exporting from OCLC Connexion to Alma, I collected printouts of every record that would need a new call card so that she and the other catalogers could order the cards after I left.
During this review, one of the other librarians poked her head in to let us know they had ordered a new cake… The staff here has shown me a lot of kindness and respect, and today was no different. Allison took me out to lunch around noon, then afterward we returned to the library and enjoyed sweets with the rest of the staff. They wished me farewell and I thanked them for their time.
As part of my last day, Allison had promised to take me up to the stacks on the building's upper level to show off some of the library's more interesting items, so we went up just before the end of the day. Among the coolest of the things she showed me was a copy of the Aurora Australis, a travelog of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907, written by Sir E.H. Shackleton and printed from a press at the expedition team's base. Of the hundred-odd copies that exist, JCB is in possession of the "EWED BEANS" copy, identified as such by text printed on the scrap of supply wood used as the book's front cover. The library also has an original printing of Shakespeare's First Folio—I never thought I'd ever see one, let alone be able to flip through it myself.
The treat that was this opportunity marked the end of my day and the end of my time with the John Carter Brown Library. I'm beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to gain experience in cataloging among a staff with such high standards for quality of work.