Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Amazing wombats.

Ok, I'll admit it.  I really don't know very much about wombats at all.  I am pretty sure they are in Australia, maybe New Zealand.  But I know they are cute, and I know that they have an amazing trick that no other animal that I am aware of on the planet could ever hope to replicate.

As far as I have can conclude, every animal on the planet poops.  Yes, poops.  Many of us people who walk around on this planet have observed, and probably stepped in, many different kinds of poop that come in many shapes, colors, consistencies, sizes.....but how....I ask you how....do wombats poop cubes?

A cubic shaped poo.  Can you fathom that?  What shape it the poor animal's colon?  What could possibly be the reason for poop with corners?

Alright, that's all I got, but really what more do you need than the certain mind picture that I know is lurking there in your head?  But, if you don't believe me, I dare you to look it up.

On another topic, the search for the elusive forgotten made-up word continues.  The Almighty Overseer, caught up in the search as well, as she is the creator of said wondrous word, thought maybe she had written it down and put it in her desk so she wouldn't lose it, you know, for safe keeping.  After an exhaustive expunging of all notes written and stashed in hidden corners of drawers and hidden behind file folders, the word was not to be found.  BUT, the Almighty Overseer did share a note that she couldn't remember writing.  She had no idea who it was about or what she was upset about, but she was certain it was her own handwriting--and I will leave you with her message: "I don't give a royal rats hind end what you say or do."  I hope she wasn't mad at me.

--The Cataloger

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Cacafuego

As the minutes tick by and the pages keep turning, there comes a time when a Cataloger like me runs into an exquisite nugget of knowledge that must be passed on to the general public.  There really are things that people just have to know about in this world.  

Most recently, and the surely the reason behind the idea for this blog in the first place, is a small mention of a ship captured by Sir Francis Drake.  I am sure that Sir Francis Drake captured many ships in his day, but this particular ship had a most unusual name.  Now, knowing the small amount of Spanish that I have accumulated over the years, I was quite baffled at the name of this ship.  Whatever overcame the Spanish sea-faring geniuses that allowed them to name a ship Cacafuego?  To keep these posts PG rated, I will refrain from translating for you, but feel free to type it into google translate or another program.  Be sure to put a space between caca and fuego.  Apparently this was a huge find for Drake, as the ship was piled high with pearls, precious stones, gold and much silver.

In absolute awe, and not quite believing this could be true, I looked up Cacafuego in Wikipedia, and sure enough, it was a Spanish ship captured by Sir Francis Drake.  There does seem to be a bit of controversy about the spelling of the name which you might find quite fascinating.

In other news, we are currently in the middle of trying to locate a personal entry into our department's dictionary.  We tend to add words, in pencil, to our dictionary that we happen to make up.  This time, however, we have forgotten one of the words and are unable to locate it.  We think it had something to do with hopping or grasshoppers.  So far we have searched the F's and the J's but to no avail.  I will keep you posted.

The Cataloger a.k.a. The Silent One a.k.a. The One in the Cubicle.

The reason behind this blog

Not our picture click to see source.


Welcome to our blog. The two of us are members of the secret society that exists at the back of the library, known to few as Technical Services. In this magical room books come and go, barcodes and labels attached along with the very data used so you can find said books.

Most people are familiar with the librarians and circulation staff at their local libraries, but most have no clue how books magically appear on the shelves. There are plenty of blogs discussing how libraries work but none tell of the wonderous things found behind the closed doors. We have decided to break the tech laws of the library to bring you the funny, groan worthy, weird, sometimes scary, and just plain odd tidbits that you just can't live without.

We are the librarians rarely seen unless we are dragged mercilessly from the back to monitor the collection. You can recognize us by the way we squint in the natural light that our cave deprives us of. We are usually hunched over a book cart bemoaning our fate or are clutching a piece of paper as we are sent out into the public to find the hidden tome of perplexion. We are going through withdrawal as ebooks slowly take over paper and ink books. You might find us with our noses in those rare physical books enjoying that irreplacable new book smell. Some of us, though, have also gone to the dark side because even we don't have the infinite space to keep all the books we love.

This is written by myself, the Assistant Cataloger and my partner The Cataloger. We brave the typewriter (damn the evil typewriter) and hide in terror of the cataloging mistakes of those gone past. Grab you library card, hide the small children and get ready to be overwhelmed with the fascinating information you just have to know.

From the words of the Almighty Overseer: "Praise The Lord and pass the Fiction!"

By: The Assistant Cataloger AKA The grunt AKA The one who sees beyond her desk.