Let's get it started.

OK, it's been almost a year since I posted, but with the new phase in my life, I wanted to get my blog up and running. Here's a low-down on what's been going on with me:

1) I am no longer in Buffalo, which means that I no longer spend my afternoons with Hiller, but the name of the blog will stay because I like it.

2) I am no longer at the Library of Congress. My time there was short, but amazing, and I learned a lot about a lot of things.

3) I spent the summer digitizing financial records for the Seamen's Church Institute . While this might not sound as glamorous as working with archival collections at LC, it was great and varied experience for my resume, and the people I met were wonderfully nice and so much fun! I also now have a reason and purpose to knit tons of hats and scarves, and I'm going to learn how to knit socks as soon as my Christmas gift backlog is taken care of.

4) I work at Gettysburg College! Yep, I'm back to the ol' Alma Mater, and it actually feels really good. I'm in Technical Services at Musselman Library cataloging CDs, scores, books, and whatever else they throw my way. I will also work at the reference desk once a week, and I have a few other projects in the planning stages (and it's only day 5!).

So there's the low-down on my life. Join me as I move into and decorate my apartment, become a full-fledged cataloger, and enjoy life in the 'Burg!

Afternoons with Hiller?

For those of you who were wondering, the title of my blog is sort of an inside joke between me and a couple of my co-workers in the Music Library. It refers to a project that I have taken over from one of the Student Assistants -- I am trying (desperately) to identify a dozen or so flowcharts for computer music composition belonging to the Lejaren Hiller Collection at UB.

Hiller created these flowcharts as ways of composing music with computers, and when he died they were donated to UB by his widow. They apparently sat in storage, rolled up in paper, for about 20 years, the problem being that when you let something sit rolled up for that long, the minute you try to unroll it, it's pretty fatal. When the archivist tried to unroll the flowcharts and preserve them, all of these tiny little glued-on labels popped off. Hence, we are trying to identify the flow charts, glue the teeny-tiny labels back on, and preserve them. They are all labeled with figure numbers, leading us to believe that they are published in an article somewhere. The problem I'm coming up against is that no one, and I mean NO ONE -- except for Hiller and people that wrote with Hiller -- has written about these flowcharts or his computer music composition.

So where does that leave me? Right now, I have about 20 things ordered through ILL, and those books and articles that I have already received from ILL have led me nowhere. I'm hoping that something comes in that can be a beacon that leads me to the proper identification and preservation of the remaining charts.

Welcome to My Blog!

When I was an undergrad, I started a blog with a different hosting site. Now that I'm nearly a "grown-up," I have decided to jump back on the Web 2.0 bandwagon and continue blogging. I have been learning in my library classes that blogs can be a good professional development-type tool, so here it goes...

However, this time it's going to be a little different. Rather than complain about boys and roommates, I want to highlight my experiences as a Graduate Assistant in the UB Music Library, including projects I am working on and the crazy requests I get while at work. So come, read, and travel on this crazy journey with me!