Don't panic

Currently listening to students talking about town planning, planning permission etc, and all I can think of is Hitchhikers Guide...

"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display ..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But, look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'."

5 things

It's been a ferociously busy couple of weeks since the students got back from break, as the deadlines began to mass - for me as well as for them.

5 things I am grateful for:

1. - interesting questions. There's no better kind of busy than getting research requests that give me cause to think and learn and explore something from a different angle as I go. My to-read list has been getting longer all month.
2. - Koha's list feature, which makes putting together a convenient shelf list of material in the LUP library for someone a snap, and allows me to re-use them where that's appropriate.
3. - organisations that catalogue to content-page level, plus those that provide index page previews; all the better for ruling a potential book in or out.
4. - e-prints, institutional research repositories, open data and open research.
5. - the London Library team, who I've been visiting daily - occasionally twice-daily - and the ILL team on campus who have helped several students out of tight corners at short notice

* Photo by Rob Warde, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

Frankenstein

Frankenstein's one of my favourite classic novels, and with all the buzz around the NT production of Nick Dear's adaptation, my expectations were high - and then surpassed.

We had Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature - absolutely incredible, and so intense - and Benedict Cumberbatch as Victor Frankenstein, and I am planning to try for day tickets during my break week to try and catch the alternate casting, because I'm so intrigued now about how much - or how little - difference that would make.

If you have the chance, this would be well worth waiting in the morning queue for day tickets.