I’m working at the university library this quarter and next, as a “slavic quick cataloger.” New books come to the library, go sit in the basement, and six months later the quick catalogers (there are two student workers in my position) catch up to them. We look the book up by their call number, and if another library has entered its information in worldcat, we copy it to our catalog. But only if it is a library which is trusted to enter it correctly.

So I’m seeing a ton of books from all over Russia and Eastern Europe, and overhearing conversations from other people working in the library’s cataloging section. I started keeping notes of the interesting bits, and I keep meaning to carry in my camera to document some of the covers and such, but so far I haven’t remembered.

Notes from Slavic Cataloging, Pt. 1

here’s a useful book?
Information science and processing vocabulary : Estonian-English-German-Russian
Mostly I was just intrigued to see that this exists.

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A dissertation published (in English) by the Institute of Mathematics, Polish Academy of Sciences, “Cooperative guards in art galleries.” It is mathematical models of how many people are needed to be able to see everything in art galleries of various shapes, and also how to have the guards all be able to see each other, in case one is disabled.

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funny name:
Институт этнографии имени Н.Н. Миклухо-Маклая [Institue of ethnography in the name of N.N. Miklukho-Maklaya]
Миклухо-Маклая!! [Milukho-Maklaya]

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today’s discussion topic among the 40-ish media librarians (as in their age, not that there are 40 of them) – going to “geezer” shows as older people and no longer wanting musicians to take off their shirts.

2nd topic: this book is about green cemeteries.
lib. 1: if you want to be green, why don’t you just get cremated?
lib. 2: they bury them without the coffin, and not too deep, so they can contribute to the soil.
lib 1: do they have anything to keep the raccoons from digging them up?
lib. 2: they say they haven’t had any problems with it, so far. no bear has been intrepid enough to exhume anyone.
lib 1: but they’re still taking up space. once you’re dead, you should get off the earth.

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there is something seriously wrong with mathematical education in Serbia. I’ve just added to a series called ‘documents on foreign politics of the Serbian crown 1903-1914’ (at least that’s the best I can gather from Serbian) the following books:
vol. 2, part 4, no. 1
vol. 2, part 4, no. 2
vol. 2, supplement 2

“volume 2” is at least ten separate books! Seriously! They are also labeled by both old & new calendar dates*. I’m postulating extreme counting issues in the Balkans.

*if you’re not familiar with the old & new calendar concept, it has to do with the followers of Russian Orthodoxy not switching to the Gregorian calendar until early twentieth century.