Last day of NE

I kindly (but lets face it, stupidly) offered to help one of the casuals out with some HLS selections.

I mean, read the profile, go choose items that match the profile (that they haven't already had), issue the items, bag 'n' tag 'em, move onto the next profile.

Sounds easy.

I mean, Mrs Kafoops likes mysteries (not too much sex or violence) favourite authors - Christie, Sayers, Rankin.

Aha! thinks I - Mrs Kafoops will like Aird, Curzon, Simpson, Robinson, Harvey - brilliant in theory but if AB doesn't have those authors - I'm seriously screwed. How about Reah, Cork, Norman, Murphy hmmm.

Will (hopefully) complete Mrs Kafoops' selections @ BL tomorrow.

I actually do select for a couple of HLS clients @ BL. Luckily they both read mysteries, luckily I see the new books come through so can easily spot new titles/authors for them to try.

It reminded me of a conversation with a colleague who asked me for a list of authors of British crime authors for a borrower (may have been HLS - not sure).

Sure, we have the British Police Procedurals list (which is due to be updated), and some who writes like... but I'd love to have something less 'formal' - five crime novels set at Scotland Yard; five mysteries set in Oxford - we could do one a month on the website/blog/ning/facebook/myspace/bebo/email newsletter and have a printed version in the libraries for the non-computerised.

Wonder if I can work it into Seattle reads?

Back on topic.

I enjoyed the NE - It was fun, it was challenging, I got to use the (alleged) grey cells, and I learned a lot from the experience.

It helped with the thinking on my future options (some may call it a career - others just chortle).

You can get too comfortable in a job, and it's good to shake the cobwebs off and work with some very different team dynamics and under a different sort of pressure.

Peoples' reactions to me were also interesting (and sometimes amusing) to observe.

I'll probably blog about this some more over the next few days as it is/was a surprisingly educational secondment.