The Mouse Lives

Yay, Mouserobics no longer dead on the central site. Got e-mail from the creator, who said that the computer it runs off of quietly died while he was on holidays and no one else noticed.

The death of the mouse in class last week was a good 'teachable moment', used to talk about how it's common that websites die without warning, or are sometimes unaccessible for a whole raft of reasons.

My seniors computer classes are over for a while, but the new thing I'm involved in at work is a leviathan beta test of some new Interlibrary Loan software. Among my duties is Interlibrary Loan Supervisor, which means that I never do hands-on ILL work, but instead get to interpret and politely reinforce policy when my very capable staff can't reason with a patron. I also get to participate in policy changes and beta tests like this one. Sometimes I groan at this duty, but the squirrel-perky part of my personality likes being involved because ILL gets to be a more and more important part of library service, as we get more electronic and interoperable.

The beta test meetings are at 8:00 a.m. (an ungodly time for the up-all-night parent squirrel), but once they are over and I'm fully awake, I get excited about leaving work at 4:00 p.m.!

My sister is still at our house (now sleeping in the garage on a plywood platform over two sawhorses!!)(avec Thai mosquito net!), and she's making a traditional German family dish for us tonight: creamed chicken with German struedel. We call it the 'fat fest', as in "pour oil and butter into the pan to a depth of 1/2 inch..."

I'm not kidding. If anything's going to bring back the gall bladder problems I skirmished with last year, this is the test...