Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum
comic strip overdue media

Monday, April 11, 2016

It was very nice today

to have someone doing historical research in my library. Most of the collection is medical, specifically paediatric orthopaedic. But an older gentleman has over the years given us the annual proceedings of the fraternal organisation associated with the hospitals, and he occasionally comes and uses them to do research. I found out today that he was born the same year the hospital was opened--1926, meaning that they will both turn 90 this year. I think that's remarkable. He's preparing for a speech at our annual Hospital Day, in May. It's a Sunday (it always is). I usually skip it (I've been to one, the system's 75th anniversary one, when I first started, and the problem with that was the crowds and being surrounded by a bunch of men dressed like clowns--something I'd never really encountered and had not had a problem with previously). I just don't feel comfortable in that setting. It's a big open house, with lots of the fraternity members but also the general public, attending. This will be our last year in this building. Maybe I should go, even if it would mean missing the game. I don't know, I'll think about it. It's going to be a sad year, I suspect. I had someone else excitedly tell me today that the clinic would be getting their own colour copier in the new building and she wouldn't have to bother me anyway. I told her I wasn't sure where the 'main' copiers for the building would be in the next one, as there would be no library. I guess she didn't know I wasn't going. It looks like they'll decentralise some. I didn't mean to make her feel bad or anything, I was just stating the facts. But I will miss my little library (you can see it in the orchid flower pictures, it's not big at all, and I own more books than they have, really, if you don't count the journals). Next year will be 20 years of my life devoted to it, and then, just like that, it'll be over,m and I'll be laid off. So I can't think of the move without feeling sad. :(

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