Only today and tomorrow in France, then we fly early Sunday morning (way too early, but that's the way it goes). Janice and Yves have been working hard on the library. Yves had done the initial cataloguing on the books over the last two years, commuting to the Centre weekly during the school year to put in 1.5 days each time. Janice then reviewed his categories, proofed things, rethought categories (thinking of ways visiting scholars might think when working on the more popular Anabaptist topics). I mark the cards, pockets and labels--careful but mindless work, suits me perfectly.
The Centre has to find new space for books and wanted to help the library office space be more efficient. For years, a large (dark and not inspiring) painting has hung on the wall above the library office desk, making the room less bright while consuming valuable wall space. I was delighted to see the painting finally be removed.
Yves and Neal then brought some shorter shelves from his office to the library.
In no time, the shelves were put to good use, housing cataloguing reference works and books to be catalogued. These will be temporary. They hope to cover the wall with better shelves by next year, leaving a place for the desk.
The laptop houses years of cataloguing, with backups. I looked at the screens to see what was happening. This requires careful work, and although Yves does most of the entries, Janice also works on it daily. Right now, her brain is accustomed to the French keyboard (a is where we put q, periods have to be capitalized, etc.)
Yesterday (Thursday) the library team essentially concluded the largest part of this year's assignment, cataloguing some 245 books (and more are being done today and tomorrow). After the numbers etc. were entered on the books, I stacked them on a table. We wanted a photo of the unsteady stacks before the arduous task of shelving began.
The international cataloguing system (Universal Decimal Classification) used here is new to us. I find it to be very complicated but am told that it is also nicely flexible for a highly specialized scholarly collection like the Centre's.
When the table and desk were cleared, it was time to pause at the end of the day and plan ahead for next year. Where to put new shelving, what other new categories might be useful, etc.
One older book, a concordance for the Vulgate (Latin) Bible may not be of much use to us. I took some photos of it in case the Library decides to give it to another library or sell it. We'll see.
One of the projects for this year's visit was cataloguing the books on worship (leading, music, children, etc.) Janie is working in this area for her doctorate, which will be finished shortly. All the books in this one area are now pulled together in one place, which is handy for Janie's research.
The weather has really cooled. The past two weeks had been unseasonably warm, which has been a treat for us when shopping , but now we feel fall is truly in the air. Furnaces are traditionally not turned on until October 15th, so we simply wear more layers and enjoy hot tea or coffee from time to time.
Last evening we had our final Thursday staff meal with the Bloughs. Yves comments that with chefs like Janie, who needs restaurants. The first course was a special smoked dried ham Yves received from a friend in the south of France. To continue the theme, Janie then made a beautiful cassoulet (large white beans, two kinds of duck confit--one spicy and one normal, very typical of the south, especially Carcassonne). This was followed by three cheeses, and finally some little pastries from the local bakery. It's enough to make one think of returning next spring.
All for now, with love from us both,
Evan
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