Stanley volunteers.

Hi, all!

I'm afraid I didn't get pictures of everything I wanted to today, so the visual aspect of this post will be a bit limited. I will, however, give you a little run-down of our activities this fine Monday. (Actually, it was freezing cold, but I won't go into that, as it's unfortunately quite irrelevant.)

This morning, I took Stanley to work with me again, where he got introduced to some of my coworkers (who had apparently met other incarnations of Flat Stanley hanging out in such places as Fenway Park). Stanley and I looked up a call number of a book, just so he could practice his library skills. (If you will, please note the title of the book he searched for. Stanley is perhaps just the teensiest bit self-obsessed.)


So, like all good library catalog users, Stanley found the book he was looking for on the OPAC or Online Public Access Catalog (Feb 11th's Library Science Term of the Day) and then wrote down the call number, or the special number a book has that helps you to find it on the shelves. The J on the call number below means that it's located in the Juvenile section, or the part of the library that has kids' books. The B815 refers to the author of the book, Jeff Brown (the B for his last name and the 815 is to keep all the books by 'B' authors in alphabetical order when you put them on the shelf) and the 'f' is for the title of the book: Flat Stanley.


We were going to go and look for the book itself, but unfortunately I had to do some real work, so I didn't end up having time. Bother.

Right after work, I went up into Cambridge again. But this time, instead of going to church (and walking near Harvard) we got out at the Porter Square stop (see the sign below)...


...from which I walked to yet another library where I volunteer once a week. This library's at an elementary school, so Stanley and I saw a lot of kids today. In fact, I helped check some books out to them. But mostly I helped the librarian (who's a friend of mine) check books in and shelve them. (Which kind of makes your hands gross and dirty, (books are dusty) but it's still pretty satisfying.)

Um. Aaaaand... I forgot to take pictures at the school. Sorry!

But, to make up for it, I made a video of Stanley going back down the escalator at Porter Square so we could catch a train going back home. The ceiling over the escalator (which is just enormously long, by the way) is made up of these huge triangles that kind of hang down over you. As you go up the escalator, you see white silhouettes of birds on a light blue background. As you go down the escalator, you see old-fashioned trains (appropriately enough). What's cool is that as you go down (or up) the pictures look like they're moving a little. Watch the video--it's short, but it's kind of fun:



Alright! And that's it for today. Tomorrow, Stanley and I will be going to work again, so maybe we can actually find a copy of that book. We'll also be going to library school. HOLY EXCITING! (Well, maybe just for librarians-in-training...but still. It'll be mildly entertaining for the rest of you, I'm sure. Maybe.)