Sadly, my cat Laser Eyes “Ellie” Day died on New Years Eve. Literally minutes before midnight on December 31, 2018, the veterinarian at the animal hospital where Ellie had spent the last night called to say that her severe pneumonia and dehydration had worsened to the point where she was suffering and would not live through the night. I gave my permission to euthanize her. It was an awful end to her life and an awful way to end the year. She was a few months shy of her seventh birthday.
Ellie was a rescue cat, so I didn’t know her exact birthday. The papers that came with her estimated that she was born in March 2012. That meant she was about fourteen months old when I got her on May 5, 2013.
I didn’t intend to get a cat. But that changed when I was contacted by my ex-girlfriend to ask if I would adopt a cat. A mutual friend of ours was visiting her and impulsively agreed to adopt Ellie from a pet rescue inside the pet store they had visited that day. She was due to pick up the cat the following day but in the meantime came to the realization that she could not take yet another pet home. They needed someone else to take the cat, thus the sudden call to me. After some resistance, I agreed to take the cat if they would supply a few basic necessities, which they did. Ellie arrived the next day, Sunday, May 5.
Continue reading Ellie Day (2012-2018)
When people learn that I’m a librarian, they often ask, “What exactly does a librarian do?” I usually begin my explanation with a disclaimer such as, “Well, I’m not a typical librarian in that I don’t work behind a Reference Desk and help people find information” which is what they already knew librarians do from personal observation. Of course, they want to know what we do when we’re sitting in our offices. Some people do think we read books all day. I go on to explain that I’m an Electronic Services Librarian—which hardly helps clarify my explanation—who handles most of the IT functions of the library. I tell them I administer the library’s website, staff intranet, online library catalog, third-party library services, and access to all of our research databases. If they still seem interested, I’ll explain the functions of some other types of (non-reference) librarians such as acquisition, cataloging, scholarly communications, and special librarians. Even though I work next door to these types of librarians, I still can’t tell you everything they do on a daily basis. 
