48 Hours Take Their Toll

Yesterday I wrote about how lack of Internet affects library functions. Today we continued that experiment, until we finally regained connectivity at 7:15 PM, 48.5 hours after we lost it. Conclusion: it's bad.

I think my department was one of the least impaired. Yeah, we didn't know whether books were checked in or out, or where they were supposed to be shelved. But we muddled through with the help of each other, Children's Books in Print, and other libraries who actually had access to the catalog. I couldn't work on our Web 2.0 staff development program, so I weeded the juvenile paperbacks and prepared our bookmark contest entries for display. Tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.

On the other hand, circulation, shelving, and interlibrary loan will have two days' backlog to deal with: thousands of items to check in, route, sort, and shelve, all in one fell swoop. There's no way around it. I don't envy them.