Some bad news: the state grant which funds the majority of our databases has been frozen. My supervisor is meeting with the president of the college, in the hope that we can get a budget increase to make up the difference.

I'm reading a collection of Cordwainer Smith's science fiction stories. Set in the indefinite future, they focus on the dangers faced by the elite cadre who work the space-flight technology everyone else takes for granted. The fact that Smith, a.k.a. Paul Linebarger, was a U.S. Army colonel during WWII probably has something to do with this choice of theme. I think one of my readers probably has some insightful things to say about Smith; perhaps he will use the comments function to do so.