Today is the first day of classes, and also my first night working the reference desk. (Actually, I manned it once before, but it was after classes were over so the library was deserted.) It should be a change of pace, at least--that is, assuming I get any reference questions. Otherwise I'll be doing the same work I always do, just in another location.

Although I complained earlier that faculty do all the book selection here, I overstated the case a little. My supervisor says she wants us to take more initiative in selection, and has given me permission to buy books without consulting the respective academic departments (as long as I don't spend too much money). This morning, then, I started working through the latest issue of Choice, and found an interesting book on the Reformation which made the "Outstanding Academic Titles" list. I then read a number of other positive reviews on EBSCO and amazon, so I decided we should get it.

Collection development sounds easy, you say? But I was lucky this time to get those reviews. The problem I've often found is that since we carry a small number of journals, many reviews cited in a database might be unavailable. The worry is then about sample size: is the handful of reviews I can get a hold of reasonably representative of critical opinion as a whole? I need to think about alternate selection criteria, or about ways of getting the other reviews in a timely manner through ILL.

Another forced realization of the growing age gap between myself and undergrads: Two student workers in the library were gossiping about a classmate of theirs. "Yeah," one said, "she's dating this really old guy." I automatically pictured a divorced 40-something in a mid-life crisis. "He's, like, twenty-six."

West Texas gives one a lot to complain about, but I figure it's more reasonable to make the best of the situation and focus on what is available, or even unique. And believe it or not, there is a frame of reference in which the South Plains are the center of the universe. This is from a storm-chasing site:

The best rural road network across "Chase Alley" exists in west central Texas in the agricultural areas around Lubbock. This area is the ultimate in "chaser nirvana" with grid of paved section line roads just about every mile. Texas has the best rural road network in the plains. Roads which are gravel in Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado would be paved if they were in Texas.

Even before I came out here I liked watching "torn porn" and other weather documentaries, so I decided that since I'm out here I might as well sample the best of what the region has to offer and go try to rustle up some twisters. But I don't know anything about meteorology, and I don't want to get killed, so I was hoping to find an experienced chaser and tag along. Luckily, I found out that there's a student in the earth sciences department here who has been at it a while, and in fact was hired by a Lubbock TV station to chase storms after he sent in famous footage of the tornado that decimated Happy, Texas last year. If he's amenable then I might have a new hobby come May.