Our internet is sloooooooooooow...

One of the challenges of late has been making sure the UVa databases are all accessible for free.  The ship provides only two hours of free Internet access to students and once they go through that then they have to buy more, and it's expensive.  But because so much work is done through online sources, the ship provides a number of websites for free, including all of the licensed databases provided at UVa.  But our system of doing that is new and still being perfected, and some of our databases aren't recognized by the ship's server as being free sites, so each day begins with an hour or so testing over a dozen of our main databases.  This takes a while because internet access is very slow on the ship.  Our internet access is via satellite, and as our IT director reminds us, we have to beam a signal from the ship to a satellite, then down to UVa, then back to a satellite, then back down to the ship.  So, it can sometimes take a couple of minutes to even get to a database, especially when there are a lot of people online.

Why does the ship only provide two hours of free internet?  Our bandwidth is not very wide, and if everybody was online all the time, especially with non-academic activities (email, Facebook, YouTube, etc.)  then our internet access would not only crawl but probably stop altogether, so the ship has to limit access.  But that’s why we also provide free access to academic resources.  It’s a balancing act. 

Food, glorious food!

Yes, the food is free!  Well, most of it.  And yes, it’s good.  There are two main dining halls that serve three meals a day.  Breakfast is all out with fruit, yogurt, pastries, eggs (scrambled or omelet-style), sausage or bacon, “biscuits” and “gravy,” pancakes or French toast, cream of wheat or oatmeal, toast, bagels, etc.  Lunch and dinner usually include salad, some kind of pasta, some kind of meat, some kind of fish, some kind of ricey dish, sandwiches, etc.  Oh, and dessert.  Everything is made in-house and is delicious.

The Garden Lounge is the second largest of the dining facilities on the ship and is preferred by many of the faculty and staff because there is direct access to an outdoor deck.  There’s another dining hall on the 5^th deck.  There is also a snack bar on the pool deck that serves burgers, fries, smoothies and the like and a small coffee shop.  Glazer Lounge, on the 7^th deck, is reserved for just faculty and staff and is a welcome and often needed respite from the busy-ness of the rest of the ship.  One has to pay for food and beverages in the pool deck snack bar, the coffee shop, and Glazer Lounge, and since those items are simply charged to one’s room it’s easy to rack up a sizable bill in a short period of time.  Or so I’m told. :-)

Student assistants

Our nine student assistants are now trained and more or less able to run things when Lisa and I aren’t in the library, which is a great relief.  Even though Lisa and I are technically “off” in the evening, we’re never totally off-duty.  Because of its central location on the ship, it’s easy to walk by on the way to other areas of the ship and therefore easy to check in frequently.  And my cabin is almost two decks directly below, so it’s also easy to find me.  I’ll leave it you to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.  :-)

About the library

The library is centrally located so there’s a lot of foot traffic back and forth as students, staff, and faculty go to the Union (a large room for big presentations) and to the Garden Lounge dining hall.  More on that later.   The library is actually called the Taormina Library and is named after Vincent Cosmo Taormina.   It’s a compact library of around 9,000 volumes that represent subjects across the disciplines but with a focus on the ports that the ship regularly visits on its various voyages and on the kinds of courses that are usually taught.  We add and subtract books depending on specific ports visited on a particular voyage and on what classes are being taught.  There are also around 1,000 DVDs.  The space is outfitted with two computers for patron use, and seating for eight at two tables, and six at the bar.  Did I mention that it was compact?  Oh, and did I mention that it used to be a casino?  Hence the bar.  

It's pretty much always busy in Taormina.

A study spot with a view.

Concierge?  Maitre d'? 

Student Orientation

Today was another busy day.  Lots of students trying to find their way around, lots of faculty trying to get connected to their email and to the “public drive” on the intranet (where their reserve readings are), and Lisa and I still getting unpacked and oriented ourselves.  I did a 15-minute presentation during student orientation, and ended by revealing a T-shirt underneath my jacket that said “Keep Calm and Ask a Librarian.”  I think that won us quite a few points, because soon thereafter the library was flooded with students.