Back Over the Mountain

Augusta County has been hit hard with the weather recently-- an ice storm at the end of last week and then flash flooding to start this week. I'm ready for Spring! On account of the ice, last week I worked on the Libraries of Early America project from home on two days rather than drive over the mountain to Monticello. It went smoothly-- nearly everything I am doing is Web accessible, save for a few tasks I'll need to complete in-house upon returning to Jefferson Library. I quickly realized too that one of the print resources I consult for the project in Jefferson Library, I link to its online transcription, so I could simply read from it. My supervisor has photocopies of the book list manuscripts I'm dealing with to consult when there's a question about the actual spelling or transcription, but I'm linking to images of the manuscripts as well and was able to magnify them in my browser when I had questions. People are often fascinated by my entirely-distance MLIS program: "It's all on the computer?" The prospect of working on a project like this from anywhere with a computer with internet access might be equally puzzling, even in an age of Facebook and Hulu, where we're used to accessing the Web for more recreational purposes, but not necessarily for serious work.