alexist

My laptop is working perfectly now. No idea what happened. The light did go back to orange last night, the battery charged and the power cord light is back to green.

At least I don't have to try explaining it to Apple ;)

We went out for lunch today with Neil's sister and her other half. Good fun though Aliza grabbed everything in sight, including the chili sauce.

Really awful, depressing story on MDC (not wackjob this time). One of the women there had breast cancer a little less than 2 years ago. This year her sister died of it. She had her 2nd child at the end of August. A few weeks ago, they found her cancer had come back. It's spread to her stomach, neck, and brain. It's going to kill her, and it won't be long. She's my age.

From this article on public libraries:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/11Rlibraries.html?ref=nyregionspecial2&pagewanted=all

"They will find books grouped by subject, as they are in bookstores, instead of according to the Dewey Decimal System."

First of all, the point of the Dewey Decimal System is to group by subject! Second, the Dewey Decimal System (or the LOC) makes books EASIER to find, because it breaks each subject down into a series of progressively narrower topics. History, European history, British history, the Tudors. Etc.

I hope that what they mean is that the library has simply mapped Dewey numbers onto subjects, and put them on the shelves, making browsing easier. I hope (and doubt!) that it means they've abandoned Dewey and gone to bookstore style cataloguing, which is completely inefficient. (In fact I have wished for Dewey/LOC in bookstores, because it would make things easier to find. No trying to decide where an item is, or allowing stores to use their discretion and catalogue the same book differently.)