I’ve been to Edinburgh since last we spoke.
It was Digimap’s tenth birthday (though I think I was a bit surprised to discover that they were only ten – I think I thought they were already operating when I got here. But apparently not). Digimap started as Ordnance Survey online mapping data for UK Universities and FE colleges. It now includes historical mapping, which we have, and marine and geological material which we don’t subscribe to. I am the Digimap Site Rep for SHU and as close as SHU gets to having a map librarian (we only have about 25 maps, apart from the online mapping data), so when I got an invitation to go to the celebratory day conference it seemed like a useful way to spend a bit of time. Fortunately Peter and Alison (the head of our little bit of the department) also thought it was a useful way for me to spend a bit of time and authorised me to go, and for the University to pay for it. Excellent.
So I went up on the lunchtime train on Tuesday. Amused myself by watching the grey, gloomy scenery passing by, and watching DVDs on my laptop. I was in the quiet coach (I was using headphones on my laptop, naturally) which I seldom travel in. I have to say it was rather pleasant. The coach was quiet, almost unnaturally so. People were reading or listing to their ipods or using their laptops, all nice and quietly. There was a little murmured conversation, but nothing raucous. It was all quite civilised. Not only that, very few people get into the quiet coach. They’re all queuing in the middle of the platform, and the quiet coach is either at the very front or the very back. Must remember this for the future!
Got to Edinburgh – and set off purposefully to the castle. Which would be fine – except that I was supposed to be heading for the University!! Turn round, go back!! Not only that, I had equally purposefully climbed up a steep, long flight of uneven stone stairs. I could not speak when I got to the top – in fact, I could scarcely breathe!!! Took the walk to the University slightly less purposefully :-)
The University of Edinburgh has a hotel in the grounds of the halls of residence. And a very nice hotel it is too. And I was extremely pleased to reach it. I think that The Builder and I are not walking enough. I was quite weary when I got to the hotel, and it’s not that far from the station! I think we might need to instigate a walking regimen at home. Preferably one that does not involve a huge number of steep, uneven stairs at the beginning of the walk.
Enjoyed the conference a lot. It was all very interesting, for a map librarian, no matter how few maps your collection might include (although I have now checked and discover we have something a little less than 400 maps; this is still not a huge collection). The keynote speaker in the afternoon was the Chief Exec of the Ordnance Survey. She had lots of interesting things to say. And reminded me quite closely of Sandi Toksvig, for some reason.
The trip back was also in the quiet coach, but was enlivened by us all having to change trains unexpectedly in Leeds. Got home just before eleven.
Didn’t see much of Edinburgh, mind. Might book The Builder and me into the University’s hotel one weekend and have a gentle potter about.
While I was in Edinburgh, a man came and drilled holes in the house and attached a new SKY dish, lots of new cabling, a new telephone point in the loungeroom and attached a new SKY box to the new television. The Builder tells me that the television now actually shows television programs. I have not seen this demonstrated yet. I am hopeful of this evening!!
One of the people who influenced me to move into librarianship was my school and then University friend, Jane. She trained as a library technician after we left Uni, and while Ross and I were living in Beaufort would come to visit us and regale us with amusing tales from the State Library of Victoria, where she worked after graduating from her techie course. She married someone else who worked at the SLV. (Ross and I were among the few guests who were not family at the wedding.) I was casting about for something to do which might bring in a few dollars and after a weekend where Jane had been particularly enthusiastic about her job, thought that librarianship sounded a good call. I decided not to go down the technician route but to train as a proper librarian (more fun, really) and went off to do my course at the college in Ballarat. But I have to say that librarianship as a career option would never have occurred to me had it not been for Jane and her tales from the State Library.
We kept in touch, really up until I moved to England. After that we had occasional, but very sporadic email contact. I did know that she had come down with bowel, lung and liver cancer (never did things by half, did Jane), and last heard from her towards the end of 2008. She died on Tuesday of this week. I had wondered whether she might have already died (not having heard from her for some time) and had also wondered if I would ever know. Happily Stella noticed the death notice in the Age. And not only that - recognised the name!
So raise a glass to Jane, who I have known, on and off, since I was twelve, and who all unwittingly steered me onto the path which this week took me to Edinburgh for a conference and which keeps me gainfully employed in an interesting job, and which may yet lead who knows where. And think kindly of her husband Andrew, and their three children, the youngest of whom, I think, is only eleven or twelve
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