Katina here. I have been out of pocket for the past few months. First, went to the 11th Fiesole Retreat in Glasgow. A wonderful event! Be sure and visit the website to see several of the papers that were delivered there as well as at previous Fiesole Retreats. http://digital.casalini.it/retreat/
Second, I took a week's vacation in Scotland with my husband Bruce.

Then I spent time in the hospital with Bruce who was having hip replacement surgery. I also stayed home with him to help him for several weeks after he came home. I learned a lot about being a nurse, sort of. Bruce is doing very well now but I am very behind! If you have tried to contact me, please try again. I am around, just digging through scores of back emails!

I am heading to the Fiesole Retreat in Glasgow this morning. It's supposed to be be cold there which is welcome since it is hot as Hades here in Charleston. Will be back on the 4 August. Talk to y'all then. Love, Katina

First, I will start by saying that I love my iPhone. It can do everything and is very user friendly. My husband gave me a great mother's day gift. But on Friday (that's yesterday) it crashed for the second time since I got it. That's twice in a little over a month. The first time it crashed I panicked and went to the Apple Store on King Street in downtown Charleston and this very nice woman fixed it in under a minute. It was just a matter of pressing two buttons and holding them down until something happened. And it was all fixed. Voila! "It just gets confused sometimes," the miraculous fix-it woman told me. So, I pressed those two buttons yesterday and the iPhone was fixed again. Whew! What I want to say next, though, is that computers, smartphones,etc., don't have nearly the resilience of human beings! We are replacing our laptops and desktops in at least three years and the powers that be are always putting out new products (smartphones, etc.) right after we adapted to the old product which was really new by standards from, say, fifteen years ago! And, you know what, humans don't get confused nearly as much as computers! Just an observation. Hooray for the living, breathing human being! We do get old but not as quickly as computers. And we are never obsolete!

Sorry for my tardiness in writing. Things have been crazy here. My daughter Ileana graduated from Medical University of South Carolina Medical School on Friday the 15 of May and we had a houseful of company, mainly relatives, which was wonderful, but I had to go back to work to recover. Ileana's great uncle was having his 50th anniversary of his graduation from MUSC this year as well, so it was a double celebration. Ileana is now in Athens, Greece,with two women friends before she begins her three years of medical residency in Internal Medicine here at MUSC.
And, not to leave my son Raymond,and his wife, Lindsay, and grandson Trifon (he is nearly 16 months old and talking up a storm -- can even say grandmother in Greek -- yiayia), are visiting for the Memorial Day weekend. Trifon is taking a nap right now so I am able to get some time on the computer.
Meanwhile back at the Library, the budget looks the same but maybe slightly better. Fingers crossed.
Also, be glad that you are not visiting Charleston right now. The weather has been cold and rainy. I mean, it was 64 degrees (the high) the middle of this week. Must be some sort of record! The good news is that we are getting rain which we really need but the beaches are not the best place to be in this kind of weather.
Plus, I saw that Savannah has now been voted the most hospitable city. Over Charleston which has won for many years. I wonder if it's the weather?

I am so excited! I got an iPhone for Mother's Day! I know that it's not yet Mother's Day but my husband was too excited to wait to give it to me. Now my daughter is helping me to input in all my addresses and telephone numbers. Pretty cool. And I have to learn about downloading music to the iPhone too. I am so excited.Plus, y'all, my husband just did his part to stimulate the economy.
Today is graduation at the Citadel and the College of Charleston and Charleston Southern University so the town is buzzing with tourists, parents, significant others, and loved ones. And we lucked out on the weather. No rain, though we need it. Maybe tomorrow?

Yesterday went to a retirement luncheon for two professors at the College of Charleston who I have known since I came here in 1979. For those of you who remember 1979, it was the year before the first Charleston Conference and it was also PI (pre-Internet), PW (pre-Web), and for our library,PC (pre-computers). Years later, I was lucky enough to have the only IBM correcting Selectric typewriter in the library. Anyway, to return to these two professors -- Bob Dukes and Laney Mills -- they are retiring from the College. Bob has spoken at the Charleston Conference more than once and is always very funny as well as insightful, (not always the case with physics/astronomy professors -- the funny part, I mean). In fact, now that Bob has all this free time, I think I will ask him to come and comment regularly at the 2009 Charleston Conference. And maybe Laney will join him?

Other events here at the College, we are getting ready for exams and our students are having their second Rave tomorrow night. I will not be here, will just watch the after movies on YouTube. We are still experiencing budget anxieties and are keeping our fingers crossed as the SC legislature and the governor try to iron out their "differences."

Oh! And I almost forgot, my daughter Ileana is graduating from Medical School on May 15 and we are having a big celebration afterwards! She will be doing her residency for three years here in Charleston so we will have the benefit of her medical expertise a little longer.

And another Oh! Forgot to tell you about the last Cooper River Bridge Run which was Saturday April 4, 2009. Over 31,000 runners participated (no, I was not one of them) My son Raymond and his sister Ileana ran the race together and I just got a picture of them at the finish line which I am going to have blown up and framed.

My husband Bruce and I are spending the week in Oxford, England for a meeting at the Bodleian. Beforehand, I checked the weather -- rain every day it said, and cold. So, we bundled up all our winter clothes which I had put in the cedar chest and bought a new umbrella. Guess what? The weather is delightful. Sunny and cool enough for a sweater but not cold, cold, like we had expected. Oxford is such a charming and delightful city. History is everywhere. And the Blackwell's Book Shop is right down the street where we have already bought enough books that we are wondering if there will be enough room in the suitcases! And just had a delicious lunch with Rita Ricketts and her significant other, Willy, who is quite a painter like Rita and my husband Bruce. Since I can't draw a straight line, let alone paint (even on a wall), I am enjoying the art all around.

IT has been a whirlwind few weeks since we last spoke. Lots of company. My daughter-in-law, Lindsay, and grandson, Trifon, came to visit from Savannah. Trifon is now 15 months old and has 5 teeth. He loves to eat and he is talking up a storm though it's still hard to understand what he is saying. I am sure that will change soon enough! Lindsay and Trifon were in town to attend first-hand my daughter Ileana's Match Day. My son Raymond could not come because he had to work! : ( Match Day is when MD students all over the country learn where they will do their residencies for the next three years. It was an exciting, but also tense, event as no one knew whether or not they will get their choice of residency. But as luck would have it, Ileana got her first pick -- MUSC (Medical University of South Carolina) in Charleston is where she will spend the next three years. This means that we will not have to help her pack up and leave the area so we are happy.

Last weekend was also a special day at the College when students who have been accepted to the College for next year could come for a preliminary visit to see if this is the place they really want to come to attend college. There were 1,000 students here and it was very busy downtown and at the Library.

Spring has definitely sprung in Charleston. Today it is in the low 70s, the sun is shining, and everyone is smiling. Happy Spring!

All the news is so negative these days! I guess it sells newspapers and keeps people reading online. So -- I was happy this morning when I picked up the newspaper. It was cold but the sun was shining and there was a positive article on the front page of the local "family life" section about libraries. "Readers roar for increases in library funding," by Jennifer Berry Hawes. Jennifer says that she got a slew of responses to an earlier column she wrote about libraries and how people need and are using the library more and more these days (22% more people applied for library cards and circulation has risen 12% at the local Charleston County Library). There is even a move to launch a "Save the Libraries" bumper sticker. Jennifer (and all of us) hope that the state legislators notice this and don't slash budgets even more. Let's think positive! It can't hurt.
http://www.charleston.net/news/2009/mar/03/readers_roar_increases_librar...

Speaking of positive news! Have y'all noticed that the Citadel has a good basketball team this year? Like wow! They just posted their 20th win and clinched a bye in the Southern Conference tournament coming up. Here's hoping they make it to the NCAA. Gosh! And just in case you missed it, there is a "book" connection! The Citadel basketball coach is Ed Conroy, cousin of the best-selling author, Pat Conroy.
http://www.citadelsports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=5900&ATCLID=3683...

I have to admit that I am a bit of a hypochondriac. This is why I keep myself busy so I don't have time to obsess on small symptoms that are just in my mind. I used to be a medical librarian doing computer searches (back when everything was mediated) and MDs would come in and ask me to run searches. I quit being a medical librarian because I always thought I had the disease I was doing the search on. This is why I was interested to read a recently article called "'Cyberchondria' rapidly on the rise," by Linda Shrieves (The Orlando Sentinel) published in the Charleston Post & Courier, Sunday, February 22, 2009. The article is about people going to various websites, diagnosing themselves, and then showing up, panicked, at the doctor's office. Apparently in one case a mother thought her small boy had a tumor on his leg and it was just hardened grape jelly! Go figure! Reminds me of a favorite quote: "If I'd known I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself." (Leon Eldred).