I have spent the past week looking at spreadsheets and even making some myself though my staff of experts are much better at it than I. First, had to figure out why our serials budget looked like we were going to overexpend it by $300,000! Ouch! But, thankfully, had some great assistance from EBSCO -- Ree Sherer, Merrill Smith, Jenny Buzbee and Tom Adamson and I am sure I am leaving many others out, excuse me y'all -- and we were able to project a much less scary figure. Now it's just a matter of making sure that the projection is on track as the fiscal year nears an end. Second, had to look at what databases we may need to cancel because of our PASCAL shortfall (from $2 million to $200,000!), loss of some grants, and general budget cuts at the university. Believe me, this is not a pleasant exercise! And third, I have been comparing the College of Charleston with ten or twelve peer institutions in as many areas as I can, using the great NCES statistics data which is wonderful if a little dated -- 2006 -- but there should be more data as of 2008, I hope soon. Anyway, like I said it's been spreadsheet heaven if you like spreadsheets or hell if they give you a headache. I think I'll go in search of an aspirin.

Was talking to Helen Carley (Facet Publishing) yesterday and she reminded me that I hadn't put any posts on my blog in over a week. In my last post, I had been talking about the bad weather last Wednesday but had not updated everyone on the beautiful weather that we had last Thursday-Sunday. And it continues today. The temperature is in the mid 70s and is beautiful. Eat your hearts out, you poor cold Northerners out there! It has been a hard week since I last spoke to you. I returned to work on Monday, November 10, to run the library Tenure, Promotion, and Third-Year Review panel which was evaluating two candidates. Later that same day we learned that two of our positions in the library have been frozen for an unspecified length of time. And the next issue was budget cuts and figuring out how to deal with cuts this year and projected cuts for next year. I guess I needed something to do after the Conference, yes? Would love to hear from all of you about your reaction to the Conference this year! Please email me or fill out the conference evaluation form on the website. www.katina.info/conference