Back From Vacation. . .Like A New Bookworm!

I know that I can go on vacation for four to six days and come back just fine. But I'm coming back from three WEEKS off, and I feel just like a new bookworm at a new job!
I noticed today that a few things have changed here in my box of books. All for the good, of course. Three of them I'd like to share with you today. . .those being in the Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library.
Our genealogy librarian, Irene, told me she is so proud of the new reader/printer for microfilm. Made by Konica Minolta, it's a good-sized piece of equipment hooked up to its own printer. It's the same equipment that the National Archives Southeastern Region in Morrow, Georgia, uses. Irene said they have been waiting for years for a new one and this one is a doozie! She said it will make a copy of a whole page of a newspaper, 11 by 17 inches or 8-1/2 by 11. And the patrons can use it themselves, after a tiny bit of instruction. I could see why Irene was so excited about it.
Another change in the genealogy library is that the Clan newsletters are being bound, as well as some of the journals. Irene said they are being sent to a bindery in North Carolina. They are being bound in hard covers to keep them from being lost. Some of the North Carolina and South Carolina journals have already been bound, and now she is sending off the Clan newsletters, little by little, for their binding. I looked at the bookshelves. . .there are lots of Clan newsletters to do! And it will take a while.
Irene said she is still ordering books, amongst all her other duties. She was especially proud of one. . ."Dog Tags." It's "A History of American Military Identification Tags 1861 to 2002" by Paul F. Braddock. It tells what the tags were made of and how they were used and there are tons of pictures. Very interesting!
Well, by the time I'd roamed all around the genealogy library, I realized it was time to get this blog up and running.
Next time I talk to you, I'll be in some other part of the library, digging in books, checking out all the new stuff, talking to staff members about what's been going on during the past three weeks. There are some times when it just doesn't pay to hibernate for very long. You miss out on too many good things!