LibSys Blog

I hope everyone is celebrating National Day of Catalonia* (a.k.a. National Catalan Day), a holiday that commemorates the Catalans’ 1714 defeat in the Siege of Barcelona.

Apparently the defeat led to the abolishment of the Crown of Catalonia, but I’m not sure what that really means, because Catalonia had been part of Spain since Isabella married Ferdinand in 1469. Good thing I’m not a European history scholar, or I’d probably be expected to understand this.

In any case, September 11 became an official Catalan holiday in 1980.

Other important events in 1980 include:

• Carter bails out Chrysler
• ALEPH is created by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
• Bon Scott, John Bonham, John Lennon and Ian Curtis die
• AC/DC releases Back in Black
• Comstow Information Services (later acquired by InMagic) is founded
• Mount St. Helens erupts, causing crappy weather all summer in Trumansburg NY
• The Empire Strikes Back and PacMan are both released. In Empire, Princess Leia kisses Luke Skywalker. In PacMan nothing happens that will squick us all out in retrospect.

Tingui un bon cap de setmana!
– Tania

*(Out of stubborn allegiance to Patriots’ Day I am not calling today Patriot Day)

The Library Systems and ILL teams gathered in Feldberg this week to prepare for International Bacon Day, which is almost upon us – Saturday September 5.

As part of our readiness exercises, we invited colleagues to stop by and test the new ILLiad CoSign login implementation.

The day started, as all important days should, with donuts. An astute team member spotted one of the new Toffee For Your Coffee contest-winning-donuts nestled quietly amongst the fall-leaf-sprinkled donuts and the Boston Cremes. A welcome augury that presaged successful testing (hey – would you rather we used entrails to prognosticate?). Despite some lingering sadness over the bacon-filled donut not winning the Dunkin Donuts design-a-donut contest, the testing group was able to polish off a box and a half of deep-fried sugary goodness.

James apparently found watching the testing to be a real nail-biter, but the testing actually went very well, and we are on target for a September 14 launch. The remaining tasks between now and launch are in the capable hands of the ILL group.

For information on how to prepare yourselves International Bacon Day, I recommend visiting

• Bacon Day Party Planning
• The Bacon Institute
• Will Work For Bacon

Yours in Smoked Salty Deliciousness,
– Tania