2004-12-07 - 2:19 p.m.

The second best part of my new job is being in charge of serials. Having previously with serials at a medical research facilities, I'm used to yearly subscriptions costing in the thousands per title, whereas at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library of the History of Women in America, since a lot of the serials received are of a popular nature, the entire serials bill, for hundreds of titles, is about the same as the bill for three or four scientific journals.

Three journals I like:

1. Lesbian pornographic magazine "Off Our Backs": Because I basically get paid to look at lesbian pornography.

2. "Women and Guns": The first magazine for women, about guns. It's wonderfully odd.

3. "Mother Warriors Voice": Formerly "Welfare Mothers Voice". The new title is much more kick-ass.

Three journals I hate:

1. "Woman's World": Not my world. Also, the "God Bless America" in the title box is a little off-putting. Also, it's a crappy magazine.

2. Academic journals "Violence and Victims" and "Violence Against Women". Not because of their content, but because they make me feel sad.

3. Any popular magazine that does not display ISSN, enumeration, or publishing information. Special "thumbs down" to Working Mother, because we have *two* serial titles by that name, and the one I was trying to check in had none of this information on the magazine itself *or* on the supplied website.

Special bonus bad: Perfume inserts.

The best thing about my new job is that I finally get to go to Widener. This library is TEN LEVELS OF BOOK STACKS, and is attatched to ANOTHER THREE-LEVEL *UNDERGROUND* library. You have to go through two different security checkpoints to get into the stacks. And oh lord, does it ever have books. A lesser bibliophile might have wept at the sight. I like to think that I am a decent person, and that when I die, I will go to a place very much like Widener.

(Okay, I might have wept a little, leaving. But it was a cold and windy day.)