Workplace, sweet workplace

Not much blog-worthy has been happening this week, so I thought I'd use some photos I've taken and saved for such an occasion—a look around the place I work.

I've been a librarian at St. Mary's University for over 30 years (gee, I must be old!) and I've seen a lot of changes on the campus, most for the better. The Library's even changed its name in that time, and there has been lots of new building. The newest structure is the bell tower you can barely see on the right, the photo being taken on a very foggy morning a few weeks ago.

The tower is rather attractive, as such features go, and it was a particularly apt addition (although cosmetic and not exactly practical) to the campus since our alma mater—the words are carved on the tower's base, as you can see on the left—uses the tune from the 1945 Bing Crosby movie. [I haven't actually seen that movie, but remember in The Godfather when Michael learns his father's been shot, right after he and Kay have seen it—movie trivia tidbit!]

The university was established in 1852, but didn't move to its current location until later. The oldest building on campus is the one shown below on the right (in much different weather), St. Louis Hall, built in 1893. You can read more about St. Mary's history here.

The bell tower is about to be replaced as the newest structure, since they're putting the finishing touches (it looks like) on a snazzy new dorm that will be the largest we have (see picture below). It speaks to one of the biggest changes that I've seen here—lots more students want to live on campus now than when I started work here and the place was largely a commuter school.


Of course, although I do see the rest of campus periodically—working out and swimming in the gym, treating myself to a bought lunch in the cafeteria (they have great soup) and teaching/meeting occasionally in classrooms—my main abode here is the Blume Library. Fortunately, although it's a building that's starting to show its age (it was constructed in the big library building boom of the late 1960's) it's a very pleasant place to work. Not the least because of the wonderful windows around its perimeter, that afford me this nice view from my work area (nicer when the pecan trees are leafed out, which will happen in a month or so):

St. Mary's has been a good place to work—congenial colleagues, satisfying and rewarding labors [undertaken in a flexible, enlightened schedule that's given me the best of both mommy-and career-tracks], 3 semesters free tuition for my oldest [and all of the credits transferred when he was ready for someplace new], a year's worth of tuition exchange scholarship for the youngest to give her a taste of life outside of Texas, and, last but certainly not least, the opportunity for me to live in London for a semester at practically no cost.... I can think of worse places to spend 30 years!