Gordon's Miscellanea

No, I’m not referring to Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor Who (although he was bloody excellent, despite being annoyingly young).

Rather I’m referring to my own ongoing quest to attempt to rehabilitate myself as a sane, productive, and reasonably well-balanced member of society.
(It’s slow going).

To that end however, I’ve just done something that is quite a big step, and that people who have known me for a long time will find very difficult to believe: I am *getting rid of books*.

For many years I’ve lived with the firm belief that there is no such thing as Too Many Books. However, recent events have made clear to me that while that remains true, there is such a thing as Too Many Books In a Small One-bedroomed Flat with Limited Wall Space.

Hence this weekend has been spent sorting through books, DVDs and CDs to sort out The Ones That Will Remain from The Ones That Can Go.

Here’s the current pile of books & stuff that have been selected as surplus to requirements:

Some will go to friends; others sold on eBay; the majority to charity.
However, given the amount of stuff I am letting go, I’m slightly miffed to discover after tidying up the remainder that the amount of shelf-space I seem to have freed up as a result is roughly speaking this much:

i.e. about 22cm of space (!)
Clearly, it seems my books have the ability to expand to fill the space available. Which is clever of them, but not quite what I had in mind when it came to the purpose of decluttering…

PS For those keeping count:Delicious Library book count before pruning: 2,167
Delicious Library book count after pruning: 1,964

So: top tip when applying for a new job: when walking up the road in the pissing rain en route to the job interview, and an old lady asks you to help her across the road,
SAY YES
as the good karma it gives you clearly makes all the difference in the ensuing interview.

Anyway, my new job is not academic related. My new job is not working for the (or any) University in any way, shape or form.
Farewell academia!

My new job is as the first ‘Heritage Development Officer’ for Maryhill Burgh Halls Trust.

Basically, for those folk not familiar with the Maryhill Burgh Halls, they are a landmark listed building just off Maryhill Road in Glasgow. When they opened in 1878, they featured 20 unique stained glass panels showing the many different industries in Maryhill.

[Photo by Cycleologist on Flickr]

They’ve been derelict for many years, and the Trust has been working hard to secure the funding needed to restore and re-open them 

My new job is to research the industries in the stained glass panels, build community links, promote the history and heritage of Maryhill, create leaflets, talks and guided walks, and prepare the building for the return of the panels, and work on how they will be displayed and interpreted. Oh, and create and run a website as well.

I can’t wait to get started 🙂

A selection of the panels can be seen here on theGlasgowStory.com website:
http://www.theglasgowstory.com/searchq.php?qsearch=maryhill+burgh&iore=1

More about the Maryhill Burgh Halls project is here:
http://www.hlf.org.uk/news/Pages/MaryhillBurghHall.aspx

[Appropriately enough, given my Chemistry background, one of the panels depicts a Glassblower…]

> Dear All
>> Some items of staffing news in the Department:
>> • Another very well known face will be leaving us shortly. Dr Gordon Barr, who has worked in the Department for the last 8 years as a researcher but also in roles in IT development and support and as a major contributor to our Chemistry Web – including the recent complete redesign of our Web pages – will leave us at the end of the month for pastures new. We will be very sorry to to see Gordon go and wish him well in his future career.

Of course, it’s only been 8 years working here, but I’ve been in this department since 1995 as a student, so it’s a looooong time!

Weird feeling to be packing up my office after so many years too…