2 Little surprises - Sun 3 Apr 2011

As a Librarian, one of my main (and most favourite) tasks is cataloguing. For those not familiar with Librarianship - this basically means I grab the new books/CDs/DVDs/puzzles and decide where they'll be shelved in the Library.


Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, and given that in our modern age, a computer catalogue is used to locate books, it is my job to make sure the search fields all have the correct information and so on. I like to imagine I am a kind of book-locating super-programmer (though any I.T. boffins reading this would probably scoff) :P


One of the greatest parts about being a cataloguer, is that I get first look at a lot of library stuff - when it is still crisp and shiny, rather than grimed with the "booksnot" of many borrowers. In addition, I get to see things that many people may never come across, i.e. books on unusual topics or interesting pictures. Which leads me to sharing with you one of my recent fantastic finds.

I was cataloguing a jigsaw puzzle depicting what seemed (at the time) to be a fairly bland picture of a hay-filled cart pulled by a pair of grand old horses. At first glance it was nothing special and many a catalogued jigsaw has had such a similar country scene, however, on closer inspection, I noticed the people in the picture appeared to be Amish.


Interested in learning more, I scoured the box for information about the photograph, and discovered to my grand delight, Bill Coleman's website, which I must now share with you.


Bill Coleman is a photographer, who, for FORTY YEARS has been visiting this remote Amish community in Pennsylvania and photographing their daily way of life. The photographs are just beautiful and truly depict a fun-loving, hard-working and joyful group of people - not to mention a plethora of gorgeous country scenes. I implore you to view his photos here.


And if you're too lazy to click on the link, here's one of my favourites. Enjoy!: