Well it has come to an end of the week for Library Day in the Life - I look forward to my next blog challenge.
Again the day started with the local steiner school students inundating the library - they only stayed for 2 hours today.
I had one of my favourite library volunteers work with me today. She has almost completed her Cert IV in LIS and is a great help. It is a shame I don't have any open vacancies in my libraries for her to apply for as yet but she still enjoys giving us a hand.
I had a meeting with the Council finance manager but this proved to be false and as a means to get me to attend a morning tea to celebrate my birthday (which was on Monday) and another staff members departure - very tricky but a lovely surprise. I apologised for not staying longer but with the steiner students in the library and only my volunteer there to assist them, I had to rescue her!!
Once the steiner students left the library was very quiet. Although every computer was occupied there was few borrowing books. That was thankful as the boxes arrived and my volunteer and I concentrated on getting the books returned, reservations allocated and shelving done.
Lunch time - off to the pool to do laps and guess where the steiner students were!! There were a few "hello library lady" shouted at me while I was doing my laps. Only hit 44 instead of 50 due to lack of time but it was refreshing.
Back to work and a line up at the door - most wanting computers. Another quiet moment and I caught up with some emails, twitter posts and posted some items to our library facebook page.
The afternoon then flowed on without drama - a nice way to end the week.
Showing posts with label librarydayinthelife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label librarydayinthelife. Show all posts
Friday, February 3, 2012
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Library Day in the Life - Post #4
Again I'm posting a bit late - sorry!!
Due to the flooding, our local steiner school booked the library to be used as makeshift classrooms. So approximately 30 odd (down a bit on yesterdays estimate) students and three teachers entered the library at 9.30am an hour before official opening. I also had to make a quick visit to our "web developer" to obtain an electronic copy of our Council logo to be sent to the company who is making our NYR12 pull up banners.
I got on with the opening duties - running notices, delivering mail, buying the newspaper, returning items and shelving. All I can say is thank goodness I had one of my volunteers with me today to assist with the shelving as it was a constant stream at the circulation desk.
Once the shelving was complete, I got my volunteer to start selecting books for the blind date books we are having during Library Lovers Day and the following weeks. These books are then wrapped in brown paper (with the accession number on the outside) and placed on display for selection from our brave borrowers who have no idea what they are selecting. It was successful last year and we hope again this year.
Some of the steiner students were looking for books on Rome - so I assisted them - and was happy to see their teacher teaching them the ins and outs of searching the catalogue. A few were lazy and went direct to me but the majority did it themselves.
At 12.30pm I closed the library for lunch (as there is only one staff member on and my volunteer finished for the day) and headed to the pool for my lunch time laps. I had to take it easy today due to a calf cramp I suffered on Tuesday seems to have resulted in a slightly pulled muscle - so I only managed 44 laps compared to my 50.
Back from lunch to a crowd of people waiting to get in to the library. Most wanting to use computers or wifi. I went back to returning, shelving and serving at the circulation desk. As I mentioned before - constant stream.
Later in the afternoon one of the organisers of the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival came by with more programs and another room booking request for the library. The Library will be hosting a number of sessions leading up to and during the festival. I love supporting the festival as it not only means seeing a number of excellent presentations by authors, but many people enter the library who would not necessarily visit otherwise.
I then had a moment to catch up on emails, check some facebook and twitter updates and then it was time for closing. A quick check of the gate count revealed over 350 people passed through the door - no wonder I didn't stop!! It may not be much for a big branch but when there is only one person manning (womanning) the library then it's a big deal.
I packed up the books to take to the branch close to home and locked up. Once at the other branch I exchanged books and took the ones for our branch and headed home.
Due to the flooding, our local steiner school booked the library to be used as makeshift classrooms. So approximately 30 odd (down a bit on yesterdays estimate) students and three teachers entered the library at 9.30am an hour before official opening. I also had to make a quick visit to our "web developer" to obtain an electronic copy of our Council logo to be sent to the company who is making our NYR12 pull up banners.
I got on with the opening duties - running notices, delivering mail, buying the newspaper, returning items and shelving. All I can say is thank goodness I had one of my volunteers with me today to assist with the shelving as it was a constant stream at the circulation desk.
Once the shelving was complete, I got my volunteer to start selecting books for the blind date books we are having during Library Lovers Day and the following weeks. These books are then wrapped in brown paper (with the accession number on the outside) and placed on display for selection from our brave borrowers who have no idea what they are selecting. It was successful last year and we hope again this year.
Some of the steiner students were looking for books on Rome - so I assisted them - and was happy to see their teacher teaching them the ins and outs of searching the catalogue. A few were lazy and went direct to me but the majority did it themselves.
At 12.30pm I closed the library for lunch (as there is only one staff member on and my volunteer finished for the day) and headed to the pool for my lunch time laps. I had to take it easy today due to a calf cramp I suffered on Tuesday seems to have resulted in a slightly pulled muscle - so I only managed 44 laps compared to my 50.
Back from lunch to a crowd of people waiting to get in to the library. Most wanting to use computers or wifi. I went back to returning, shelving and serving at the circulation desk. As I mentioned before - constant stream.
Later in the afternoon one of the organisers of the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival came by with more programs and another room booking request for the library. The Library will be hosting a number of sessions leading up to and during the festival. I love supporting the festival as it not only means seeing a number of excellent presentations by authors, but many people enter the library who would not necessarily visit otherwise.
I then had a moment to catch up on emails, check some facebook and twitter updates and then it was time for closing. A quick check of the gate count revealed over 350 people passed through the door - no wonder I didn't stop!! It may not be much for a big branch but when there is only one person manning (womanning) the library then it's a big deal.
I packed up the books to take to the branch close to home and locked up. Once at the other branch I exchanged books and took the ones for our branch and headed home.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Library Day in the Life - Post #3
Sorry for the delay in putting this post up but I was a tad exhausted after work and then my daughter took over the computer to play games.
I started the day with an hour and half drive to our library service HQ where one of our book suppliers was coming to visit. The deal is the book supplier brings many many boxes of books and the regional librarian, the coordinator of the other branch libraries and I go through and select which ones we'd like to purchase for our library service.
In a past job, I did book selection for the 900 DDC area. But when I started in this position, book selection was not a part of my role. The HQ staff would select the books for the library service and branch staff would be able to have input via submission of Requests for Purchase. I really missed book selection, and there is nothing like having someone with local knowledge of their branch libraries to know what will and won't be read.
Since our new Regional Librarian started 12 months ago, I have been invited to attend book selection days. There are usually around 2 a month. Of course we use more than 2 book suppliers but these are the only 2 we have organised to visit. It can take us 2-3 hours to do this process depending on how many books we have to go through.
We have a standing order which makes the process a bit easier, and of course, large print and audio books are purchased in a different manner so we don't have to go through those formats. We are now also in the process of building a DVD collection - yes we don't have one. We must be the only library service in Australia that doesn't have a DVD collection. But now we do - albeit small - at this stage. So we will also be selecting DVDs.
The process we go through is the book supplier will show us all the adult fiction, then junior easies, junior fiction, young adult fiction, junior non-fiction and adult fiction. We pick out the ones we think we should have in the collection and other HQ staff check these against the catalogue to ensure we don't already have them.
Once selection was completed, the Regional Librarian, coordinator of other branch libraries and I had a meeting to do final preparation for Library Lovers Day and the launch of National Year of Reading which is happening on 14 February. We then headed to the local pub for our $10 lunch specials - the pub is actually a nice place to eat as we eat on the verandah that overlooks a river.
After lunch I packed up the boxes to take back to my branches, had a look at some draft posters for an activity we are running this year and bid farewell. Back in my main branch library it had been raining fairly steadily all day and the staff had discovered a leak in one of the skylights - unfortunately there were some stock that did not fair well. The leak is something I will have to follow up with facilities staff today as they didn't make it over yesterday. The river is once again up so I was lucky that my relief staff made it as they live on the other side of the river which gets cut off from the main part of town.
It has been raining fairly heavily for most of last night but I have checked river heights and it looks like the bridge has not gone under.
On my way home I got a call from said relief staff who said that the local Steiner school had called and asked if they could use the library study rooms to run their school tomorrow as they are flooded out - i.e. they can't get to their school. So I look forward to approx. 40 odd students in the library tomorrow!!
I started the day with an hour and half drive to our library service HQ where one of our book suppliers was coming to visit. The deal is the book supplier brings many many boxes of books and the regional librarian, the coordinator of the other branch libraries and I go through and select which ones we'd like to purchase for our library service.
In a past job, I did book selection for the 900 DDC area. But when I started in this position, book selection was not a part of my role. The HQ staff would select the books for the library service and branch staff would be able to have input via submission of Requests for Purchase. I really missed book selection, and there is nothing like having someone with local knowledge of their branch libraries to know what will and won't be read.
Since our new Regional Librarian started 12 months ago, I have been invited to attend book selection days. There are usually around 2 a month. Of course we use more than 2 book suppliers but these are the only 2 we have organised to visit. It can take us 2-3 hours to do this process depending on how many books we have to go through.
We have a standing order which makes the process a bit easier, and of course, large print and audio books are purchased in a different manner so we don't have to go through those formats. We are now also in the process of building a DVD collection - yes we don't have one. We must be the only library service in Australia that doesn't have a DVD collection. But now we do - albeit small - at this stage. So we will also be selecting DVDs.
The process we go through is the book supplier will show us all the adult fiction, then junior easies, junior fiction, young adult fiction, junior non-fiction and adult fiction. We pick out the ones we think we should have in the collection and other HQ staff check these against the catalogue to ensure we don't already have them.
Once selection was completed, the Regional Librarian, coordinator of other branch libraries and I had a meeting to do final preparation for Library Lovers Day and the launch of National Year of Reading which is happening on 14 February. We then headed to the local pub for our $10 lunch specials - the pub is actually a nice place to eat as we eat on the verandah that overlooks a river.
After lunch I packed up the boxes to take back to my branches, had a look at some draft posters for an activity we are running this year and bid farewell. Back in my main branch library it had been raining fairly steadily all day and the staff had discovered a leak in one of the skylights - unfortunately there were some stock that did not fair well. The leak is something I will have to follow up with facilities staff today as they didn't make it over yesterday. The river is once again up so I was lucky that my relief staff made it as they live on the other side of the river which gets cut off from the main part of town.
It has been raining fairly heavily for most of last night but I have checked river heights and it looks like the bridge has not gone under.
On my way home I got a call from said relief staff who said that the local Steiner school had called and asked if they could use the library study rooms to run their school tomorrow as they are flooded out - i.e. they can't get to their school. So I look forward to approx. 40 odd students in the library tomorrow!!
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Library Day in the Life - Post #2
Today the library is open to the public - so more interaction and less time to get down and get the background things done.
I started the day in the usual way - cranking the airconditioner to 21'C - it was at least 33'C outside with 100% humidity. Yes the rain has gone (well it has since come back but more about that later), so the humidity turns on.
I then turned on all the lights, computers and photocopier machine, logged into our LMS and ran the overdue and reservation notices. I then ran the reservations report and found those books on the shelf, returned them on the system and put them in their correct pidgeon hole to go to the branch who requested it. Our library service has 10 branches with about 300km being the longest distance between the two furthest apart. Once a week a courier picks up the boxes and delivers them to the other branches. Although I deliver to the branch that is just down the road from my house, and a Council town planner delivers to our other shire branch when they visit the branch once a week.
I then emptied the return shute, walked up the road to buy the newspaper from the local newsagent and started on the shelving. I managed to have a cup of tea and catch up on some emails prior to opening our doors at 10.30am.
The morning was fairly busy with a number of people desperate for books after being cut off last week due to the floods. We had a number of people ask for log ins to use our free wifi and a few who booked public computers to access the internet. One of our local schools hasn't yet started for the year due to the floods so we had a couple of school age kids play games on the computers.
I had a concerned regular comment on our leaking gutter - we were hit by a tree branch during the floods and it has dislodged one of our gutters causing it to drip close to one of our front windows. It is not a big concern and it has been reported - unfortunately there will be bigger priorities to deal with first (due to the floods).
Our Summer Reading Club is almost at a close, so my colleague spent some of the morning judging the colouring in and book review competitions that we had run and making certificates to give to the winners. I emailed the branches to ask for some feedback to collate for the feedback form to be sent back to the organisers of SRC. This can be a complex process with 10 branches to contact and everyone had done something different with keeping statistics.
I was then alerted to the fact our dog water bowl had been moved - so I jumped puddles and mud to retrieve it from the garden beside the library. We appreciate that many of our users have canine company and have a tether outside our library so that people can tie their dogs up while using the library. Having a bowl of water for the dogs is a necessity, especially in the heat we had today.
As my colleague was heading to lunch, the 6 boxes from our other branches arrived for unpacking, returning and sorting. The boxes contained reservations for our borrowers, books that belong to our branch that had been loaned from other branches borrowers, and new items. It's like Christmas unpacking the boxes. A magazine I had reserved from another branch had arrived as well as some brand new books!! They went straight out on our new books display and subsequently were borrowed by the end of the day.
I only managed to get 3 boxes unpacked by the time my colleague returned from lunch as I also had to assist a user get connected to our wifi on her laptop (twice), assist someone doing some photocopying and process two library membership requests.
My turn for lunch and I stepped out into the sauna and headed to the local pool. It started raining while I was doing my laps. It didn't cool things down, instead steam started coming off the pool and the cement and the heat went straight back into the air to assist the humidity. 50 laps later I returned to work and ate lunch at my desk.
I then went next door to Council administration and delivered two books that had arrived for some fellow Council staff. I find the reaction if I take the effort to deliver the books face to face, rather than make them come over to the library to pick them up, quite satsifying. It also prompts other Council staff who are yet to be library members to feel left out and want some of the action - hence more memberships. It also gets me out of the library and gives me an excuse to catch up with what is happening in the different Council departments.
More shelving ensured, as well as catching up on the gossip around town. The word on the street was that to stock up and prepare for another flood. This lead me to check out the Bureau of Meterology page and read the weather warnings and radar. Yes, a there is 70% chance of moderate to major flooding tonight and tomorrow. I'm supposed to be driving to our HQ (where the purchasing, cataloguing, ILL's extra are processed) to assist with some book selecting tomorrow. It is about 150km away and there are a couple of low lying areas on the highway that may cause a hazard should we get enough rain. Weather and road conditions will be high on my list before I leave tomorrow morning.
I picked up the keys for the Council car that I'm using to go to HQ and loaded up boxes to deliver to the library branch near my house and to HQ. Then took off in the rain. I dropped off a box of books at my home town branch and picked up some boxes from them to take to HQ. Day done and off home.
Can't wait for tomorrow (except for the rain and possible floods) as I love book selection but more about that tomorrow!!
How was your day??
I started the day in the usual way - cranking the airconditioner to 21'C - it was at least 33'C outside with 100% humidity. Yes the rain has gone (well it has since come back but more about that later), so the humidity turns on.
I then turned on all the lights, computers and photocopier machine, logged into our LMS and ran the overdue and reservation notices. I then ran the reservations report and found those books on the shelf, returned them on the system and put them in their correct pidgeon hole to go to the branch who requested it. Our library service has 10 branches with about 300km being the longest distance between the two furthest apart. Once a week a courier picks up the boxes and delivers them to the other branches. Although I deliver to the branch that is just down the road from my house, and a Council town planner delivers to our other shire branch when they visit the branch once a week.
I then emptied the return shute, walked up the road to buy the newspaper from the local newsagent and started on the shelving. I managed to have a cup of tea and catch up on some emails prior to opening our doors at 10.30am.
The morning was fairly busy with a number of people desperate for books after being cut off last week due to the floods. We had a number of people ask for log ins to use our free wifi and a few who booked public computers to access the internet. One of our local schools hasn't yet started for the year due to the floods so we had a couple of school age kids play games on the computers.
I had a concerned regular comment on our leaking gutter - we were hit by a tree branch during the floods and it has dislodged one of our gutters causing it to drip close to one of our front windows. It is not a big concern and it has been reported - unfortunately there will be bigger priorities to deal with first (due to the floods).
Our Summer Reading Club is almost at a close, so my colleague spent some of the morning judging the colouring in and book review competitions that we had run and making certificates to give to the winners. I emailed the branches to ask for some feedback to collate for the feedback form to be sent back to the organisers of SRC. This can be a complex process with 10 branches to contact and everyone had done something different with keeping statistics.
I was then alerted to the fact our dog water bowl had been moved - so I jumped puddles and mud to retrieve it from the garden beside the library. We appreciate that many of our users have canine company and have a tether outside our library so that people can tie their dogs up while using the library. Having a bowl of water for the dogs is a necessity, especially in the heat we had today.
As my colleague was heading to lunch, the 6 boxes from our other branches arrived for unpacking, returning and sorting. The boxes contained reservations for our borrowers, books that belong to our branch that had been loaned from other branches borrowers, and new items. It's like Christmas unpacking the boxes. A magazine I had reserved from another branch had arrived as well as some brand new books!! They went straight out on our new books display and subsequently were borrowed by the end of the day.
I only managed to get 3 boxes unpacked by the time my colleague returned from lunch as I also had to assist a user get connected to our wifi on her laptop (twice), assist someone doing some photocopying and process two library membership requests.
My turn for lunch and I stepped out into the sauna and headed to the local pool. It started raining while I was doing my laps. It didn't cool things down, instead steam started coming off the pool and the cement and the heat went straight back into the air to assist the humidity. 50 laps later I returned to work and ate lunch at my desk.
I then went next door to Council administration and delivered two books that had arrived for some fellow Council staff. I find the reaction if I take the effort to deliver the books face to face, rather than make them come over to the library to pick them up, quite satsifying. It also prompts other Council staff who are yet to be library members to feel left out and want some of the action - hence more memberships. It also gets me out of the library and gives me an excuse to catch up with what is happening in the different Council departments.
More shelving ensured, as well as catching up on the gossip around town. The word on the street was that to stock up and prepare for another flood. This lead me to check out the Bureau of Meterology page and read the weather warnings and radar. Yes, a there is 70% chance of moderate to major flooding tonight and tomorrow. I'm supposed to be driving to our HQ (where the purchasing, cataloguing, ILL's extra are processed) to assist with some book selecting tomorrow. It is about 150km away and there are a couple of low lying areas on the highway that may cause a hazard should we get enough rain. Weather and road conditions will be high on my list before I leave tomorrow morning.
I picked up the keys for the Council car that I'm using to go to HQ and loaded up boxes to deliver to the library branch near my house and to HQ. Then took off in the rain. I dropped off a box of books at my home town branch and picked up some boxes from them to take to HQ. Day done and off home.
Can't wait for tomorrow (except for the rain and possible floods) as I love book selection but more about that tomorrow!!
How was your day??
Monday, January 30, 2012
Social vs Private
I came across an interesting "tweet" concerning how I had revealed where I work in my previous blog post and whether this requires permission from my organisation/employer and whether this is something that should be done.
I'd like to hear other's comments on this topic.
Most people know where I work - it's not hard to find out if you do a google search.
When I blog I realise that this is going out to the world to see - so I'm careful with what I post.
I just feel that to participate in the Library Day in the Life it would be better if I set the scene of where I worked to assist in explaining some of the tasks I may be doing.
However, I am interested in hearing others views on this topic.
I'd like to hear other's comments on this topic.
Most people know where I work - it's not hard to find out if you do a google search.
When I blog I realise that this is going out to the world to see - so I'm careful with what I post.
I just feel that to participate in the Library Day in the Life it would be better if I set the scene of where I worked to assist in explaining some of the tasks I may be doing.
However, I am interested in hearing others views on this topic.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Library Day in the Life - Post #1
This year I have decided to participate in the Library Day in the Life Round 8 project. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates. I'm working on Blog updates and possibly some twitter ones too.
So to start with I should give you a bit of background (for those that don't already know me). Today is my birthday!! Yes it really is so what better time to start a blog project.
I work in a regional public library service on the mid-North coast of New South Wales, Australia. I manage three branch libraries. Our Shire (the three branch libraries sit in) has a population of around 13,369.
All of our Shire library branches are closed on Monday's so this is a day I use to catch up with the tasks I can't complete when I'm doing circulation/shelving duties. Today was the first day I have had to catch up since returning from 3 weeks holiday I took over Christmas. On top of that our Shire was inundated with floods last week so it is making catch up a little bit harder. Add to that we are now on a Flood Watch with possible minor to moderate flooding from tomorrow onwards. However, we are very much used to rain and floods here - it is a way of life!!
Today started with me walking into the library and realising that a numbe of people must have returned their books on Saturday and my staff member did not have time to shelve them all. Three trolley loads of shelving ready to be shelved and a full return chute. I'm still trawling through the shelving and using it as a break from the computer.
I then caught up on some emails and printed out the papers for our next Library Committee meeting. I have read through them briefly and plan to read through them in more depth later today and make notes to raise during the meeting.
Our IT guy came over to look at some of our public computers to see why Internet Explorer wouldn't open. We went through the process of how to update the computers and lock them back down so that each time they restart they are "cleaned." I am taking over the role of maintaining our public computers as we only limited IT support to support the whole of Council. I visit my branches every month so will do the updates during that time.
I answered some telephone calls concerning borrowers wanting renewals and when our opening hours are. I returned and shelved some more books. I took the mail to Council administration, next door, for posting and said "hello" to all the staff in the Council administration building. I also checked in on a staff member whom I had assisted finding some books to read last week to see if they enjoyed them - they did!!
Lunch time came around and I took off to our local swimming pool to do some laps. Very proud to say I managed to do 50 laps of the 25 meter pool. The water was a bit cool but it makes you swim faster.
I returned from lunch and now I am here updating my blog and thinking about what I have to get through this afternoon. I have some professional reading to catch up on, more returns and shelving, running the allocations list to pick reserves from the shelves, and getting to the meeting papers.
What did you get up to today??
So to start with I should give you a bit of background (for those that don't already know me). Today is my birthday!! Yes it really is so what better time to start a blog project.
I work in a regional public library service on the mid-North coast of New South Wales, Australia. I manage three branch libraries. Our Shire (the three branch libraries sit in) has a population of around 13,369.
All of our Shire library branches are closed on Monday's so this is a day I use to catch up with the tasks I can't complete when I'm doing circulation/shelving duties. Today was the first day I have had to catch up since returning from 3 weeks holiday I took over Christmas. On top of that our Shire was inundated with floods last week so it is making catch up a little bit harder. Add to that we are now on a Flood Watch with possible minor to moderate flooding from tomorrow onwards. However, we are very much used to rain and floods here - it is a way of life!!
Today started with me walking into the library and realising that a numbe of people must have returned their books on Saturday and my staff member did not have time to shelve them all. Three trolley loads of shelving ready to be shelved and a full return chute. I'm still trawling through the shelving and using it as a break from the computer.
I then caught up on some emails and printed out the papers for our next Library Committee meeting. I have read through them briefly and plan to read through them in more depth later today and make notes to raise during the meeting.
Our IT guy came over to look at some of our public computers to see why Internet Explorer wouldn't open. We went through the process of how to update the computers and lock them back down so that each time they restart they are "cleaned." I am taking over the role of maintaining our public computers as we only limited IT support to support the whole of Council. I visit my branches every month so will do the updates during that time.
I answered some telephone calls concerning borrowers wanting renewals and when our opening hours are. I returned and shelved some more books. I took the mail to Council administration, next door, for posting and said "hello" to all the staff in the Council administration building. I also checked in on a staff member whom I had assisted finding some books to read last week to see if they enjoyed them - they did!!
Lunch time came around and I took off to our local swimming pool to do some laps. Very proud to say I managed to do 50 laps of the 25 meter pool. The water was a bit cool but it makes you swim faster.
I returned from lunch and now I am here updating my blog and thinking about what I have to get through this afternoon. I have some professional reading to catch up on, more returns and shelving, running the allocations list to pick reserves from the shelves, and getting to the meeting papers.
What did you get up to today??
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