I must admit, I'm a bit stumped about what to write today.
I could ask those that read this blog - what would you like to see me write about?
Anyway, instead I will bore you with how frustrating my day was yesterday. You may remember that I predicted that this week would be stressful. It makes me wonder why I take leave, as when I return there is so much work to do. And I had only 3 days off this time!!
So yesterday was frustrating for a number of reasons but I suppose I really can't go into them because some are political, and some regard the lack of space on the shelves for books which is causing me no end of frustration as I have weeded and weeded and weeded - so I may just have to purchase new shelves which is not an easy task at this time of year.
I also ended the day with another one of our public computers going stupid. And due to our limited IT staff, I know we will most likely have to wait a while before it is fixed - with school holidays coming up it will cause extra stress filling bookings - can't wait to get a computer booking system.
Then I got home and found that we have only received one calendar that my daughter had made at school (the students draw a picture and then they put it on a calendar) when I had ordered 3. So today I have to chase up the school about it.
They had the school presentation "night" on yesterday "afternoon" at 5.30pm. My bug bear about that is what about parents that work - I don't get home till around 6pm so never get to go to school functions. Yes I could have tried to leave early but as mentioned above, yesterday was one of those days where that wasn't going to happen - unfortunately, most days are like that.
Then my last bug bear of the day was when I ordered some books from a particular online ebook shop and they are in ePub format. However, they won't load onto Bluefire Reader on my tablet. All other ePub books from other online shops do but not from this shop - the files come across as ACSM (I think that is the file format). I am stumped and I can add that to another ebook frustration of mine!
So let's all toast our coffees, teas or milos to a better day today!!
Showing posts with label shelving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shelving. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Library Day in the Life - final post
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.
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.
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.
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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