Why did I become a librarian?

As far back as I can remember I always wanted to work in a library.

I blame Batgirl.

Batgirl was a librarian.

Her alter ego was Barbara Gordon, daughter of  Commissioner Gordon.

Barbara was a librarian at the Gotham City Library.

However when she got home from work and sat down at her dressing table. The table revolved into the wall and she emerged the other side as batgirl.

She had a batcycle and everything.

Books were always part of my life. As a Brownie I had my book badge, as a girl guide I had my library badge.

I was a total library geek. (although I was NEVER a library monitor)

I can’t remember not wanting to work in a library – (except for my long held fantasy for a career as a wealthy international jetsetter!) – after leaving high school I worked in an academic library (Melbourne University) before moving into local government & public libraries where, sadly, I still remain.

But I still really want to be a wealthy international jetsetter when I grow up.

Or a movie star. Or a ballet dancer. Or a doctor. Or a lawyer. Or maybe an Indian chief.

Rocked up to work at 7.45 (coffee from egg basket in hand) and found the van run hadn’t been (or gone).

Wobbo, the tamminator, holleyann, ali f, The Latimer, sLogan, & the birthday girl, were not far behind.

The chute was manageable -ie not overflowing (or even close to overflowing). But there were all the full trolleys from the weekend to be dealt with.

So we got stuck in – all hands on deck – with regular rotating of tasks to minimise manual handling & repetitive tasking.

As more staff arrived & the library opened to the public we tried to keep the returns under control.

I tried to get the staff bouncing off the walls by introducing a wide range of chocolate into their morning tea breaks…

It seemed to be a successful strategy.

Tis a well known fact that to work in a library you must be a chocoholic.  :>)

So we had an extra chute clearance (& TG we did!)

The chute looked like this…

 Although it doesn’t look much worse than the previous chute clearances, people kept returning stuff while i was clearing. Grand total was 7 wooden trolleys, 3 black trolleys & a full bathtub load.

Got a fair bit returned but this is what tomorrow morning will look like… (unless the library ghost does a lot of work overnight)

  4 wooden trolleys, 3 black trolleys & half a bathtub.

This is a wooden trolley…

It looked something like this…

Which translates as 3 majorly stacked wooden trolleys, 3 black trolleys & half a bathtub.

I’d made sure we’d taken the ‘heffalump’ trap out on thursday night and this, imho, stopped the chute from blocking which would normally have happened with this many books.

  This is the ‘heffalump trap.

It is a metal drawer that sits under the chute entrance & catches heffalumps (or keys & other non-library items).

If a book (& it almost always is a book) catches on the edge of the drawer it forms a sort of barrier & stops the items from sliding  down the chute mountain.

So much so that I thought I’d give it a go and create myself one.

And here it is…

It leads to my about.me profile (which is also here if you don’t have  a code reader)

I can see lots of uses for QR codes in the library.

Just think a QR code on:

• a publicity flyer would lead a person to the booking site for that event.
• our new user guide takes the user to our website
• could we put one on our issue slips for renewals?
• could patrons set up their own QR code that leads them straight to their online library record?

What else could we use them for?

On my way to write this post I had a look back at what I posted last year for Library Day in the life and, quite frankly, I could just repost that cos unfortunately nothing much has changed.

So what did I do all day.

I rocked into work at 9.30 am with coffee for me and coffee for the munnster (she’d texted me and asked me to bring her a coffee).

(This morning’s coffee was from Laurent btw)

Because I’d worked the weekend I only had 2 unread emails which were easily disposed of.

Then it was onto requests.

Patrons can request that the library service purchase particular items. My job is to check that all the details are correct and then forward the requests to the appropriate Team Leader (Adult Services or Youth Services). On this day last year there were 37 requests to be checked. Today there were 347 (yes 347, that’s 310 more than the same time last year. aaaaaaaargggggggghhhhhhhh).

There was no way I was going to get through that many requests but I persevered and by 11.15 I’d dealt with 42 of them.

As I’ll be on annual leave next week (taking myself off to aliaioc in Sydney) I needed to write a list of stuff for a meeting I won’t be at.

Filled in my roster request for the next roster period.

Discovered that we don’t actually recognise and celebrate success (unless we’re special)

Then more new item requests.

And more new item requests.

And even more new item requests.

Then (luckily) chocolate cake for afternoon tea and it was out to the info desk for a desk shift.

While on desk I shelved a kazillion magazines, looked for items available for allocation, filled all the display stands with books, got almost all the patrons out on time, tidied the library, closed & locked the library.

So there you have it. A day in the life of a Collection Maintenance & Adult Services Librarian.

Boring, boring, boring.

On my way to write this post I had a look back at what I posted last year for Library Day in the life and, quite frankly, I could just repost that cos unfortunately nothing much has changed.

So what did I do all day.

I rocked into work at 9.30 am with coffee for me and coffee for the munnster (she’d texted me and asked me to bring her a coffee).

(This morning’s coffee was from Laurent btw)

Because I’d worked the weekend I only had 2 unread emails which were easily disposed of.

Then it was onto requests.

Patrons can request that the library service purchase particular items. My job is to check that all the details are correct and then forward the requests to the appropriate Team Leader (Adult Services or Youth Services). On this day last year there were 37 requests to be checked. Today there were 347 (yes 347, that’s 310 more than the same time last year. aaaaaaaargggggggghhhhhhhh).

There was no way I was going to get through that many requests but I persevered and by 11.15 I’d dealt with 42 of them.

As I’ll be on annual leave next week (taking myself off to aliaioc in Sydney) I needed to write a list of stuff for a meeting I won’t be at.

Filled in my roster request for the next roster period.

Discovered that we don’t actually recognise and celebrate success (unless we’re special)

Then more new item requests.

And more new item requests.

And even more new item requests.

Then (luckily) chocolate cake for afternoon tea and it was out to the info desk for a desk shift.

While on desk I shelved a kazillion magazines, looked for items available for allocation, filled all the display stands with books, got almost all the patrons out on time, tidied the library, closed & locked the library.

So there you have it. A day in the life of a Collection Maintenance & Adult Services Librarian.

Boring, boring, boring.

There’s been  lot of talk lately (and not so lately) about libraries needing to display their stock more like bookshops – by genre rather than author (although in an aside somewhere i have a link to a blogpost that has 50+ subgenres of crime/thriller).

So I’ve been in New Zealand (South Island) and was surprised to note that their  main book stores/chains are moving away from genre to alphabetical by author sequences for displaying fiction.

Christchurch - Whitcoulls.

One alphabetical sequence by author for fiction.

Exception – separate display of NZ fiction (on the day I  was there Ben Sanders, Vanda Symon, ALix Bosco, Paddy Richardson were on the general fiction shelves  and not on the NZ fiction shelves. – shouldn’t they have been in both?)

At the smaller Whitcoulls (round the corner from the library) there was a separate display of science fiction .

Dunedin & Queenstown- Whitcoulls

Same as Christchurch

Queenstown – PaperPlus

One alphabetical sequence for fiction. Ken Follett was signing in store the day I was there and the display areas had been changed to promote Follet so maybe there is a separate NZ section on non Follett days.

My most ‘secure’ password would take 117 days to crack, my ‘least’ secure – 3 days.

Interesting exercise. Now trying new passwords to see if I can find a more secure one.