Connecting Librarian

I am working as Acting Branch Manager again at my library – a branch of a regional public library service, so taking care of the running of our biggest branch, on top of my usual Info Services tasks, were what made up my work day in this 8th round of Library Day in the Life.  I worked a late shift today, so it didn’t start until 1pm, so the morning was spent in domestic duties etc.

So here goes my work day.

12.00pm – Start work at 1pm so of course I arrived at work at 12.00pm, where I completed the staff timesheets for yesterday, whilst also catching up on what had been happening during the morning. Business as usual, except that it has been much busier than we had experienced of late. And of course, checked email.

12.30pm – Followed up on the resignation of a shelver – she had resigned on the weekend, so I followed up with the staff member who took the details and chased up with the personnel manager about what was required as follow-up. Signed off on a pile of leave applications and travel allowance forms. Followed up on completed and in process maintenance issues.

1.00 – 3.00pm – Frantically busy on desk. We were down a person due to staff training on our new discovery layer being launched next week and spent the first hour just trying to clear the backlog of returns etc, whilst serving the library users still pouring into the library. Once the backlog was cleared, spent the next hour just trying to catch up with clearing all the returns from the desk and back out into the library where users could gain access to them.

3.00pm – Uploaded helpsheets for our new discovery layer and created new links on our website, in preparation for next week’s hard launch and for our soft launch, which went live today. Also dealt with assorted staff needs and queries. And phone calls to various staff following up on assorted items.

3.45pm – Created some new book covers and information for our new books slideshow on our website. And more staff queries.

4.00pm – Added our recent library news blog post and the Gorilla Librarian (Monty Python) video to our Facebook page.

4.15pm – Did a tidy up of our website RSS feeds and deleted expired events slides.

4.20pm – Made some calls related to maintenance issues.

4.35pm – Emailed our library bloggers about changes to the new catalogue and the need to begin adding links to the new catalogue in their posts.

4.45pm – Catch up and clean up of email.

4.50pm – Started a blog post on our adult blog about Oscar Best Picture nominees which came from books. Saved it in draft form for completion another day.

5.00pm – Home for dinner.

6.00pm – 9.00pm – Back on desk for the evening – filled with loans, returns, memberships, internet assistance, copier/printer assistance, holds, console games bookings – setup – pack-up, tidy up around the library (amazing how messy some people are), as well as other numerous administrative tasks.

9.05pm – Home for another day.

Pretty normal day really. Nothing exciting in a way, but I love my job and I work in a wonderful library service with great people, so I wouldn’t change a thing.

Its Australian Library and Information Week and there are many events going on in libraries around the country (although its also Education Week, so that’s fun for the school libraries!).

One of those fun things is from Libraries Interact. We are pulling together articles for a Carnival of the Infosciences and need your assistance. This could be the last Carnival, so lets make it a great one.

We are looking for people to contribute recent (or near recent) blog posts, online articles etc – it can be yours or someone elses, it doesn’t matter. “This LIW is an Australian event, but submissions from all over are welcome. The theme of LIW is libraries are for everyone, so posts on that theme are particularly welcome.” (Libraries Interact)

As we are already well into Library Week, submissions would be appreciated as soon as possible. Submission details are available at Libraries Interact.

Image by busymommy Some rights reserved.

On a more personal note, I have been overwhelmingly busy of late with no inclination to blog, but I have a few blog posts in my head, which I will start bringing to fruition soon, so stay tuned.

After two weeks of various technical difficulties, I was finally able to join in on a session of Uncontrolled Vocabulary, a “weekly live interactive roundtable discussion of all things library”. Hosted by Greg Schwartz, Library Systems Manager for the Louisville Free Public Library, it is held most Wednesday nights at 10pm, US Eastern time, which made it 2pm AEST.

Uncontrolled Vocabulary uses Talk Shoe to host the live discussion and to record the hour for dissemination through podcast. The discussion is on newsworthy library-related items that have arisen during the week and are often suggested by listeners, through the use of an unvocab tag in del.icio.us. Greg has an Uncontrolled Vocabulary blog and also a Facebook group which sends out reminders about the upcoming episode.

It is 32 episodes strong now and I have been listening in since the 1st episode. It is entertaining, informative and a fun way to keep in touch with library news, whilst also doing some professional development activity.

So this week, I finally got onto the call – Uncontrolled Vocabulary #32 – Cranky people make good audio. The few communications issues I had encountered in the previous 2 weeks were finally bypassed through the use of Skype. I had a great time being a part of the call, even if I didn’t contribute all that much and I am looking forward to joining in again where possible.

If you haven’t listened to the podcasts, I highly recommend them. Greg is a accomplished moderator, there is a great group of regular callers and some very interesting topics arise, with conversations sometimes taking unexpected turns or presenting points of view you may not have considered.

Thanks Greg, from grateful listener and now participator. It is a lot of fun and I appreciate what you do to make it happen (nearly) every week.

Screen capture software allows you to capture a region on your screen, a file or a scrolling window. Much like the Windows print screen command does, but with more control and lots of other features. Screencasting software allows you to do a ‘video’ of what’s happening on your screen.

I have high hopes that we will be able to do either one of these or both, starting with how to use our catalogue.

Unfortunately, like any good software, it costs money. However, Techsmith, the creators of widely respected screencasting software Camtasia Studio and screen capture software SnagIt is making a special offer. You can download an older copy of each package from the web (Camtasia 3 – version 5 is the current and SnagIt 7.2.5 as opposed to current 8.2). If you then choose to upgrade from that to the current version, you get it at a cheaper rate. Upgrade or no, its worth looking into.

Sounds great and I have already downloaded both, without planning to upgrade. However, be aware that not all is wonderful – according to comments on the Download Squad blog post which highlighted these offers, some users had trouble installing and using the software and ended up uninstalling. I had no trouble installing, but haven’t yet tried using them. Will keep you posted. In the meantime, why not get a copy of each for yourself and see what you can do with them for your library.

I am a qualified librarian and I can put a whole long list of letters behind my name. Between my Bachelors degree, my Masters degree and my Associate membership of ALIA, the letters are as long as my actual name.

So when should I use them? This all came from my dad – who is a fitter and turner by trade. I showed him a copy of my beautifully presented report from my study tour and he asked where all the letters were from behind my name. My dad is very proud of what I have achieved, even if he doesn’t understand the fuss and what its all about, but that question caught me by surprise.

So why didn’t I use the letters – its a formal report, going to be read by many people in library circles (and maybe some who are not). Would it have been legitimate to list degrees etc on the cover, to further indicate my qualification to conduct this tour, or would it have seemed like bragging to those who already know me and who will also read the report?

What about the presentations I will be doing that will also come out of this study tour? Should I put my qualifications on that, or just leave it as my name and position/library? I have been pondering this at work today, with some of the other librarians and none of us was able to come up with a definitive answer. We thought it would be appropriate to mention qualifications in a speaker’s introduction or on the blurb of a journal article, but anywhere else? We couldn’t decide.

So I thought I would ponder it here and see if any of you had any thoughts on this. We have worked hard for our qualifications, shouldn’t we be more forthright in displaying them and more often? Or is that bragging and inappropriately so in some circumstances. I would love to get your feedback, so please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

By the way, all those letters for me are:
Michelle McLean
BA(Lib) MBIT AALIA
Bachelor of Arts in Librarianship, Master of Business in Information Technology and Associate member of the Australian Library and Information Association. At least I can use the letters and not have to spell it out in full!