A Week In The Life - Monday

***Disclaimer: I wanted to add to the week in the life of a librarian wiki project. It was only half way through this post that I realised that it was a project that was supposed to be done in a specific week in July. I have decided to carry on with this regardless and document a typical working week in my role.***

This morning as I walked from the bus stop in the pouring rain a vicious white van man drove through a puddle and absolutely soaked me and some other ladies walking near by. Even my face was soaked *argh*. So my first task this morning was washing my fringe and face in the bathroom and reapplying my make up. Good job I always come in 15 minutes early.

I started work at 8.30 and was opening up: turning on the computers and printers, putting float in the till, etc. I wrote the day's headlines on the white board next to our newspaper rack and stamped the papers with the college stamp.

On the main circulation desk until 11, serving students and staff. During this time I completed some admin tasks. I inputted last week's stats for student use and for enquiries. Our data collection isn't ideal at the moment as we are relying on a sign in system rather than a gate count. I also did some more work on an email to my manager of suggested acquisitions based on requests for new stock, multiple copies of current stock and items that I think the users would like.

Our Six Book Challenge began today so I sent round an email to All Students reminding them to sign up and telling them about our brand new fiction items: last week I made a book display and wrote a one line synopsis of each item to include in the email to try to entice them. By 11am I'd had 4 sign up so I was quite chuffed.

At 11 I came off the desk and spent the next hour collecting items for the Psychology and Humanities Study Skills session that the manager and I are facilitating tomorrow. I selected as much variety of sources as possible: dictionaries, journals, encyclopedias, textbooks, maps etc. I then collected and processed the day's journals, put the relevant ones in the holder in the LRC and took one to the Study Centre next door.
At our college we have 5 Study Centres covering each faculty area which are staffed by Learning Mentors. The Learning Mentors work with students in the Study Centres but LRC staff are responsible for the stock that we keep in them. I am responsible for two of them (Humanities and Business & ICT) and for faculty liaison for those subjects.
At 11.15 the first of the day's Student Assistants clocked in. I chatted with her for a few minutes and showed her what needed doing - mostly strict shelf checking. She went up to the Business & ICT Study Centre to tidy it for 20 minutes as well - I try to get the Study Centres strict shelf checked by the Student Assistants as we rarely have time to do it ourselves. As ever she came with a great attitude and was happy to get on with it on her own. While the Student Assistants are in I am aware of what they're doing but don't really need to supervise them closely now as they've been with us for 4 weeks now.
At 12 I was back on the main issue desk for half an hour before going on my lunch. It's getting busy and a bit noisy now so I'm not continuing with my admin tasks until after the lunch time rush.

Lunch at 12.30. I rarely leave campus at lunch as there's not much nearby. I just sit and read in the office with my packed lunch.

After lunch I spent some time with the next Student Assistant and tidied up after the busy lunch break. I took the journals round to the Study Centres and collected newpapers and journals for the Info Skills session tomorrow. I spent much of the afternoon on the Circ desk, serving students and helping with the computers and printer/photocopier/scanner combo - a machine that requires my attention at least 5 times an hour. I also completed the new acquisitions email and sent it to my boss. I closed the library alone at 5pm.

In the evening I met the girls from my MSc for dinner. We had hoped to be celebrating/commiserating our dissertation marks and thus have our final marks for the year but it wasn't to be, we're still waiting on them. Still it was nice to catch up with everyone - especially as we were saying goodbye to Sarina who is returning to NZ at the weekend :(.

Student LRC Assistants first week

What a week! Our programme of student LRC assistants has started. I'd prepared by sending them training notes including the tasks they'll be doing and exercises about how the shelves are arranged, and I made sure the rest of my team knew who is coming when and what they'll be doing.

On the whole I've been really really happy with the students that've been in this week. I was expecting seven: one was a no show, one was late so I'll see if she's late again next week. All the rest of the students came with a great attitude, happy for the opportunity and wanting to do extra hours which I might take them up on!

Writing the training notes and training the students in person was interesting. Usually working in libraries your colleagues know the terminology (strict shelf checking, shelf mark, spine label etc) even though there are local differences between libraries or sectors. In this situation I've got to consider that they are 16-19, possibly have never had a job before never mind a library job and there are ESOL factors to take into account. Interestingly, I had anticipated that the easiest task to give them would be doing a book move (very straightforward, we're just moving all our stock round because we've got a free bay) but this is the task that without fail the students have not understood! I thought it was me explaining it badly, but on Thursday my manager trained the volunteer as I was elsewhere and she said the same thing.

I've been careful to emphasise with the students that they need to be aware of health and safety (manual lifting, being aware of people using the space while they are doing tasks) and that if at any point they don't feel safe or comfortable doing a task or in the space to speak to me straight away.

So far the project has been time consuming, but I'm sure it'll pay off once the student assistants are confident with their tasks and can just come in and get on with it. On the plus side it looks like the student volunteers will be able to strict shelf tidy our entire collection each week which is fantastic, as we are so busy that we rarely get the chance to do any of it.

Next week we've got Ofsted in for 24 hours including our open evening, so that should be another exciting week! The whole college is busy putting up displays and getting the students (and staff!) on their best behaviour.