Recently I participated in round 7 of Library Day in the Life (or LDITL, or #libday7). LDITL is an oh-so-clever & downright helpful project dreamed up by Bobbi Newman. The project calls for library workers everywhere to document & share their day online to give readers an insight into what it is we do all day. On her Librarian by day blog, Bobbi explains further:
“(LDITL is) a chance to share your day, or week, with other librarians and hopefully the public at large… Last round there were just under 250 people signed up on the wiki. There were over 800 people participating via Twitter. It has grown to be an international project with participants from the USA, Canada, Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, France, New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan and Singapore. Participants are from academic, public, college, special, school libraries, professional organizations and library vendors.”
I’m blogging about one day of my working week to share with people in Libraryland and – more importantly – people who don’t work in libraries, why I can honestly say: “I’m lucky, I love my job.” This exercise is also for me to reflect on how I spend a working day, with a view to improving time-management & prioritising tasks. I am pleased I can compare it to my Round 6 post, which will be very helpful as self-reflection.
To participate I:
- signed up on the wiki
- recorded my day on a notepad (like a real-life, hardcopy actual pad – but I did include hashtags!)
- took some photos (sans public due to privacy)
- DIDN’T tweet – & I wish I could have because it would have made for a more interactive day & helped me keep more detailed notes that were time recorded
- posted my photo/s to the LDITL Flickr group pool
- tweeted a couple of things from home & followed the hashtag: #libday7 from home
- wrote this blog post & shared it with you!
There is a method to my messness!
My Librarian Day in the Life: Tuesday 26th July, 2011
Facts you may need to know:
- I’m a Children’s & Youth Librarian in a Public Library in Australia
- I’m 35 & male
- I do wear cardigans & glasses
- I don’t have a cat.
6:55am Rise.
7:00 Coffee pot & computer on.
7:10 Logged into Twitter & read about Björk app & A Clockwork Orange being adapted into a musical! & began scrawling #libday7 notes in pad.
7:15 Scan Gmail inbox for any pertinent personal emails, open my google+ (G+) stream & added “Hello from Wollongong, Australia!” to @LiB‘s in-library G+ class.
7:25 G+ & coffee (Together at last,) read about gaming in & outside of libraries.
7:25 Reply to FB non-Libraryland friends & tweeted a welcome to (non-Libraryland) friend who joined twitter – yay!
7:30 Shower, etc.
8:10 Leave home, drop most excellent wife J. @ work, arrive work.
8:50 Clock in, return library books, start pc, etc. (10mins early.)
9:00 Write to-do list.
- cull
- #libday7 notes
- photos
- email person X
- write-up 5/6 (script for Children’s Book Week performance)
- post KC draft (library blog that I run)
- email ALL RE: stats
- prep lessons
- KC & TC posts (both library blogs I manage)
- select (books from visiting Bookseller.)
9:05 Cull AKA weed: part of my role is maintaining Junior & Young Adult collections. This involves (among other things) selecting items to be weeded (discarded, culled) from the collection. Right now I’m focussing on Junior Fiction & this morning I targeted Board Books & Picture Books.
10:00 Book selection: another part of maintaining collections is acquisitions (purchasing, ordering, buying). We have relationships with a few booksellers who bring books to us, so we can select direct from them. I purchase Junior & Young Adult fiction for our four branches. This is an excellent part of my job 
11:30 Emails, emails, emails. It is a BIG element to my job. Recently, I spoke with my supervisor about how it interrupts our workflow, & we both wish it wasn’t so. Other people agree. Will MPOW use Yammer one day? Or something else? (Does your workplace use Yammer?)
12:00 noon Preparing promo material for Library Manager.
12:30 Lunch.
1:00 Culling continued.
1:40 Set up children’s area space for library lesson: a local Primary School does not have a school library, so MPOW is their library. The whole (smallish) school visits over three afternoons, every two weeks. I host 5 lessons of around 25 children/class. We talk about books, reading, learning & our library. I am teaching them how to use their library for fun, & fun study. After our brief lesson I assist them to find any books/mags/comics they would like to borrow for the two weeks. Apart from raising our profile & providing an essential service for these school library-less children, these lessons generate great door counter & loan stats. It is also a chance for me to promote new items, services & activities & to informally survey what children are reading, studying, listening to, watching, playing & what their current hobbies are. I feel it is a very important service & it is undoubtedly mutually beneficial.
1:45 Check over pre-prepared lesson plan. It is very important for me to be organised for these lessons. I am not always, & the quality suffers & I get nervous & feel rushed. In an ideal world, I would have the year planned out, or at least a school term, but currently I just plan a week in advance.
2:00 Deliver two library lessons back-to-back. The first for Years 2/3, and the second for Year 4 children. If it fits into my lesson plan & the time allotted, I really like to read to the children as a part of the lesson. For the first class, I read the very funny Barnyard Slam as we were discussing illustrators.
3:10 Pack up after class: move furniture, tidy shelves, check in books, & enter the all-important stats for reference/catalogue help.
3:25 Make cup of tea, grab apple & back to desk.
3:30 Return my colleague’s trolley – very important. Never, no never, take another library worker’s trolley.
3:40 Continue culling.
3:45 Impromptu meeting to discuss Children’s Book Week timetable. Consensus = hectic!
4:10 Carry new book boxes. (Further proof librarianship is manual labour!)
4:12 My tea is cold, but I finished my apple.
4:25 Help customer with printer.
4:30 Sign into MPOW twitter account: scan tweetstream & retweet any faves.
4:35 Tidy MPOW blog post draft, publish it, email staff RE post, tweet link to post.
5:10 Shut down pc, tidy desk (honestly!) & clock out. (10mins late.)
- – - – - – - time, traffic, conversation, dinner & Neighbours passes – - – - – - – - – - -
9:15pm Open twitter, Google Reader & G+ & follow links to read about other’s #libday7 adventures. I also meandered around virtual Libraryland reading about Children’s & Young Adult literature & programming ideas for both groups. People’s posts about G+, other tech stuff & some #cpd23 posts got a look-in too.
10:35 To bed & more reading; The Red wind this time. I’m reading this as reader advisory because it’s on the short list for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year. Thankfully, I’m enjoying it too.
You may like to know:
- for sure I’ve missed some stuff that I didn’t make a note of. Especially customer service: loans, reader advisory, catalogue/pc/reference help, and, staff phone calls, discussions & questions (oh & laughs too!)
- of my list of 10, I completed 4 items. This is normal, & indicative of how much unscheduled work comes up
- I wore my lightweight cardigan, not my winter number.
So, Dear Reader:
- how was your #libday7 day/s or week? Please leave a link in the comments to your post/s because I’m keen to read
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- if you don’t work in a library, what do you think of my workday?
- if you do, how does it compare to yours?
- Thanks for reading this l o n g post!