Libday8 - Tuesday

Every day begins in a similar way for me really, picking up my emails and sorting through them with what I can delete, what I need to deal with immediately, what I need to pick up on during the day, and what I can just file for reference.

Then the visiting scholar from yesterday arrived, so I signed her card up, sorted out her door access and gave her a rundown of the Library. She was very interesting and interested in everything, one of those people it is very easy and pleasant to talk to. Meeting enthusiastic people is one of the things I enjoy most at work, so that really was a pleasure.

Tea break time and we all get some cake to mark the end of a section in the Voyager cataloguing project. Any excuse!

With the post came some invoices to process and send onto finance.

I then had to fill out our film licensing report for the previous 3 months, and check the proposed films for this term to ensure they all fall within the license. This is one of those jobs that isn't necessarily in my remit, but the library understands the licensing and copyright of materials better than anyone else, so it makes sense. I also quite enjoy it.

Finally before lunch, looking up some items potentially for purchase, including some Enid Blyton to add to our children's literature collection. When she fell out of fashion a previous librarian got rid of practically everything. I've rebuilt the Famous Five over half way, and have begun on Noddy, but it's the long haul to completely reinstate her! With Noddy, we also want to get both recent and older editions as the Gollywogs have been completely redacted from new editions.

Lunch!

A bit more catching up and getting my head round the potential collaboration opportunity, and a query sent off about a possible alteration to our catalogue terminals.

Lots of meeting prep this afternoon - a refurbishment one tomorrow morning, and another with all the Heritage library staff on Thursday. Doing the Heritage thinking today as tomorrow's meeting may take some time. Cross-checking my refurbishment requirements one more time, and looking at the current costings.

Then I began cross-checking journal lists for a planned discard to ensure nothing had slipped onto the discard list or been missed off. Checking this sort of thing isn't my favourite job, but it's so important to ensure everything goes smoothly.

I emailed an archive visit to one of my library assistants who has a strong interest in that area, and did a few more withdrawals found by our Voyager cataloguer.

Libday8 - Monday

I've participated in libday before on Twitter, but perhaps this year I can conjure up a blog post each day - please note I am already late with Monday's (!).

So, what did yesterday hold for me...

Well, I was off with lurgy on Thursday and Friday so my first job of the morning was catching up with emails and my team. Luckily my inbox was lighter than I might have feared, and a lot of those were quite easily deletable.

Of the more noteworthy ones were some messages about our refurbishments plans (more on them below), and a visiting scholar requesting access. So one quick email exchange later and the scholar can be signed up to access our children's literature collection for the rest of her time here.

Next to tackle the refurbishment bits. A final query about the carpet we've chosen, and a double check that the samples we were sent matched the sample building services had (on closer inspection, phew, they did). Then a quick phonecall about a sample chair that had arrived with a damaged base.

Lunch!

A few student queries, and then onto catching up on a collaboration meeting that I missed on Friday. Reading the documentation so far and some notes kindly sent through to get me upto speed.

Checked all of the alarm alerts from over the weekend. Happy to see that the students are behaving, and not setting the alarm off too much.

Started to compile a list of items for the Library Committee agenda, and then a few bits of withdrawing and general catalogue housekeeping.

So actually, a fairly typical day for me at the moment!