Tag Archives: librarydayinthelife

Library Day in the Life r6d01

Having never done Library Day in the Life before, we’ll see how it goes. I will try to record how my day goes today, so follow if you dare.

Turns out today is a busy day, lots of meetings and things to be doing. I’ll try to keep up.

Hour 1 – Arrive and have informal debrief with web team teammate to coordinate work efforts for the week, recap last week, and go over what to talk about in the monthly division meeting today.

Hour 1.5 – Check and reply to e-mail that’s piled up over the weekend and then go through my copious RSS feeds. Lifehacker and library blogs are on the top of the list.

Hour 2 – Start gathering materials and organizing for upcoming usability tests, based on Steve Krug’s book Rocket Surgery Made Easy. Planning on doing tests this way hopefully starting in March. Reformatting tasks that were previously created and updating forms and scripts. Turned on my blip.fm stream to have some music while working.  (I usually turn it on and off through the day depending on what I’m doing.) Messenger goes on as well for chat.

Hour 2.45 – Apple juice and Iron Maiden snack break. Literally.

Hour 3 – Get ready for library technology division meeting. Check Twitter, Mashable, and Ars Technica. Mashable is hit and miss these days, and I don’t find any interesting articles; Ars tends to fair better. Get distracted by news of the bombing in Moscow, while marking e-mails of things I need to follow up with today before heading up for the meeting.

Hour 4 – Library technology division meeting, monthly meeting for the different teams in our division to touch base with each other and our supervisor. Discussing changes, upcoming projects and the intranet redesign project that my team is working on this year.

Lunch – Eating my office but making sure not to actually do any work. Remember kids, lunch is a right not a privilege.

Hour 5 – Staffing the reference desk. The hours around noon can be busy here but seems pretty quiet today. One question on journals and then helping someone with scanning. Working on other things and answering e-mail when not helping patrons.

Hour 6 – Back to office for a half hour, though it’s not much time to start anything new.  A bit late but my new yearly desk calendar finally came in, giving me something convenient to doodle and make notes on. Every year the design seems to change slightly. Check RSS feeds and Twitter before next meeting.

Hour 6.5 – Librarians Meeting. A usually monthly meeting where the librarians meet to discuss issues affecting us. This month is changes to the travel guidelines, budget issues, and upcoming events.

Hour 7.5 – Back to office again for a half hour. Prepare for team planning session for upcoming brownbag class on e-books. Attempt to snack.

Hour 8 – Planning session for the February ETBB (Emerging Technology Brown Bag Series) session, our monthly lunch and learns, created by the ETBB team. We’re doing a sesson on e-books and work on outlining the class and deciding on who will teach what part, make the materials, etc.