What's on Tap?

Those of you who know me know that I am a beer enthusiast. I never thought I'd find a way to connect libraries and beer, but here goes. Here's my (quarterly? semi-annual?) list of library projects:

The Pilsner
-This is the light work. Flowery, herbal, hoppy.
1. My light work projects, which are the kind of things I work on while on-desk, include reading professional journals and blogs. I like to keep up with the "Book Buzz" lists and Staff Choices reviews that employees create for our web site.


The IPA and The ESB
-Bitter, hoppy, herby, sometimes citric. My least favorite styles. It's not really fair to group them together - I just don't like either one very much!
1. Ok, everyone has a few responsibilities that they do not enjoy. We get them done and we realize their importance, but we just don't look forward to the work. For me, that is all things scheduling. I've got to find a way to automate the schedule a little more.


The Amber
-Yummmm...malty, sweet or well-balanced between hoppy and malty, brown or red in color.
I. Love. Amber Ales. It stands to reason, then, that this is my favorite project. Just one favorite, though? No way! I am working on all kinds of fun things!
1. Inventory with our RFID equipment is super fun. No, really, it is!
2. The PLA conference is right around the corner (later this month). I'm having a ball looking at all the great session offerings and working on my own presentation.
3. I've been creating fun training videos for staff and the public. We have a new Flip video camera, and I've been creating 2-3 minute tutorials. I've uploaded them to YouTube, and now that we have a video policy in place we can make more! Book talks, program clips, training tutorials - how fun!
4. We're starting a BluRay collection. It's been a fun learning experience to find out what goes into creating a new collection. The ILS has to have special codes set up, and all kinds of other things have to be considered, from shelf space to cases to processing to fine schedules to checkout times. And, hey, it's BluRay! What's not to like?


Maibock: The Seasonal
-Ok, technically Maibock is for May, but we're heading into spring, so I'm going with this seasonal.
1. And we're back to scheduling. Sigh... It's time to make the spring schedule, since class schedules will be changing for all of our class-taking employees.
2. Also, we're heading into summer reading season. My library has an adult summer reading program, and they've talked about shaking things up a bit this year. No formal plans are made yet, but some ideas are kicking around. We also decided to order various t-shirt designs this year. In the past, the staff has all worn the youth program design, but this year a few people wanted the teen design or the adult design. I like that! We've got three summer reading programs to promote, so let's branch out! The adult program, especially, could use a little promo, since a lot of people don't yet know (or remember) that it exists.


The Strong Ale
-All beers 7.0% alcohol and above. Barley wines, old ales, etc. Strong stuff!
1. Ahhh...library science. Another project I'm working on now is learning about authority records. It's been a while since I've laid eyes on an actual MARC record, so re-learning cataloging rules has been difficult. I'm working on it. This is the first time I've worked in a library that did copy cataloging. (In my previous employment the cooperative did it for us). A small group of us are learning how to approve new authorities, merge existing ones, and edit authorities in new MARC records brought into our system.
2. I've also just finished co-authoring a library science text book about collection quality. That certainly qualifies as a "strong" project! It has been sent off to the publisher, who has assigned a freelance copy editor and a typesetter. The co-author and I (you all know Mary Kelly, right?) have to create our own index, though. We're learning how to do that in Word 2007. Piece of cake!


The Stout
Roasty, sometimes chocolate, coffee, vanilla, or other flavors added.
1. Flavorful! How about a creative project, then? I put up a bulletin board display this month. I'm NOT a great bulletin board creator, but I made one about the Census. Scintillating, isn't it? I added some cool old pictures of old census records and old census takers, as well as some FAQ's about the census. We're expecting to receive some actual Census 2010 forms, since we've signed up to be a "Be Counted" site. People are supposed to be able to pick up the form at our library if they don't get one at home. I hope they get here soon!

And that, my friends, is my current project list set to beer. I just knew it could be done!