Library Day in the Life 7

Hey, everybody, it's #libday7! That means you get to read another stimulating day in the life of me at work. Rarely do people give me the line about "must be nice to read at work all day" (completely false), but they do sometimes assume I stamp due dates (we have receipt printers for that) and shelve books (we have Pages for that, and their job is CRUCIAL - but it's not what I do). Here's what I did today.

I came in with a plan:
1. Look at the week's service desk coverage to see where any subs maybe needed
2. Finalize the shelf balancing plan (aka shifting of non-fiction)
3. Write a book review for the staff choices blog
4. Plan service desk coverage during upcoming in-house Joomla training
5. Read resumes/cover letters sent in for internship positions

Here's what actually happened:
1. My mailbox was packed! There were four time off request forms (torfs...the devil's paperwork), a big envelope of brochures for a nearby university (passed to college search collection person), an internship resume/cover letter, and some junk mail.

2. Dealt with the torfs. It won't be pretty on those days, but we'll get the desks covered. I sent an email to the sub list to see who's available to cover on those days.

3. Moving on to email. Received a few more intern applications. I printed them and added to the pile of those to be read.

4. I took the camera up to the third floor to take some "before" pictures of the non-fiction section. I am planning a shelf balancing project to start next month. Some of the Dewey ranges within non-fiction are really tight on space. Other sections have been recently weeded, and so they have lots of open space available. I took pictures of the tight spots and the really open spots.

5. If you read those shelf balancing posts I already wrote, you will see how mathematical the whole thing is. I need to make sure that each section is allotted enough space, but not too much. I need to count the shelves that each range currently takes up and figure out how many shelves each collection needs - and stay within the total number of shelves available. It is difficult because some sections have six shelves per column and some have five. Some, like the 700s, are spaced wider because those art books are so huge. When we shift, the 700s won't be on those wider spots anymore, and the places where they land will have to be re-spaced. What a nightmare. I still don't have it quite right. I realized by the time I got to the 500s (my collection) that it wasn't going to fit.

6. So I weeded. First, I ran a new report - everything in the 500s that hasn't been checked out in three years or more, organized by publication date. With 13 pages of titles in hand, I grabbed a cart and headed back upstairs. As much as I love a clean collection, and the act of weeding, My collection is down to where it is starting to hurt to let go of some of the titles. They aren't bad books - they just aren't being used. I filled an entire cart with books to be passed on to the Friends of the Library's book sale.

7. I unloaded the cart onto the counter in my office so that the cart could be used elsewhere in the building. I had to be on-desk in fifteen minutes, so I updated #libday7 on my twitter feed, checked email quickly, and went back upstairs to the reference desk.

8. I am now on-desk. It's a slow night, reference-wise! I've been here for an hour and only had one question so far: "How do I get to the Detroit Free Press Index?" He really wanted to search the Detroit Free Press Historical database, and I got him in to it. I've got another hour at this desk, then an hour off, then back on at the reader's advisory desk. I'm planning to get that Staff Choices blog book review written while I'm on desk, and start reading those resumes too.

So, better get to it! If this week shapes up interesting, I'll write up another #libday7 post.