This is my first time participating in the “Day in the Life of a Librarian” project, as inspired by Bobbi Newman. Here’s the run-down on my day for Wednesday, January 27, 2010, as the Branch Manager of the South Columbus Public Library:
9:00 – I attend and participate in a meeting with the Director, Deputy Director, Collection Coordinator, and the other CVL Branch Managers. We discuss a variety of topics, including coordinating meetings for teen programming, standards for discarding damaged books, various policies and procedures, and budget plans. A lot of ideas get exchanged, there’s some back-and-forth, and some productive dialog. At the end, each branch / department gets to share whatever accomplishments we’re especially proud of.
10:45 – After the meeting, I stop by the Friends of Libraries Bookstore and quickly peruse a bookcart with hardbacks for a dollar each. As I’m leaving, I say “hi” to the library courier and I wave to the staff at the CPL Circulation Desk. I walk out to my car and I drive to SCPL.
11:00 - I arrive at the branch and I check-in with my staff: laptops borrowed from another branch got returned this morning, a customer donated a bag of books, and a surge protector keeps getting tripped when customers step on it, which shuts down three of our public computers and abruptly ends those customers’ sessions. The computers are working at the moment, so rather than interrupting the customers who are currently using them, I decide to check on the situation later.
11:05 – I go into my office, set down my bag, and turn on my computer. While it warms I go to our Work Room and I replace the print cartridges in our color printer. After about five minutes of blinking lights and whirring sounds, everything appears functional and good.
11:15 – I back to my office and check my email. I email our Purchasing Clerk about acquiring business cards, and I email our IT department about borrowing a VGA-monitor cable. (I promise I’m not normally this needy.) I also investigate prices for USB flash drives (which normally wouldn’t be an issue, since we have an in-stock supply for customer’s to purchase, but the ones that I need are for teen programming).
11:20 – I begin working on budget requests. This has been ongoing for a couple of weeks, but our final requests are due by the end of the month. I have my list of ideas, and I’ve asked my staff for ideas as well. Today, I follow-up with our Children’s Librarian, our Lead Circulation Clerk, our Teen Programming Guy (not his official title), our Custodian, and our Security Officer. Basically, I want to know what I can buy that will help them do their jobs. I write down their ideas, and I return to my office to research, classify, and prioritize their requests.
12:05 – The Security Officer lets me know that the surge protector got tripped again. Since the customers are already inconvenienced, I inspect it further, and sure enough, even the lightest tap causes it to go off. The Custodian gets me a replacement surge protector, and I plug the desktops into the replacement. (At this point, I’m on my back under the table, like a mechanic working under a car.) We power the computers back on, and no further problems are reported for the rest of the day.
12:10 – Well, OK, there’s a slight problem. A customer from one of the three problem computers reports that the system won’t allow him to log-in to his session because the system still thinks that he’s logged in. This is, of course, not the case in reality, but since the session closed abruptly, the system still sees him as “logged in.” I ask the customer and his neighbor (who has the same problem) for their library cards and their last names, and I walk toward the Circulation Desk to correct this.
12:12 – On the way to the Circulation Desk, a third customer asks me how to do a word count on just one part of a document. I walk her through highlighting the text she wants to count, clicking on “Review,” and then clicking on “Word Count.” This works, and she seems happy (or at least happy for someone doing homework).
12:13 – I make it to the Circulation Desk, and I override the SAM software’s idea that the two customers from before are still logged in. I walk back over, hand them their respective cards, and then I watch them log in (successfully!) to their sessions.
12:15 – I finish up working on budget requests for the day, paying special attention to the “justification” column for each. After reviewing what I have so far, I save it and put it away so that I can revisit it tomorrow.
12:45 – I attend to a handful of not-very-exciting-but-still necessary things: I straighten out staff bulletin boards, I remove fliers for past events, I go through mail from our Marketing department (two sets of fliers for library programs), and I update branch calendars as necessary. I also walk through the branch to see how the shelves looks, to check on our displays, and to make sure everything is running like it should.
12:50 – I email pictures to the Administrative Assistant to the Director, highlighting the need for new furniture at my branch.
1:00 - I complete and submit a Help Desk ticket about a problem with our self-checkout system. Basically, it prints a customer’s name and library card number on the receipt, which can (obviously) infringe on that customer’s privacy.
1:15 – I look at my to-do list and cross off a few things. I take additional notes as necessary.
1:30 – I take a break for lunch (chicken tortilla soup). While I eat, I read an article in Time fundraising-by-texting in response to the earthquake in Haiti.
2:15 – I’m back at my desk, writing up my initial thoughts for this blog post. What you’re reading now is a much more elaborate version of the bare-bones outline I had originally written.
2:30 – I help one of our work-study students from Columbus State University with printing a certificate from a website. Since I just changed the print cartridges earlier that morning, I felt more than the usual personal investment in making sure it printed. After a couple tweeks, we get it to work.
2:45 – I start collating and aggregating information about a number of programs, including a volunteer tax-preparation program at the main library, an adult education class that meets at my library, and our teen computer classes (which used to be biweekly, but are now weekly). I also organize a stack of notes on my desk that have desperately needed to be sorted, filed, and (if necessary) recycled.
3:30 – Our Network Administrator arrives and asks about the self-checkout receipt printer problem. He hops to it, and within five minutes, the problem is fixed, I’m happy, and our customers’ personal information can remain personal.
3:50 – I get an email from another staff member in IT, and he says an extra VGA-monitor cable should be around somewhere in the IT department offices / server room. We make plans to look for it after tomorrow afternoon’s board meeting. This is good, because it means I don’t have to buy a new cable.
4:00 – Now that I know I don’t need to purchase a new cable, I complete and submit a supply request for flash drives, which we need for the aforementioned teen program, and some Velcro tape, which we need for labeling the spines of our DVD binders. (Sometimes I think that part of my job is to purchase strange and unusual things for perfectly normal and logical reasons.)
4:15 – The deputy director (my boss) calls and asks me some questions about branch needs, how things are going, and following-up with me in general.
4:25 – I look back at my to-do list and cross a few more things off.
4:30 – I walk out to the desk and see how things are going. It’s actually slow, compared to how we normally are after school. A couple of adults are checking out books and movies, Circulation Assistants are answering questions about accounts, our Children’s Librarian is helping a woman with an in-depth question about some books that she needs, and lots of people are using our computers. I help a few customers check out materials, including demonstrating our self-checkout service and pulling DVDs that they’ve checked out.
5:00 – I’m back in my office. I’ve drawn up a skeleton outline for recommended improvements to the branch, which starts with a very minimal list of three bullets that I get to expand on. This means taking out my “Wish List, Dreams, Etc” folder, as well as my informal lists of community needs, and then using all of that to inform my decisions.
5:40- I follow-up on a few things from yesterday evening’s CALA meeting, adding dates and contacts to my calendar as necessary. I write a “must-do” list for tomorrow, including the projects that I’ve put away for today. I tidy up a few things on my desk, and I create a small stack of the things that I need to work on tomorrow.
6:01 – The branch closes. We lock up, and we head out. I wait to make sure that my staff is able to leave safely and that no customers are left behind, and then I head home myself.
So that’s my day. I feel like my “day in the life” isn’t quite as exciting as those of some other librarians, but I still find this work immensely rewarding. Like most librarians, every day is completely different from every other day, and that’s part of why I love this work so much.
