Library Day in the Life – round 8 (Sunday)

Sunday

9:45 – 10:00

I start by placing the biscuits I bought in the staff room; this is something another manager did at another weekend library position I had and I thought it was a nice touch so I decided to start it here!

Then I open up the counter; I need to unlock draws, set the till up, turn the gate alarm PC on and log in.

10:00 – 12:00

I sit on the counter which is pretty much my job for the day! I’m there as the librarian so my main role is to help with subject enquiries (searching databases etc) but as its the weekend and there’s only 5 members of staff in overall I also do some of the assistant and IT requests.

First job of the day, giving a subject librarian some SCONUL forms for her to give out in her induction (librarian giving an induction on a Sunday, see library staff are truly dedicated!)

I have a call to see if we are open (guessing this is because of the snow!) and one from someone wanting their reservation holding an extra day because of the snow; whilst I don’t think the snow is bad enough to stop people coming in the fact no one else is waiting for the book and they’re are other copies means I agree to.

Also handled a password reset.

Break

12:20 -14:00

A couple of requests for a stapler; a seemingly innocent request but after working in a couple of libraries I know how controversial this issue is! We have a stapler that people need to ask us for, others don’t have them but have paper clips, others just have them on the end of the desk, others chain them to the desk and I once witnessed a huge argument in a meeting about them! Me I’m all for having them!

I had a subject enquiry – a construction student looking for books on research methods specific to his subject.

I also took payment for a fine.

Lunch

14:30 – 14:50

As its quiet on the counter (the combination of snow and it being the first week of term) I decide to go up and shelve for a bit. Its actually so quiet that the shelving has been done so I do some shelf tidying (seriously we don’t expect people to put the books back where the belong, that’s why we have trollies!) Now shelving isn’t my favourite job and it’s not actually something I have to do but I think it’s important everyone gets involved and just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it (team work!) Plus it did mean I got to have a look at dewey and I was heartened to see I did understand why some books were where they were and why they had cutters or not!

14:50 -17:45

Back on the counter

Another stapler request!

Someone phoned about a password reset, once I’d done this I also explained how to navigate the VLE.

A new international student came in – they wanted a SCONUL card and a quick induction to the library. Its quite hard to give all the information someone needs without overwhelming them so I stuck to the basics, gave them their library pin, showed them the printing kiosks and printers and the library catalogue. I also gave them their academic librarian’s contact details.

I then had a journal enquiry. According to our website we had electronic access to a journal but in practice it didn’t seem to be working out, had to tell the student to contact their librarian the next day and check again. Also explained interlibrary loans to them.

Someone set their gate alarm off but the alarm was saying it was set off by a book they didn’t have (they really didn’t have it as I got them to walk through without their books) so still not sure what was going on there but we checked their record and there was nothing which would cause them problems in the future.

I issued myself a dvd (feel its time I watch the wire!) and there was a bit of confusion about where the dvds were which we resolved!

I had another journal equiry. Basically the same as the first so I ended up emailing the journal team to alert them to a potential problem.

17:45 – 18:00

Packing up. Have to put a tannoy announcement out that the counter is closing but the library remains open 24 hours. We lock up, put the till away and email stat sheets to senior management.

This was quieter than a Sunday normally would be, like I said the time of year and snow had an impact, but I think it shows a good overview of what I would do (and the biscuits all went so I think I’ll keep that habit up!)

Library Day in the Life – round 8 (Friday)

Friday

First task of the day – seeing if there are any holds on books at the cataloguing stage. Every Friday I get a report which tells me which books have holds on them, I then find them and move them to the top of the queue so that the person who wants it gets it asap!

Then I started cataloguing; I already mentioned that a lot of our stock comes shelf ready with a catalogue record already attached so a lot of what we do is the more complicated stuff; foreign languages, art, etc. (difficult for a newbie but its great to start on the tough stuff!). When cataloguing I first check I’m in the right record (obvious but important), I then check the ISBNs match and then I see if I can download a record from somewhere like the British Library or Library of Congress (whilst between the two they have a heck of a lot of books, they don’t have all the books; although it would be wise to do a variety of searches before you give up!). I then tinker with the record (or work from scratch), adding things my institution requires and taking things out they don’t (especially if its an older record, things change!). I then authorise any names and try classify the books.

I worked on the counter for an hour where I handled password resets, fines, helped a student look for electronic journals and had a hold transferred between libraries.

Before lunch I did a cataloguing worksheet my manager gave me, I didn’t get them all right but I did understand why I’d got them wrong (I didn’t click far enough into the schedule, oops!)  which is progress.

For the rest of the day I catalogued and looked through my cataloguing with a colleague. In between this I also contacted some people regarding a visit to an NHS library for the graduate trainee I mentor, NHS librarians do amazing work so I think it would be really beneficial for her to see them in action!

That’s the end of my ‘library day in the life’ as far as my cataloguing role goes. As I mentioned I’m new which is why my days are all fairly similar, I’m doing the same things so that I can learn them through practice; it’s a complex job where the smallest mistake can end up effectively hiding your stock from your users!

Library Day in the Life – round 8 (Thursday)

Thursday

I start the day by doing our new book report; each month a list of all the new stock the library has purchased is created and its my job to create a list to be put on the website as a promotion. I basically just need to see if I can find a connection (if we hadn’t bought a number of books in one specific area I could always do a ‘look we bought books for everyone!’ type report) and this month I picked education and teaching. I need to check the books are on the shelves (sometimes there in transit between sites and its not brilliant to point people in the direction of books they can’t get there mitts on just yet) and then put together a document I email to the web team. Its not a massive job but its interesting for me to do as obviously I see a lot of the stock and so will have an idea about what subjects have been stocking up on new books.

Next I finish up checking the authority records I was working on yesterday. There are a couple of dewey numbers that, while I don’t disagree with, I can’t quite see how they were built so I sit with a colleague who explains (literature numbers seem hard!)

I then worked on the counter for an hour where I dealt with password rests, room bookings and helped students search the catalogue, place holds and use the self-service machines (I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, self-service doesn’t mean staff are no longer needed!).

After lunch I went to the launch of our new search tool; the students were wanting something more like Google (somewhere to do an initial search before students feel more confident and move on to more complex methods) and so we found something. These things don’t happen over night mind, its been over a year of hard work by many staff looking for the right system and making sure it was implemented properly. It was especially important for me to go as I’ll be showing students how to use it on the counter and, as a cataloguer, it’s good to know the ways students will be looking for our materials.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon cataloguing books and off-air recordings (tv shows we’re allowed to have on dvd in the library); when it comes to cataloguing you need a good eye for detail as every full stop, dash, comma, whatever is really important – you can’t miss one out and you can’t add one in when they’re not needed either! You also need to make sure you are consistent and that series match.

I also dealt with the authority records for names and subjects if they were people or organisations (I’m learning cataloguing step by step, that’s why my days are quite similar at the moment). I then had a go at classifying them and getting the cutter right (the three letters that are sometimes are the dewey number) sometimes they’re filing (meaning people can use them to search on the catalogue e.g. in the 800s if its an author like Dickens you can search using that number for all our Dickens stuff), sometimes non-filing and sometimes we don’t use them!

Library Day in the Life – Round 8

Wednesday

For the last three days of the week I work as a cataloguer, with Wednesday being my short day. I only started in November so I’m very much in the training stages.

To start with I looked over the records of some books I had catalogued last week with a colleague. I find this really helpful, it means I can ask all my questions in one go (without getting up and interrupting every five minutes!) and looking back over my work means that sometimes I spot my mistakes myself (seriously where the full stop goes is very very important!) We also looked at the classmarks I’d created for the books, classification is important as it makes it so much easier for people to find useful resources but its quite hard to master!  My library uses the Dewey Decimal System (DDC) and I’ve only used it as a library user before so I’m pretty much learning it from scratch (languages are in the 400s!) Happily I did class a couple of books correctly today which is an improvement, and the people training me really know their stuff so I’m in good hands!

After a short break where I had another catch up with the grad trainee I mentor I began looking at authority records. Cataloguing is all about making sure people can find the books they need and authority records are an important part of this. The authority records I’m currently looking at are names and classmark.
Its important books are under the correct author, which isn’t necessarily as easy as it sounds, think of how many John Smiths there must be writing books out there! So we need to check on Library of Congress (LC) authority records first and see how the authors name is written (does it have 1953- after to signify when they were born?) and if there isn’t a record there, looking at the British Library (BL) catalogue to see if they have the author listed. Once we’ve found the name it’s important to make sure it’s the right person, sometimes it’s as easy as looking at the LC authority record and other times you may need to look at the LC or BL catalogues; all these steps mean that if you are interested in books about cheese by John Smith born in 1934 you don’t see books about churches by John Smith born in 1809 included in your list! After doing this I also need to make sure we don’t have any old records by the same author under incorrect headings, if we have more than one record for the same author it means people won’t be able to search our catalogue as effectively as they should be.
I also checked the classmarks, a lot of our stock comes shelf-ready (meaning it has a catalogue record, labels and a classification by the time we get it) and so the DDC number its been assigned needs to be checked sometimes. I’m not doing this as quickly as people normally would as I’m using this as a chance to learn more about DDC and how numbers are built.

Library Day in the Life – Round 8

Tuesday

I have two part-time librarian posts so my working  week starts on Tuesday. Tuesdays are part of my weekend librarian role (with the other day being Sunday) that I only started a few weeks ago; that’s why this Tuesday was mainly training!
The training for my weekend role has to cover a lot of areas, on a Sunday there’s no other staff in and no other departments open so I need to be able to help the students as much as possible and give them all the help I can on topics such as invoices and inter library loans that during the week you could refer to another colleague

10:00-10:30

I started my day by shadowing the information assistant on the counter. Generally my role is to help people with such as subject enquiries, such as searching databases, but on a weekend the lines between the roles are a bit more blurred, plus sometimes I’ll be in a supervisory role, combined this means I need to know at least the basics of what everyone does!
My half hour on the counter mainly consisted of taking payments for fines, renewing books, dealing with enquiries about reservations and issuing and returning books when people were unable to do it for themselves (sometimes people think self-service means there’s no need for staff, definitely not true!)

10:30-11:00

Then I had a session learning about collection maintenance, the tem responsible for ordering books, conducting bibliographic checks (for when someone has requested the 2^nd edition when in fact the book is on the 8^th!) They also handle repairs of books and check the quality of donations; when someone loses a book they can buy a replacement copy but it has to be like new, for example if a book is highlighted in parts it isn’t readable for some people with dyslexia.

11:00-11:30

I then had a chat with the team responsible for providing a library service to distance learners (as a rule if these students manage to come into the library they do it on a weekend). We discussed the service we currently provide and I was shown the library web pages for distance learners which includes an online induction.
We also talked about possible future changes to the service (will the tuition fee rises mean there are more distance learners?) and how to the meet the needs of distance learners who also have a disability.

11:30-12:00

Next up was shadowing an IT assistant (again because I need to know about their role on a Sunday). The first two queries were, bizarrely, the same – a student not only wanted scissors but for us to do the cutting too, and as we’re helpful folk (and they were struggling rather than being lazy) we obliged!

12:00-12:30

Lunch! And a quick catch up with the graduate trainee who I mentor.

12:30-1:30

Time for my regular stint on the counter. During the hour I handled room bookings, password resets and a couple of subject enquiries; two students were looking for a book that wasn’t on the catalogue but that, as their lecturer (who had edited the book) told them it was in the library, I looked for in a variety of places just in case, and then someone was looking for books on how to pass the British citizenship test, after unsuccessfully searching on the catalogue I looked on the public libraries and recommended they go there as it had a number of relevant books.

1:30-2:30

Normally on a Tuesday my main role will be assisting the online team and so in-between training I had a hour to spend on that work.
I updated the dates of our journal holdings on the library catalogue, a small but important job – the catalogue wouldn’t  be very useful to anyone if the information on there was inaccurate!

2:30-3:30

This hour is my regular stint working on the phone and email service. Today it was mainly phone calls and a lot of those were password resets (which are a little different over the phone to in person, security questions are needed!) and questions about the VLE.

3:30-4:30

Just time to have a review of my training and go over anything I was unsure about. I also needed an extra session on how to put a new receipt roll in the till, there’s most certainly a knack to it!

I think working weekends is a great first professional post as I get to see so many different areas. It still amazes me sometimes to see how much it takes to actually run a library, when I was a student I never considered it – the books were just there, they just happened to be in a helpful order, the catalogue was magically updated and basically the library was run by about three people who worked on the counter! How different the truth is!