This is my first contribution for the Library Day in the Life Project.
Why am I taking part? Two reasons really. The first being that I promised myself that I would start blogging again and this provides me with the ideal opportunity. I face the problem that although I know I want to blog, I have no idea what to say. I mean, where to start? Have I been doing anything interesting or innovative? Often the answer to this is a resounding no so what’s a boring librarian to do?! (If anyone has any tips on how to conjure up blog posts I’d be most interested to hear them!)
The second reason is that I don’t think it hurts to ‘take stock’ and to look at what it is I actually do. Do I really spend most of my day replying to emails? I hope not and I hope to prove it this week!
So here’s a quick rundown of my
It started off with me telling a member of our team that I’ll be leaving the Judge in April. I’m switching sides (scandalous I know!) and have accepted the position of Librarian at Hertford College in Oxford. I’d already told the rest of the team so, now that they all knew, I made a quick announcement on Twitter. Afterwards I quickly drafted my resignation letter to make it official. Gulp!
I then sifted through my emails and offered to help with some of the enquiries. (A member of the team is timetabled to answer enquiries on a particular day of the week and it wasn’t my day but we’d received a lot over the weekend.) So I found myself replying to an email from a member of staff in our Executive Education department about tracking down a case-study before turning my attention to a meatier enquiry from a non-Cambridge student who’s looking to research nineteenth century French businesses.
Then, before I knew it, lunchtime!
After lunch I took a turn at our front desk stepping in for a team member who was unexpectedly away for the day. It turned out to be an afternoon full of bread-and-butter stuff: issuing, returning, renewing, reserving books; advising students how to use the self-service terminal; providing photocopier assistance; topping up printing allowances; explaining how to access our databases remotely etc. In the quieter moments I trawled the web for documents relating to library shadowing schemes as I’m part of a small group trying to set one up here in Cambridge. I also wrote up some notes from a meeting I’d organised about the scheme for a librarian who couldn’t attend.
The end of the day saw me catching up with Andy for a chin-wag, gossip and general moan – I’m going to miss that! All in all, a gentle start to the week and not so manic. Fingers crossed the rest of the week follows Monday’s example.
[It seems Andy isn't the only one who can't resist peppering posts with pop culture references!]
