Life as a public librarian means no two days are ever the same. It's one of the reasons I love my job-I never know what to expect each day and each day brings something new. Here's a peek into a day last week:
8:20-Arrive at work, turn on computers, clean off keyboards, get department open and ready to go.
8:40-Meet with new staff member to go over training for the day. This morning I'm taking our new teen associate out and about to meet our school librarians for our partner schools. We're taking the librarians bookmarks of the state book awards to help promote the lists.
8:40-9:05-Drive and visit first area middle school and talk about ideas of what we could do to partner with them.
9:05-9:40-Drive to second middle school and meet librarian. Brainstorm more ideas for partnerships and talk about some book club possibilities.
9:40-10:10-Drive and visit third middle school. The librarian tells us about how they're integrating technology in the school and we talk about ideas for how we can bring programs for the after school crowd.
10:10-10:45-Drive and visit the high school. We talk more about programming and book club ideas and how we can promote the public library at the schools.
10:45-11:00-Drive back to the library.
11:00-11:30-Back at the library and catch up with staff member in the children's department with what's been going on. Community Relations drops off some invites for our upcoming party for our teen review board. Take invites over to teen department and ask teen associate to address the invites to get them ready to mail. We talk about the upcoming teen party and make sure the schedule works so we can attend.
11:30-11:45-Help cover the desk, straighten up the department, check email.
11:45-12:30-Lunch
12:30-1:15-Back from lunch. Check in with employee who came in for the afternoon/evening shift and talk about an upcoming program they are doing. Help cover desk for second employee to have lunch.
1:15-2:00-Meet with other youth services staff to brainstorm ideas for our early literacy space. We put in picture book bins in November and we're trying to reorganize the flow of the department because right now it's a bit crowded and we're looking for ways to make it a bit more organized and make sense. We have early literacy toys, a puppet stage, tables and chairs and we're trying to make a bit more cozy and comfortable.
2:00-3:30-Work off desk in the workroom. I work on cleaning off my desk (it gets so messy and piled up!) and organizing my to-do list with upcoming programs, schedules, and meetings I need to plan. I take a look at tour/library visit requests and make sure everything is scheduled and write down the scheduled dates on the calendar. I make copies of the middle school and high school requests for the YA associate and assign staff for each tour. I talk to one of my staff about an upcoming bilingual babies storytime and look at materials she's gathered and brainstorm ideas of what to have out for the program. I also work on reading through some of the review journals that have stacked up on my desk and prepping everything I need for storytime tomorrow.
3:30-3:45-Break
3:45-5:00-Work on the children's desk, answering patron questions and helping find materials, straighten up department, sign kids up for computers, assist with the self-check machine, check email.
5:00-Head home
Great idea to share out how our days go. Just might have to do this!
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this. Sometimes I forget how much we do in a day
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