Library Day In the Life: Day 2, Part 2

Phew!
So, for the rest of today, I have...
11:10 - 12:30 Check Hootsuite to see what people have been talking about & read some articles that seem relevant (this one about the Elsevier boycott shared by @mrlibrarydude catches my eye, as we rely heavily on ScienceDirect and Scopus). Talk to my colleague about the flex day issue. More phone calls about licensing issues (and voice mails). Start to prep for the Regional Library Managers meeting tomorrow - I have 10 minutes to ask them to a couple of things for a new weeding project that the library will be undertaking. Start looking into how some recent donations have been evaluated. Start prepping for an upcoming All Staff meeting for staff in Ottawa.
12:30-1:00: Lunchtime, and I need a break. Eat lunch, catch up on my Google Reader stuff.
1:00 - 1:30: Realize I left my notebook with my prepwork for IM Battledecks either at home or in the car. Curse. Start trying to remember what I had come up with. Recreate my notes. Grab some taxi chits. Start to get nervous. Head out.
1:30-4:00: Arrive, meet & mingle with other presenters. Chat with some people I know. Get started - I'm going second. IM Battledecks was a blast - talked about the theme of IM in Turbulent Times for 7 minutes, addressing a slide deck I've never seen before that advanced automatically. Glad I thought about some stuff beforehand, but there was NO WAY I could have stuck to a script. I would totally participate again, or attend another Battledecks event. We had just over 40 people there (including a couple of my friends, one of whom brought me a VERY welcome Earl Grey Tea Latte - it felt great to have some familiar, friendly faces in the crowd), which is great turnout because the weather is pretty yucky out. My debate training, improv skills, and knowledge all kick in, and I end up winning (kindof gratifying as the youngest one there - I was pretty intimidated when I was asked to participate)! Took home a nice bottle of wine. Thanks so much to CLA Government Library and IM Professionals Network for putting on the event!

Setting the stage...

The awesome crowd right before my speech

All 5 presenters post-battle (note victory bottle in my hand)

4:00 - 5:10: Back at the office. No voice mails, hurray! Huge list of emails, boo! Contact clients with waaay overdue ILLs and ask them to return them; get a call from the guy involved with ASM and clarify the issues (yay!), look into the issue about recent donations, and why they were discarded. Agree with my staff member. Send email to that effect.

WOW. Today was quite the day. The jumping around putting out various fires coupled with the adrenaline rush of IM Battledecks has left me spent. Here's hoping tomorrow is less crazy!

Library Day In the Life: Day 2, Part 1

Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm the Acting Manager, Licensing and Access Services, for Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. Today, I...

8:35 - 10:45: Got in to work a bit late after a slow drive in. Chat with a member of the Access Team* about a bit of an issue that occurred yesterday - a perfect storm of people being off on their flex days and a sick librarian lead to some consternation, and the temporary closure of one of our library locations.** Apparently the Chief Librarian sent an email about it, and I and another manager have been asked to come up with a solution. The main problem is that too many people have their flex day on the same day. Finish settling in and check my voice mail while my computer boots.*** 2 voice mails: One referring to an email that I haven't seen yet, another inviting me to talk about weeding at the Regional Library Managers meeting on Wednesday. Okay - note to self, prep for that meeting.

I check my email and suppress a scream. Apparently, yesterday was a bad day to be out of the office. Start triaging the issues in order of urgency. Check my calendar: Thank goodness, nothing on there until I need to head out to IM Battledecks. I've got some time to put out some fires.

Most urgent are procurement requests, what with fiscal year end coming up. I work on files for subscriptions to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, GeoScienceWorld, RefWorks, ASM (ASM isn't mine - but someone did ask me a question about it, and now he thinks I'm in charge of it. Nope! The person who is in charge is the one who left the first voice mail, so I leave HER a voice mail to try to sort things out, so I know what to tell HIM. Ick, what a mess), Daily Oil Bulletin, Plant Disease, International Journal of Remote Sensing and Remote Sensing Letters. I email Public Works and Government Services Canada to get them involved where that's required.

I also set up a meeting to talk about flex days, and call another member of the Access Services Team about an HR thing.

10:45 - 11:10: Write this! Initially got way more into detail, but it was turning into a (boring) novel, so I edited, too. Now to look at my to-do list and figure out what needs my attention next...

*I currently manage our Access Services Team. I've got 5 awesome library techs who do Inter-Library Loans, Circulation, Shelving, Document Delivery, Serials Control, and other info-access type work.
** Our library system has 13 branches across Canada, and 4 on the NRCan campus on Booth Street in Ottawa. This means staff at 4 libraries - and 4 reference desks to staff. Coupled with some serious staffing challenges, it's been pretty challenging to staff those desks lately.
*** I hate voice mail. Usually, no one calls me unless there is a problem - so my stomach knots as soon as I see that blinking light. Ugh.

Library Day In the Life: Day 1

So, I've decided to sign up for Library Day in the Life, Round 8. This is a project where (surprise!) people who work in libraries document their day, so you can see what a librarian's day is like. There are lots of different librarians who are doing this, and I saw a lot of blog posts/tweets about it last time, so I thought I'd contribute this time around.

(I may also be hoping that it will help me focus, because I expect that this week may be a bit frenetic.)

And now, on to the good stuff!

Hi, I'm Emily, and I'm the Acting Manager, Licensing and Access Services, for Natural Resources Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. Today, I...

8:00 - 11:00: Taught my Records, Information, and Archives Management class at Algonquin College. Today, after a bit of in-class stuff, we had a field trip to the city's ShredIt/Securit facility, and it was cool. We got to see their huge shredder, the bales of paper they make from shredded stuff (and the difference in standard and secret shredding), their records storage facility, and their media vault. I think this helped make some of those records management tasks much more concrete for the students - and they asked great questions. I was really proud of them!

No phones allowed in the facility, so this is the only photo I have.

11am - 3:20: Headed to Library and Archives Canada for the second half of a day long information session on the Recordkeeping Methodology. Had a great lunch (brought it from home) while reading Diamond Age on my Nook, got to see some colleagues and acquaintances, and chatted with the Past-President and Director of Technology of ARMA-NCR, of which I am the current president. Oh yeah, and learned some stuff too. I'm going to need to find time to check out the documents and tools they were presenting and discussing today - I'm pretty sure it is posted to GCPEDIA. Meeting got out 20 minutes early (yay!) so I headed home early, too.

4:00 - 4:30: Get home, spend half an hour brainstorming about IM Battledecks. It's tomorrow, and I'm a little nervous about it. I've got three general ideas (with points for each! My training as a university debater is coming in quite handy as I prep my case...), so I think I should be able to have something different to say, even if I'm not going first.

I'm doing "PowerPoint Karaoke" at the end of the month...

I've been invited to participate in an event called IM Battledecks:“Imagining the Future: Information Management in Turbulent Times.”

I'm excited, but also intimidated. I think it is a lot of fun, but am feeling some pressure to do well - eee!

More info: http://clagov.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/im-battledecks/

Still Alive

Ah, ah, ah, ah...

And plan on staying that way! I hope you had a lovely holiday season, and that 2012 is treating you well thus far! It's been okay for me - a bit tough to get back into the swing of things, but I think I've got it now. Teaching at Algonquin College again this semester should be good (even if it is at 8am on Monday - ick), and work, while stressful (pretty much everyone is quietly freaking out about what might happen with cuts coming from the Deficit Reduction Action Plan and other reviews), is still okay - it helps that I've got good coworkers.