DIY Librarian

Friday!

6 am. The alarm goes off. I usually get up early and run or walk with the dog a few times a week, but this week the dog hasn’t wanted to go out in the snow and ice, and I’m resting up for an indoor mile race tonight. While I’m eating breakfast, I spot a couple article I want to post to my work blog. I hope I can remember them when I get to work.

8 am. Arrive at the office. Check my email, respond to one, and look for the articles I wanted to blog. I find one, but the other does not seem to be available in the online edition of our local paper, so I use Google News to find another version. I need to call a foundation and ask for their annual report, but they are in Chicago so it’s still too early to call out there.

Noon. Checked some of my literature search RSS feeds. This is tedious so I try to check them fairly frequently and import the relevant records into EndNote libraries. While I am waiting for each record to load (I am very impatient) I browse through a publisher catalog and select a few items to add to our collection. Answered a cataloging question from a staff member.  Signed off on a book purchase. Requested funds to attend the Population Association of America meetings in April. Received another search request. Now eating a sandwich at my desk and catching up with Facebook, Twitter, and Bloglines.

The afternoon got busy, with trying to finish up a search by the end of the day, working on our difficult document request a little more, talking to our programming manager about our fledgling intranet, and answering a couple drop-in questions. (We generally operate via email and phone, so drop-in questions are a nice change. We don’t have a reference desk in our tiny library.)

4 pm. I leave early to head to my club track meet. I like that my job is pretty flexible so I can do things like this once in a while. Then after the track meet, it’s home for a quick shower and then off to the pub for dinner.

This is the only day this week that I don’t have something scheduled in the evening. While I like being active and busy, I really need the break.

6 am. The alarm goes off. I get up and take a peak outside. It is all frozen slush in my parking area, so shoveling won’t do much good. I pray that I can get my car out, and go about making coffee and cereal.

8 am. I arrive at the office. The drive in was pretty icy. I check my email, briefly look at Twitter, and get to work on this search. I’m glad I checked my email and responded to a few APLIC things last night so I can get right to work this morning. I’m searching for active research grants on a topic, so a researcher can see what’s been funded recently before she submits her own proposal.

9:30 am. Finished part one of the search, which was needed by today. Taking a break to follow up on a document request and a few other things before starting on part two of the search, which is not as urgent.

10:30 am. Catching up on a few library blogs, including an ACRLog post questioning whether we put too much pressure on library conference presenters. (For the record, I don’t think we are the only profession concerned about the quality of our conference presentations. We just notice our own navel-gazing more. The genesis of my annual poster design workshop was a request from a faculty member for help improving the quality of posters at a conference he was involved in.) I am then prompted to update my web page on poster design.

Noon. Eat my PB&J while reading through emails. There are a lot today: more back and forth about the APLIC newsletter, SLA 2009 programs, a request to re-send a file that had problems, information about the LFO meeting I had wrong on my calendar, a question from a staff member about how to search for his publications. Heading over to the library to grab a cup of coffee to keep me going. I haven’t been getting quite enough sleep this week.

The afternoon gets busy: finishing up the search request, responding to emails, talking to a few staff members who drop by my office. I receive another search request, needed by tomorrow, so it looks like another busy day tomorrow.

5:10 pm. Head over to the library to say hello to my husband. It’s been a few days since we’ve talked in person (the problem with the night shift). One of our faculty researchers passes by, so I talk to her about the search results I just sent her. She seems happy. I love moments like that. While I’m at the library, I check out a book I want to read, then head out to run some errands (so much for an evening with no obligations).

6:45 pm. Arrive home. Let the dog out, cook dinner (burritos – my first real cooking of the week), eat, call my grandmother, give the dog a bath, and settle into the armchair with my laptop to finish up the APLIC newsletter and blog launch. Catch up with a few people on Facebook and answer some personal emails.

11 pm. I really need to start getting to bed earlier!

Snow days are rare at this university, so when I woke up to only  a few inches of snow and ice, I knew it was time to get to work shoveling my car out.

6 am. The alarm goes off, and I get up, make coffee, take care of the dog, and eat breakfast while reading the paper. Rushed morning or no, I need my paper. I shovel out the cars, take a quick shower, grab a snack and head out the door, about 20 minutes late. I decide to head straight to my 8:30 meeting, the Libraries Faculty Organization. Because I am classified as staff, not faculty, and because I don’t work for the University library system, I am only an affiliate member, but I try to attend meetings to catch up on what’s going on at the library and to talk to other librarians.

8:20 am. I call the office to tell them I’m heading straight to my meeting. One person is home with her child because the schools are closed today, but the other person is there and has opened the library. I arrive at the meeting, only to discover it’s next Wednesday. Oops. I head over to the office. On the way, I pick up the library’s New York Times, one of the duties of the person who is home today.

9:30 am. Both of my workshops are full. I’m trying to figure out if we can make waiting lists and maybe offer another section, or an online version, of each workshop.

10 am. I enable waiting lists for the workshops and email the students. I’m crunched for time, but excited there is that much interest in these workshops. I have a request to post two internal funding opportunities so I’ll work on that, finish up the APLIC newsletter, and hope to get to a requested search which is due tomorrow.

12:15 pm. I posted the funding opportunities and worked on the APLIC newsletter. The original code (probably generated by an HTML editing package) was a mess, so I ended up starting over with an embedded style sheet. Soon the site will be migrated to a CMS, so we are just getting by for now. I didn’t get a chance to pack a lunch with the snow shoveling this morning, so I ask our data archivist if he wants to go to lunch. We head down the the new Thai restaurant.

1:30 pm. Back at my desk. I have a voicemail, forwarded from the research center’s main line. It is from the man I spoke to yesterday afternoon. I determine it is from yesterday, and I have already answered his question. I explain to a student that we don’t have a copier in the library (it wasn’t generating enough income, so the copy company took it away) and show her a map of nearby copiers. Then back to work on the newsletter.

4 pm. I finally finish the newsletter, and email my APLIC colleagues and ask them to look it over. I think we are set to unleash this and the blog on the world tomorrow.  I’m glad that there weren’t any requests for copies of articles today – my staff person who was home today usually does them, and I just didn’t have time for anything extra. I look over a few emails I need to respond to.

5:05 pm. My other staff person has asked the student who is working in the library to lock up when he leaves. Our one-room library is only open when we are here, 8-5 weekdays, but many students have ID card access to use the library after hours. We don’t have any security, and yet theft among our small user community has never been a problem. Sure, we get a few lost books now and then, but not at a greater rate than any other library, and we’ve had students who graduated and forgot to return their books mail them back to us from all over the world. This system wouldn’t work in every situation, but for us, it’s great.

5:45 pm. I arrive home, after a rather harrowing drive through fields of blowing snow. I change quickly and head over to a friend’s house for our Wednesday evening yoga practice.

8:30 pm. I’m home again. Let the dog out, feed her, and make myself a quick dinner. Eat dinner while checking up on Facebook, Twitter, and email. I’m exhausted and know I’ll be shoveling a bit more snow tomorrow morning, just to make sure my car doesn’t get stuck in all the stuff the snowplows have dumped in our parking area during the day.

Another cold day, and we’re supposed to get snow tonight. Probably not anywhere near enough for the university to close, though.

5:45 am. The alarm goes off. I get up, make coffee, and take my time reading the newspaper and eating breakfast. The Sixers lost so I’m glad I didn’t stay up to watch the end of the game. I take the dog for a short walk, shower, and I’m on my way.

8 am. I arrive at my office, put my lunch in the fridge, and open my email. No meetings today and no new requests, which is good because I have a lot to do. First, I’m making a sign advertising my two workshops for grad students this semester: poster design, and searching for funding opportunities.

10 am. The sign is done. Before I start work on the search, my library assistant asks about a document requested by a faculty member that she is having trouble finding. I do some searching, without any luck, so I email my APLIC colleagues and also try an interlibrary loan (ILL) request.

11 am. I help my data archive assistant prioritize her work. Then I realize that if I am going to get the APLIC newsletter published by the end of the week, I need to get in touch with the rest of the communications committee and start setting up the web pages.

Noon. Track workout on campus. Having a locker room, track, and lots of runners close by is one of the advantages of working on a large university campus.

1:30 pm. At my desk with a hot chocolate and lunch, plus a cookie leftover from a meeting in the building. Check my email, respond to a few things, and get back to work on the APLIC newsletter. I am hoping to finish that and at least get started on the requested search by the end of the day. Everyone is talking about the big storm we are supposed to get tonight.

4:00 pm. Got the APLIC blog set up (almost forgot we are hoping to announce the blog in the newsletter!) and started work on the newsletter. The newsletter pages were designed without CSS in some kind of authoring software. Everything is in tables and the HTML is a mess. I may need to start from scratch. Followed up on a couple leads on the document we are trying to locate. Got a call from someone in a state representative’s office looking for one of our working papers, and directed him to the published version available from the state data center. Answered a question from a student about one of my upcoming workshops.

5:30 pm. Spent the last 90 minutes trying to clean up the newsletter pages and catching up on Facebook, Twitter, and email. Ate some carrots and a piece of cheese to tide me over. Heading to the grocery store, then to a meeting for a race I’m helping out with.

9 pm. Finally arrive home. There is a bit of snow on the ground already, and the dog is very happy to see me. I take the dog out, feed her and myself, put on some music, and catch up with a few things online (including my husband). Trying to mentally prepare myself for shoveling snow tomorrow morning.

Specifically, a day in the life of an Information Core Director. I manage a small library, a sizable data archive, and a lot of information services for faculty researchers at a research institute that is part of a large state university. This is part of the Library Day in the Life project.

It’s very cold this morning, and I have two meetings and a big to-do list on my plate.

6 am. The alarm goes off. I let myself sleep a little later than usual, so the dog gets a short walk, but I still get my quality time with coffee and the local newspaper.

8:10 am. There was a lot of traffic, and an accident on the way to work, so I am a little late. Checking my email, deleting spam, looking at my to-do list. Start with entering new funding opportunities into our database.

10 am. Meeting to discuss our data archive. We agree on some longer-term goals and set project target start and completion dates.

10:30 am. The conference room was chilly so I make some tea, start listening to XPN on iTunes, and check my email again. Answer a few questions, fix a problem with workshop registration, and get back to entering funding opportunities.

Noon. Monthly lunch meeting with core directors. (Our service units are called cores.) We welcome our center director back from her sabbatical and update her on what we’re doing. Topics include software licensing, installing a projector in the computer lab, preparing for our funding renewal application, staff time records, organizing documentation for the data in our data archive, workshops for graduate students, library weeding, and identifying research projects for publicity. The Information Core (my unit) is involved in most of these projects. Lunch is a bit too greasy for my taste, and there is no dessert, but who am I to knock a free lunch in times like these? Now back to working on funding opportunities, and a brief chat with my husband (he works nights so we don’t see each other much during the week).

2:30 pm. I try to help fix a CSS problem, but I can’t figure out what is causing the problem. I finally finish the funding announcements and send them out. Checking on a few things for professional associations (SLA and APLIC) and trying to finish up a requested search by the end of the day.

4 pm. Finished one search, compiled results and emailed to requester. Making a conference registration form for APLIC. Setting up registration for another workshop for grad students.

5:10 pm. Got the workshop registration set up. Didn’t get to start on search #2, so I will have to focus on that tomorrow. Leaving work as night descends. I’m grateful for my staff member filling in for another staff member who was on vacation today, because I just didn’t have much spare time.

6 pm. Meeting some friends for a night trail run. What a beautiful way to end the day.

8 pm. Finally make it home. Bring the mail in, let the dog out, check on the snakes.

8:30 pm. Eating dinner while reading Library Journal and watching basketball.