My days seem to be blending together
at work. It is hard to differentiate between them. Today I
continued working on my homebound book lists and I got started on my
second-to-last patron. I took a break from looking for books to dig
out the forms each patron originally filled out that listed what
types of books they like. Some are more detailed than others but I
added all the information to the Excel spreadsheet where we keep
track of all the books we have taken them. Previously I have mostly
looked at the books they have been given and trying to find similar
ones, especially if the patron made a note saying they liked the
book. This was a bit hard and pretty time consuming. I hope my new
method makes things a bit easier. I've only used it for one patron
so far but it did seem to speed up the process and gave me a little
more to work with rather than just staring at a giant list of books
in a spreadsheet.
I helped patrons throughout the day
at the library. I helped one lady print a bunch of pictures by first
downloading them, extracting them, and putting them into a Word
document so we could get two on a page. I helped a mom and daughter
download and extract their pictures so they could view them as a
slideshow, rather than one at a time. I also showed a woman where
are books on glassware are. And I think that is it. Or at least all
that I remember.
This afternoon we had our
departmental meeting. Before the meeting two of the librarian's from
the children's side of the library came over to cover the reference
desk so we gave them a brief tour of where things are and what they
might have to do. I think the one thing we didn't point out were the
ceiling fan controls, and the first person that came to the desk
after the meeting started asked about turning the ceiling fans on.
Live and learn.
The meeting went well. It started
with the head of technical services talking to us about weeding and
the upcoming weeding of the non-fiction section. The fiction section
I think is fully weeded now of all the old duplicates, which I
believe she said decreased our collection by around 7,000 books. The
goal is to go even further because she doesn't want books on the top
shelf where people can't reach or the bottom shelf where no one wants
to look. A smaller collection will also allow us to put shorter
shelves in the middle of the fiction section which won't block the
back windows, which the current tall shelves do block. One of the
goals with the weeding of the non-fiction is to get rid of a shelf or
two in order to open up more space for tables and seating because
there is never enough room for that. We were given the sections each
of us is supposed to weed and we have quite awhile to work our way
through those. Some people really love weeding but I don't think I
will be one of those people. I will most likely be a conservative
weeder, which is okay because it will offset the eager weeders.
We were apparently supposed to talk
about the reference interview webinars we watched or articles we
read, not just post our notes on the staff blog. Whoops. Three of
us forgot to bring our notes because I don't think any of us realized
we would be talking about it in the meeting. The other two winged it
but I quickly pulled up the blog on my phone so I could read bits out
of my notes.
Other things happened in the meeting
but I'm losing interest talking about it and I'm tired. So let's
move on.
The meeting ended shortly before
five o'clock. I was scheduled until six o'clock but planned on
leaving at five o'clock because this Saturday I will be working nine
and a half hours and need to lose an hour and a half this week. I
got a half hour yesterday and an hour today, so I'm good now. Right
before I left my practicum supervisor came up to the desk with one of
her coworkers, who actually graduated from the same program I did, I
think a year before me, maybe six months. We chatted for a little
bit and then I headed out.
I stopped briefly to mail a bill and
then headed to Chipotle. My bowl was good but not amazing. I fear I
am getting into a Chipotle rut and probably need to change up my
order again. When I was done eating I started showing YouTube
videos. It's been two or three weeks so there is quite the backlog.
I had other things to do tonight so we didn't watch them all but we
got a start.
I planned on spending my night
quickly remaking the scavenger hunt app using the new email account
my practicum supervisor set up, and then taking the rest of the night
to grade assessment responses. This changed however when I got
downstairs and checked my phone. I missed a call from my grandma and
she left a voicemail saying a family member was doing genealogy stuff
and my grandma thought she had a map of where some of her relatives
had lived in Montana. I spent the next however long working my way
through the stack of boxes I have of the stuff that was in one of her
cedar chests. I found the map in the very bottom of the box on the
bottom of the stack. I had actually almost given up because I didn't
see anything map-like, but then kept digging in the bottom of the
last box out of curiosity. Good thing I did. I also found some
other genealogy stuff, which may be of use.
After I found the map I called my
grandma back. She was glad I found the map and said she also thought
there might be a death certificate and a wedding certificate in the
boxes. I'm pretty sure I came across both but that I didn't think
much of them and put them back in the boxes. The boxes which I had
already packed back up in my closest because as I went through the
boxes originally I had stacked them up in front of the door to the
closest and was unable to get out without putting the boxes back. My
grandma and aunt are coming to town on Monday so at some point over
the weekend I will need to go back through the boxes and find those
documents as well.
That whole process took awhile, some
of it my own fault because I got distracted by looking at old
pictures and documents. I love that sort of stuff, especially when
it is family stuff. At some point I would like to work in a museum
or archive.
When I was done with that I started
working on the app. That took longer than expected, mainly because I
got caught up in the potential cost of the app. It's free for
personal use but other than that it is a dollar per user. I'm not
sure how it keeps track of that if you don't require users to log
into the app but maybe they have their ways. The app will really
only be for a pilot program, not some commercial enterprise, so I
don't think money needs to be involved. I let my practicum
supervisor know about this and also offered up alternative survey
programs that might be free. We'll see what happens.
That whole process took me past ten
o'clock, which didn't really leave any time to grade assessment
responses. Dang it. My goal was to grade forty-five responses
tonight and I graded zero. Now my goal is to wake up much earlier
than I want to tomorrow morning so I can hopefully get a decent
amount done before I have to go to work.
And it is nearly midnight so I'm
going to go to bed so I can at least get a little bit of sleep before
I have to wake up.
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