Wednesday – A day in the life of a librarian

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demonstrating Google chat to patrons

Wednesday 7/9/08

Tonight is one of my late days because computer/internet classes are tonight.  Nikki & I take turns teaching a series of classes that vary from basic to advanced.  Tonight Nikki is teaching Microsoft Word so I get to be Vanna, assisting, troubleshooting & helping patrons when they run into a problem. 

I get up and after making coffee, check all email accounts from home. Then since I don’t have to be at work until this afternoon I try to relax so I a play video game.  When I get too frustrated because I’m dying I check FriendFeed and Twitter and see Lori Reed has created a wiki for the Day in the Life idea.! awesome! Apparently I do have the ability to start a meme. 

I pretty much waste the morning though, it’s hard to be productive in the mornings when I work that night.  🙂

At noon I arrive in the office, check my email again, send replies, forward etc.  I send an email to a database vendor thanking him for the personal training he gave our staff last month and ask him about database stats,

Then I head across the street, (library staff work in two different buildings) to talk with the Head Reference Librarian.  Just general how are things going?  Anything new happening in the Reference Department? Anything I need to know for my shifts on the Reference desk? 

currently on display in the Art Gallery

Since the Day in the Life wiki is filling up I spend some time trying to convince my coworkers to write guest posts for The Day in the Life as none of them keep their own Library blog.   None of the Librarians here have the same title or duties so I think it would be interesting so see a perspective from within one library. 

Next I check Missouri Libraries group I created on Facebook, acknowlege that I spelled “libraries” wrong, hope tech support fixes, mark this down as public humilation for the month. 

Then it’s time to check the digital camera for new pictures.  We keep a digital camera that anyone can use in the main library, a couple of times a week I download images from it and upload them to Flickr. I took some pictures of the new Art show in the Art Gallery then uploaded the pictures, title and tag them. 

Nikki & The Director pushing the mobile computer lab cart

At 5 Nikki comes by my office so we could push the mobile computer lap across the street to set up for the class.   We set up for class, Nikki teaches and I assist patrons.  We also demonstrated some things patrons wanted to know about that were not related to the class, like email attachments and the gmail chat feature.  Around 8 patrons leave and we take down the computers and talk about how the class went.  I head home around 8:30 pm.

I took these notes last Wednesday as part of The Day in the Life project, if you’re interested in reading more or documenting your own day, please add your name to the wiki.