Librarian Day in the Life 7 – Thursday #libday7

Another pie chart. It would be better as an actual pie.

By far the largest part of my day today was filming with Sam for the induction video. After being somewhat surprised to discover the place we got the camera from last time had turned into a building site we tracked one down and set about recording more footage for our video. We accosted politely asked some students to talk to us about the library and had a surprisingly high number of positive responses to being filmed. Looking at the footage some of it hasn’t the best sound or has a bit too much ambient sound but I think we can use a lot. I think it is good to use students talking Vox pop style in videos so that it’s not just us saying how good the library is. I love the University of Warwick’s video clips (1 min 46 is the best quote!).

We also had a site meeting where we were updated on the library strategy and various other plans but there’s not much to report from it.

I finished my appraisal form and sent it to my Line Manager. I also did a bit more on my application for the MA in Academic Practice  which I hope to start in the new academic year.

Pretty much today was a  catching up with things and videoing day.

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Librarian Day in the life – day 1

Today has been a slightly frustrating day in that I’d planned to create my Subject librarian webpages (like the great ones my colleagues did before I got here) which I have been preparing content for since before Christmas. First I couldn’t do it because I needed CMS (Content Management System) training, then I needed to be approved to use the CMS  and so on … Today I logged on only to get lots of error messages. In the end ten minutes before I left I had access. I’m going to have to find time tomorrow and Wednesday to get something done before I finish for the op on Thursday.

Apart from web frustration I did have a really good session on the Reception Desk. It’s lovely being busy, answering students queries – even the things that seem little to us can be a huge relief to a student. The reception/issue/combined services / circulation /help desk (or whatever they are called in the library you work in) is so important to student’s experience of the library.

I’m still pretty new at City and this was only my second desk session. I did find myself asking my colleagues a fair few questions which in previous jobs I would have just known. Every library does things differently and I do have to remind myself I worked at my first University for 9 years and so knew the system inside out. In my next role I set the system up so obviously knew what was going on. Almost every student has a different query. One of the skills librarians develop is being able to work out what a student really wants from what they say (even if what they say bears little relation to what they say) but when you are new somewhere and finding your way it can be more difficult to do this. I really enjoyed the desk and look forward to the time I just know the answer!

The other main working event today was using and learning about Google Analytics. I love statistics, analysing them, questioning them, think of the things they aren’t showing us. I’m going to be using it on the University’s library pages which will be fun!

I think it’s safe to say that my day was not a stereotypical librarian’s day – although I did issue some books and take some fines so maybe not so different!