Librarian Day in the Life 8 – Monday #libday8

It’s come round again! This week I am going to take part in the Library Day in the Life project again. The idea came from Librarian by day and gives librarians a chance to document what they do. There is a twitter hastag if you want to follow on twitter #libday8 and Flickr, you tube and other blogs will be tagged with something like: librarydayinthelife or #libday8.

I’ll blog every day about what I have done. Some posts will be more interesting than others! (Assume every day includes writing and replying to emails and drinking LOTS of tea.)

Looking back today was interesting for me but probably less so for people reading it but I guess the point is to show people what a varied job we do. My main complaint about today was the lack of time for lunch … I also had a drastically reduced tea intake.

The majority of today (4 1/4 hours of it) was spent in a closed card sorting exercise for an online project I am working on. The session was run by one of the web team, Rik, and he had some fancy software which recorded what was happening. Three students took part individually and this was why it took so long. I was merely observing but it was interesting to see how students thought things went together compared with how we thought they should. It was also interesting to see the differences in how the students approached the task.

I think user studies are very useful and can help inform web design but they are also very time intensive. Also in my role there needs to be a balance between what users think they need and us ensuring they get what they actually need. Saying this I always have time for examining the reality of what people do.

Before the card sort I finished off a presentation and PDF guide to go on my citing and referencing subject guide. I’m doing a troubleshooting citing and referencing session with Management students tomorrow and although I won’t be delivering the full presentation it is useful to be able to direct them to it. The guide is a essentially the PowerPoint as a PDF but the contents page is clickable which should help students navigate it easily. In addition to this I did a blog post covering various frequently asked citation and referencing questions.

Tonight, just to keep up the library theme, my friend Sarah Ison who works at Brighton is coming for dinner. We probably won’t just talk libraries …

Library Day in the Life – day 2

Today I had my corporate induction at City which was really helpful in mixing with other new staff, seeing who’s who and understanding what the university is about. That took up all the morning but went quickly. This was probably helped by the fact that my lovely friend Jessica started working at City yesterday and got herself on the induction. When we hugged goodbye outside I thought the other people might think the induction had been a really good bonding exercise!

After lunch at the induction (very nice sandwiches and vegetable crisps) I did some emails and tried to work out what to do about the web pages as it appears I can edit some other ones which I will be involved with but not the key subject ones. The others I can edit are exciting Information Literacy ones which were produced before I got there but I will be working on.

I then went to Grays Inn Place for a Web Development Group meeting. Grays Inn Place is a beautiful Inn of Court and where City Law School is. We only met 3 weeks ago but the main point of this meeting was to do a card sorting exercise with the FAQ section of the library website. It was really good to look at how they can all fit together and also whether the FAQs were answered obviously on the front page of the website.

I’m really enjoying my new role and can’t wait to head back after my operation and really get stuck in.

Library Day in the Life – 6 Introduction.

My name is Helen Westwood and I am the subject librarian for Cass Business School. I only started this job in December but am really enjoying it! My previous role was establishing the LRC at INTO London.

This week (or at least the first 3 days of it) I am going to take part in the Library Day in the Life project for the first time (I’m hoping it will kick start me blogging here!). The idea came from Librarian by day and gives librarians a chance to document what they do. There is a twitter hastag if you want to follow on twitter #libday6 and Flickr, you tube and other blogs will be tagged with something like: librarydayinthelife

The wiki with a list of who’s taking part and links to their blogs etc is a good place to see the variety of librarians.

I’ll only be doing it until Wednesday as on Thursday I am having jaw surgery and won’t be doing much librarian-ing.