Library Day in the Life 2009: Friday

As I was up most of Thursday night feeling a bit under the weather, I did not make it into work today.

I feel the need to comment that this week was unusually quiet. I’m thinking that a look into a day in the library of an academic systems librarian might be more exciting at another time of the year.

Library Day in the Life 2009: Thursday

8:00AM:
I arrive at work. Read my email, listen to my voice mail and go through my RSS feeds. I’m kind of excited that I don’t have any meetings schedule for today.

I spend most of the day writing reports, working on the location code update project and doing a bit of office cleaning. It is definitely a quite and rather uninteresting day. However, I do get quite a bit done.

10:00AM:
We have a library staff coffee hour. We hold this in our cafe because the cafe space is in a cooler part of the building than the staff room. During coffee, we do find out that 3 out of the 4 a/c compressors are now working. As the day passes, it does become apparent that the climate is getting more comfortable. How exciting.

In the afternoon, I do get a couple to support calls. One of our acquisitions people is having trouble posting invoices in our library system. I do some investigating. Some of the fields in an order record are not correct and because of this the items cannot be marked as paid. Fortunately, the invoice in question has only two items on it. I delete the invoice and the person is then able to go into the item record and fix the problem.

One of the reference librarians calls with a problem logging on to a computer with the interlibrary loan account. Unfortunately, I do not have the password. Her options are to call the help desk and have the password changed or wait until the interlibrary loan librarian returns to work tomorrow.

4:00PM:
Time to go home.

Library Day in the Life 2009: Wednesday

When I look back at today, I find that I really can’t remember it all that well. I’m not sure what that might mean. Sadly, I didn’t take good notes today.

7:50AM:
I arrive at work. It is still hot and humid. Everything in my office is sticky. Fortunately, the sun is not out. That should make it less hot. I go through my email, RSS feeds, etc. I respond to questions and followup on items that need my attention. I remember to email my employee so that we can get her performance review stuff settled.

I contiue preparing for a 10AM meeting with college’s web developer about several databases our archivist has that need to be put on the web. I look through her files. They are all in Access databases – which makes me cringe.

9:40AM:
I gather up 5 backup tapes for our library system and head across campus to the IT offices. I need to exchange the backup tapes with the woman who changes and initializes our tapes each day during the week. After exchanging the tapes, I head to my meeting.

The meeting is short. There are no good solutions. I need to discuss this with the web developer and her boss to figure out how IT would like to proceed. I email her boss and now have a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday.

I talk to the archivist to apprise her of the results of the meeting. We may need to start looking at other solutions. I do some research on this.

12:30PM:
I go out to get pizza for lunch. I again eat in my office because the heat in the staff room is worse than my office.

The circulation supervisor finished adding new loan rules to our library system for the new location codes we are creating. So, the project is back in my hands. I start working on next steps and working out a tentative time line.

One of our reference librarians was working on her annual report, complete with statistics. She was having trouble getting her charts labeled correctly. I spent at least 1/2 with her, but we couldn’t get the chart right. Everything we did kept messing up the chart. I think we will try again tomorrow.

3:45PM:
I head home – and am psyched when I arrive at home to feel that my husband put the ac on. Coolness!

Library Day in the Life 2009: Tuesday

7:30AM:
I arrive at work early. Between the lack of a/c and the number of parents dropping off children for day programs, I thought it would be a good idea to get in early. There is a crane in the library parking lot. This is a good sign that there might be some positive movement on the a/c situation.

I start work by going through my emails. There isn’t much to go through, but this is only because I check my email when I am home on my iPhone. I have to stop doing this.

I print out information about the latest release of the software that we use for digital asset management. I have to read through and familiarize myself with some of the new features for a conference call with the vendor at 10:00AM. I will be taking on the application specialist responsibilities for this system.

8:25AM
The vendor that I emailed yesterday about adding our new learning management system as a trusted site in our electronic course management system responded that this is done. I logged in to verify this. All looked good.

I then log into the new learning management system with a training account and start adding links to full-text articles, both proxied and un-proxied. I need to do extensive testing from on and off campus to figure out how best to explain this to faculty.

9:45AM:
Leave my office to walk across campus for the conference call. I could have joined from my office, but decided it would be cooler in the IT office space. I take some pictures of the crane on my way across campus. The call goes well. We decide not to upgrade to the new version of the software. We will just migrate the software from a virtual machine to its own hardware and add networked attached storage. We will also make some modifications to the user account scheme. The vendor will be on campus for three days in August. I feel good about the project.

10:45AM:
I am back in my office. There was a meeting at 10:00AM that I was supposed to attend, but had to skip just finished up. I did 3 more Adobe Photoshop online lessons.

I do more work on performance management forms for FY2010. At the same time, I continue working on my annual report. I feel as if it is taking me forever to finish these things. I will admit that I find it much easier to be distracted by things like cleaning my office, etc. when I have to work on these end-of-the year items.

12:30PM:
Lunch time! Since my office feels cooler than the staff room (due to my open balcony door and my fan), I decide to eat at my desk. I do some of the lessons from the Photoshop CS4 online class. I feel like I’m starting to get a better grasp on layers and selections.

1:00PM:
I talk to one of the reference librarians about web pages. The reference staff is just starting to edit our reference web pages in our college’s new content management system. We are trying to discuss changes to page formats and layouts that might make things less complicated for them. I need to discuss this further with the head reference librarian.

I start to prepare for a meeting that I have with the college’s web developer tomorrow about putting several Access databases on the web. The college archivist has several databases that she needs to put up on the web to allow people to search the archives finding aids. I have a great deal of information to gather.

2:00PM:
I continue some work on the project to change our library system location codes and material types. There has been discussion about material types on the library system user group listserv. I go through these emails.

I answer a couple of phone calls from the IT system administrators. One is a followup question about the digital asset management upgrade. The second is about security audits on college servers. We discuss the library servers.

3:10PM:
I call it a day. The sun is one the backside of the building, and my office is HOT!! I think I plan to put the a/c on at home.

8:30PM:
I check the behavior of the links to library full-text articles in the new learning management system. This is going to be complicated. I need to find out more information about using the LMS as a proxy server or adding the IP’s of the LMS to all of our vendors. I’m starting to worry about how much of this I will be able to do prior to the start of the fall 2009 semester. I decide to worry about it later. I also read my work email and discover an email from the library director about the a/c. Things did not go well today. The a/c is not expected to work before the end of the week at the earliest. Can I wear a tank top and shorts tomorrow???

Library Day in the Life 2009: Monday

I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the Library Day in the Life posts last July. It is a fascinating glimpse at the day to day tasks that various people perform in a variety of libraries. With that, I couldn’t resist participating again this year.

So, here is a look into a somewhat average Monday in my life as a systems librarian at an academic library at a small liberal arts college.

8:20AM:
I arrive at work. As soon as I walk down the corridor on the 2nd floor, I can tell that the air conditioner on the south side of the building (where my office is located) is still not operational. The building is muggy, muggy, muggy. There is a door to a balcony in my office. I open it and turn on my fan. I can tell it is going to be a fun day.

8:25AM:
I sit down to go through my email and voice mails. I was out on Friday so I expect that I will have a higher than normal volume of stuff to go through. I am relieved that all 5 voice mails are automated messages from non-work related sales people. However, I have several things that I need to follow up on. I respond to those people via email who are waiting for responses. I check in with the person who reports to me on an outstanding issue regarding a book-binding application that no longer runs because of an upgrade to IE8. She was able to get IE7 reinstalled and all is solved.

9:00AM:
I talk to the IT trainer to get a username and password for one of the online training sites to which we have a subscription. I need to learn how to use the more advanced functionality of Adobe CS4 – especially Photoshop. I get the information and successfully log in. I find the right online class and complete the first lesson.

9:20AM:
I take a survey from our ILS vendor on a recent software upgrade. While the upgrade went well, I did have to contact the vendor several times in order to complete the process. I feel that I need to take time to vocalize my frustrations with the process in the survey.

9:30AM:
July marks the beginning of our new fiscal year. During July, we must complete performance reviews and set objectives for the coming year. While I have already met with the woman who works for me, I start work on finishing up her performance management review for fiscal year 2009. I find this to be one of the most difficult parts of my job, and it takes me quite a bit of time to get the forms completed. I do finish this document and email the final copy to my employee. However, I do get interrupted and don’t actually finish it until later in the day.

I also start to fill out the forms for my employee’s goals and objectives for FY2010. I finish two of the three goals fairly quickly. I probably will need to wait until my boss (library director) finishes my goals and objectives in order to keep everything in line with departmental goals and objectives.

10:40AM:
I am managing a project in our library to restructure our integrated library system’s location codes and materials types. The hope is that this will add more intuitive limiting capabilities in our online catalog. After a conversation with our circulation supervisor, I add several different location codes, add them to my master spreadsheet and email the spreadsheet to the circulation supervisor.

There is another possible project in ther works to incorporate a collection from another campus department. I also start the structure for adding these new branch and location codes into our library system.

11:10AM
I write up some information about my proposed goals and objectives for fiscal year 2010 for my boss. I figure this will help me set objectives for my employee.

I continue alternating between several of these projects until lunch.

12:30PM
It is lunch time. I go into the staff room to reheat my lunch. There is a broken faucet that is leaking continuously in one of the staff bathrooms. Also, the staff room is more uncomfortable than my office. So, I decide to eat at my desk. I check gmail, my RSS feeds, etc while I eat. Once I finish, I go back to work early.

1:00PM
I start to formulate my thoughts and concerns about the proposed project to add a departmental collection to our library system. Overall, I a in favor, but think there are several issues that need to be resolved. I told my boss that I will be unable to make a library department head meeting tomorrow morning because of a conference call. He tells me that he will call a meeting later in the week to discuss this project and its ramifications. I ask him about a timeline for inclusion, to which the answer is “as soon as we work out our issues.” I guess it really isn’t a proposed project anymore.

1:40PM:
All of my work on performance management plans has given me a framework for the annual report that I need to write for the systems department. So, I start work on this report which is due by August 15th. I vow (like I do every year) to keep better track of what I am doing throughout the year, so that I won’t have trouble remembering what I actually did this past year.

For the rest of the afternoon, I go back and forth some more between all of the currently projects on which I a currently working.

2:00PM
Now that the sun is shining on the backside of the library, my office is getting even warmer. I turn the fan up to its highest setting and then clean my desk of loose paperwork.

3:45PM:
I have a 4:00PM appointment across campus with an IT director to discuss a conference call that we will both be on tomorrow morning at 10:00AM. The conference call is with the vendor of our digital asset management product.  We are migrating the software off of a virtual machine environment and putting it on its own hardware in August. The call tomorrow is in preparation for that migration.

5:10PM:
I get back to my office and get ready to leave for the day. I remember to put my handwritten list of my activities for this post in my bag. I had shut my balcony door when I left for my 4:00PM meeting, so my office is about 90 degrees. I am already sweating. I read a series of emails from the director about the air conditioning. The first email reports that the problem is well on its way to being solved. It should be cooler by the end of tomorrow. But the second email reports a new problem. The motor on one of the units that was just fixed is broken. Both compressors will be replaced tomorrow. However, now the HVAC people need to find a new motor. The director does not expect tomorrow to be much cooler.