Library day in the life ... (St-Laurent style) - day 2

I'm confusing myself!

9:25 am - Arrived late, because I had to return my Holter monitor to the hospital. Ripping those little tentacles off (+ surgical tape) hurt like hell! Announced my presence to staff and chatted with the circulation supervisor (she introduced me to a new volunteer, admired my icky Holter bruises, we discussed getting rid of those spinners, and she complimented my new signage in the children's dept... YAY!).

9:30-10 am - Pulled more English pic books for weeding, filled displays in children's, left tasks for staff.

10-11 am - Prepared board game SRC program for this afternoon, read e-mail and news feeds, sent a few illicit texts re. weekend plans, gave a teacher buying withdrawn pic books a 30% discount, debated with staff about poor air circulation (finally, we called the building maintenance people to check it out...)

11 am - noon - Collection development work. I select children's English non-fiction for the DDC areas 001-398 and 921-999. Wednesdays is my collection development day; this summer, it's a bit messed up because our SRC activities are on Wednesdays, so I am also making up the lost time on Wednesdays on other days. I also do CD work every 2nd Tuesday evening (are you confused yet?) Anyway, last night was CD night, and I finished going through the July School Library Journal, so today I am focusing on a new area that I have recently accepted as part of my CD portfolio: the children's professional literature collection. This circulating collection consists of material that is useful to ECEs, children's programmers, and librarians - loooong story, but basically there used to be a prof lit room at Main. That got axed awhile ago, but prof lit collections are still around in branches and have been sort of orphaned. I'm working on an analysis of what we have, why we have it, what we should keep, what we should add, and where it should go. So, basically, a total re-vamp of the collection. My first move, today, is to run a list in Horizon of what we currently own, where it is, and when it last circulated. Turns out we have nonfic, periodicals, and picture books hiding in there!!! A total of 578 items, and 101 haven't been checked out since 2004. Hmmmm.

12:25-12:40 - personal phone call (shout out to Yvonne!) re. weekend plans. Mwa ha ha! Rez event!

12:40-12:45 - Lunch. Salad. Pathetic, eh?

12:45-1:45 - Replacing colleague who is on lunch + setting up for SRC activity + orientation for volunteers helping out with SRC activity. Mad, crazy busy. I also answered the following queries:

• Picture books about Native Canadians for a teacher (handed her Leo Yerxa titles and Jenneli's Dance, among others: "Thanks so much! These are great!"


• Harry Potter x2 (one Q in English, one Q en français)


• Beacon Street Girls


• Pirates of the Caribbean DVD


• Can I sign up for SRC?


• Why do you keep track of every book I read over the summer? (answer: because we keep stats and tally up how many books every kid in Ottawa reads over the summer!!! *Child's eyes go wide like two saucers...* AND the government wants to know (OK, LAC, but still The Man!)


• Where do the teen games get shelved? (staff Q!)


• Can I have a new poster for SRC? - mine ripped (TD, I love you, but those posters are craptastic!)


• What are those I spy questions over there for? (we have an "I spy" window display and handouts with "can you find...." questions)


• Series: Sisters Grimm


• Can I sign up for SRC? + can my brother? + oh, and my sister, too?


• Can I reserve The Vile Village and The Ersatz Elevator?


• I read 5 books! Can you mark down for SRC?


• Can I use the phone? x 5 million


• Dude who wants to volunteer for the library


• Can I renew my books, please? It's not working when I do it online....

All while surreptitiously eating carrots (eating 3/4 of that salad isn't doing it!)

2 - 4 pm - Spy and detective-themed board games! Verdict: I spy 3D is my favourite for today! Not my favourite is the father who routinely leaves his two daughters alone in the library for the program, despite repeated warnings from me. Next time, I'm documenting.

As I was re-deploying my long-suffering teen volunteers (they helped with the games, then cleaned up, then did some artsy crafty stuff for next week's SRC activity, then stamped some of those withdrawals, then cleaned some old dusty reference books I rescued from the workroom!) I ran into an old friend, who actually came in for more books about Frank Lloyd Wright, because her book club is reading Loving Frank (read it. It's fabulous). Then my former boss called to discuss magazine orders for my former branch, and we ended up talking about The Heart Specialist, which he's reading.

And now it's 4:50 and I still have tooons to do. I may just have to make a really good to-do list and call it a day. Oh, and scramble to find tasks for tonight's staff. Goody - the volunteers didn't finish all the withdrawals. Staff can do that. I have to go across town now to buy a bus ticket for Saturday. Sigh.