Library day in the life, Round 7, Thursday!

Thursday, Thursday....

I read my Google Reader news on the bus this morning. I experimented with a different bus route, which sort of worked out and sort of didn't. I was later than usual, but I think that could be remedied for future similar trips. Blah. I hate being late. It throws me off.

8:40-10:20ish - Varia, including: dealing with an employee's ID pass that had gone haywire (I love calling the city's Badge Master, if only so I can say BADGE MASTER), doing a demo of our new Smart Bins for staff, voicemail, scheduling a meeting, sent some e-mails, called the garage to log some maintenance requests on one of the Bookmobiles, approved leave requests, checked out my own holds, read AL Direct, worked on the same report I was working on yesterday, and checked out who has mac'n'cheese now that my favourite place is re-locating. I am SO SICK of tofu and sweet potato.

10:20ish - coffee from "By the Book," the Friends of the library shop here at GB. On my way back, I found Maurice! This only means something to you if you visit Greenboro Branch .... See here for a clue.... I e-mailed the children's staff to let them know, since I've been joking that finding Maurice will be my weekly "break."

10:20 - lunch - Developed "cheat sheet" for staff about the new Bookmobile communication procedure, including how to add shared mailboxes in Outlook and import signatures for generic messages we will be sending. Read more about what the heck that is here. Also, long conversation with patron on the phone.... don't ask..... and then patron called back 5 mins later to follow up.....

Noon - peeled crust off PB sandwich. Le sigh, version 2.0. Printed up next week's Bookmobile schedule x2 (office, both buses) and fax staff timesheets.

12:20 - Finished returning voicemails from my "sick leave," including three conversations in French - hooray! We're pretty much full up for volunteers right now in most branches. Some great resources for volunteer opportunities that I am suggesting to interested students (and including in my form response e-mails) are the City of Ottawa’s volunteering page and Volunteer Ottawa's website (Volunteer Ottawa is a United Way agency offering a volunteer recruitment and referral service for over 300 not for profit groups in the Ottawa area).

Afternoon - Handled a patron request to transfer holds from a Bookmobile stop to a branch (people call the Bookmobile extension, which I can pick up from my office if no one is around - since I get so few interactions with the public these days, this is usually kind of fun for me!), used an employee as a guinea pig for the draft cheat sheet, went over new communication procedure with three other employees, received a "Moose Hunter Extraordinaire" certificate for finding Maurice from GB children's staff (!!!!!!), read Migrant by Maxine Trottier (staff pick from Westmount Library's Facebook page, about a young girl whose family are Mennonite migrant workers in Canada...), e-mailed some orders and a job request to the city's IT peeps, more e-mail.....

2:35 - break to go outside, restore normal body temperature (air conditioning too strong), and swing on the swings in the park. Return 2:50.

Rest of afternoon: as above, more randoms, including reviewing Fall Preview submissions, more (different) hairy overtime questions (resolved, maybe, for now....), e-mail, updating procedures, and making tomorrow's to-do list, all done while taking rodent-sized bites of canned peaches.

File under "Things I never thought I would be doing:" making an information flyer about an incinerating toilet (for new staff on the bus to use as a guide).

Finally, I escaped, bringing some work reading with me for the bus ride because I didn't get to it today (I always put reading on one side of my desk, the side with the nice little mood light, with good intentions of turning said light on, creating some Ambiance, and actually said reading, but, um, it rarely happens).

But, in the interests of full disclosure, I didn't read it on the bus, either. Instead, I brooded about a situation today. Not great.... but there you have it.

Tonight: hosted a friend for dinner! (so yes, that got my mind off the above).