Library Day In The Life

Library Day in the Life seems to be the latest blogging craze, so I thought I would join in! I chose to document this Thursday, as it was a fairly typical day with quite a high workload. It was also my evening duty this week, so this post is rather long!

9am: Arrive at work, and perform my opening duties - switch on upstairs computers, photocopiers, etc. I also collect the change from the photocopiers, note down the amount of copies paid for / photocopier cards bought and sort out the till before we open.
9.20am: Note down journal usage statistics - which journals have been used in the past day and, for high-use titles, which particular volumes and issues. Re-shelve used journals, as well as any books from our “A” section (reference – primarily dictionaries, bibliographies, etc.)
9.45am: First reader arrives to use the Turville-Petre Room – this houses the Icelandic collections, which are kept behind locked grills and unlocked as needed. The room itself is a popular study environment for postgrads, who need to be signed in/out.
9.55am: The JISC LIS-WEB2.0 mailing list is engaged in a discussion about social networking use in libraries, arising from proposals to move some of the discussion to Twitter. It is interesting to see the differences between attitudes - some libraries have banned sites such as Twitter and Facebook outright (both for readers and staff), whereas others actively encourage it – finding it to be a useful resource, particularly for publicity and engaging with readers.
10am: Sort through the post, some of which evidently arrived whilst I was at training on Wednesday afternoon. In amongst the post, some new journals have arrived – these are checked in, processed, and then taken to the librarian, who reads them for relevant news before they are put out on display for readers, and eventually onto open shelves. Today's arrivals included the final issue of a subscription, so I also needed to change the OPAC details to ensure they reflected this.
10.25am: The serials claims, notifications of periodical titles we had expected to receive but have not yet arrived, prints off automatically - and today there are quite a few. I work through these - checking when each issue is scheduled to be published, and notifying our suppliers of those that should have arrived but have not. Note any upcoming / “expected” journals in diary, as well as any dates for re-claims, etc.
11.25am: Processing new acquisitions. A donation last week (transferring books from one of our previously uncatalogued collections to the open shelves in the main library) led to lots of processing and cataloguing work. There are still some items from this collection to be backed and made less fragile, but now the move is mostly complete it's refreshing to have some new arrivals! These particular acquisitions came to us already partially processed by the supplier, and so are relatively simple to get ready for shelving.
11.45am: A brief interlude of photocopier maintenance!
10.50am: Back to processing – and now onto the slightly less straightforward books. These are usually donations or from alternative suppliers, and so will need labels and backing when appropriate. One book came with a (rather cumbersome) selection of folded A4 supplemental, so attempted to fashion a “pouch” to hold these at the back of the book. Noticing more and more books need "Also available as an e-book" stickers - very handy, particularly with in-demand reading list titles.
12.40pm: Start of a new year means new volumes – now that the broadsheet periodicals are onto their second issue of 2010, label up new boxes to store the older issues in. Whilst putting these out, help a reader to find a mis-shelved book.
12.50pm: A very processing-heavy day today, due to the backlog from last week. Onto the DVDs now - including a boxset containing two films which are each being catalogued as a separate item. Have my first go at using Picnick to alter and print new covers and inserts for each box.
1.30pm: Lunch
2.30pm: More post arrives - sort through it, taking any post for other departments to the porters, and check-in / process more periodicals. A priority DVD also arrives, which is needed for a screening next week, so I process this and place it on the reservations shelf ready for collection.
4pm: A reader requests a book from the Rare Books Room,
4.30pm: Count and record number of readers currently in the library in preperation for evening duty.
5pm - 7pm: Evening duty on the desk. Evenings are generally a bit quieter than during the day, so take the chance to work through some more of the books which need backing in between handling enquiries.