Library Revolution

I’ve been experimenting a bit with Google Voice lately. While I was at ALA, my phone buzzed with an email transcription of a message left for me by a colleague. The message itself was really clear, and she doesn’t speak with a strange accent or anything, but here si what Google Voice came up with:

“Hi Emily, It’s and a body average. I’ll talk to these I would like to be at 10:30 at the convention center. As a little teeny tiny aware, just as you walk in the front door illegals of about 45 staff at the top of that. I’ll there will meet that he says long dark hair and I have read curly kind of tuftees lines. I’ll be here anyway. We’ll try to meet there on the 4th turn on and we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do see in the morning at 10:30. Thank you. Bye.”

Good thing you can still hear the recorded message!

Since I’m starting to post on ALA 2010, I might as well share one of the highlights: the Battledecks Rumble Royale. If you’re up for a good laugh and some librarian humor, give these videos a look see. As for me, I’m getting the trash talk ready for the next conference…

Oh, and check this out, too… me on the excellent library training podcast, T is for Training: http://tisfortraining.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/t-is-for-training-49-live-ala10-hands-on-titanic-reinvention/

Thanks, Maurice, for including me!

For those of you who asked, here are my slides from my ALA 2010 presentation about having fun during training, meetings, and presentations. It was part of a session co presented with  Anne K. Abate, Ph.D. Executive Director of SWON Libraries (serving Southwest Ohio and Neighboring Libraries) and Denise Vallandingham, Youth Services Librarian, Boone County Public Library KY (her slides are here).

I gave a little Twitter presentation for the wonderful folks I work with today. It was Staff Development day, and some of us covered some different 2.0 tools. Here are my slides for anyone interested. BTW the theme for the fun part of the day (picnic, etc) was Woodstock, thus the opening graphic.

For those of you who may folow me on Twitter, you may have seen me throw a few questions out there over the past week or so regarding Twitter and how we library folk use it. Due to popular demand, here are the results. I’ve put screen shots of all of the responses into a Powerpoint presentation:

Thanks to everyone who responded to me… I don’t know what I will eventually do with all of this feedback, but at the very least it gave me some food for thought and helped me wrap my head around the topic.

Welcome to a typical week in my life as a mother, librarian, and systems administrator for a large library consortium.

Actually, though, it’s not really a typical week because I didn’t have a single training session scheduled, and I was mostly in the office all week. Usually, take the schedule below and add visits to between 2 and 4 public libraries (on average) to answer questions and/or hold staff training sessions on any topic having to do with our automation system. Our libraries are so busy in the summer (especially in our resort communities), that I do have weeks like this in the summer where I don’t do as much training. But it’s usually a big part of what I do.

And, actually, it hasn’t really been a typical week because of some problems we have been having with our system. Don’t even get me started on that.

But here is a bit of a run-down on my week:

Monday, July 27th

6:05 am – Robert, my 3 and a half year old comes in demanding that I wake up because “it light out.” I tell him to go read a book in his room and try to go back to sleep.

6:07 am – Claire, my 6 month old daughter begins to squeal for attention. The day has begun. The week has begun.

6:08 – 8:15 am Assorted chaos as Chris and I try to get everyone fed, dressed, drama free and out the door. Hilarity ensues.

8:15 am – off to drop the kids at daycare and head to work. Once the kids are dropped off, don’t forget to take a moment to sigh and relish a moment of silence.

8:45 am – arrive at the office and take a deep breath before going in. I have nothing particular scheduled today except for a conference call that should b e short. That doesn’t mean there won’t be drama.

8:50 am -12:30 pm A day in the office includes handling a barrage of emails from people in our libraries, taking calls from library staff, troubleshooting a myriad of smallish problems and questions, and monitoring our call center software for incoming issues – all while trying to get some work done in the office and handling some system issues we have been having. Today’s office task centers around preparing some statistics for upcoming meetings, as well as some statistical reports that are incredibly tedious to prepare for 48 libraries.

FYI, A quick sampling of the kids of questions I get all day long via email, phone, and our call center:

• Calls to schedule training sessions. Anything remotely connected to the ILS is fair game. Call me. I’ll be there. This week I scheduled training sessions for Program Registration, Cataloging, Acquistions, and OPAC.
• Troubleshooting for system issues of any kind. Everything from network connectivity problems to software glitches. Bring it on. We’ll figure it out.
• Questions about any system functions. Most of these have to do with Circulation or Program Registration, but again, anything ILS related is fair game. But this usually includes a lot of “what do you think happened with this hold?” or “how do you perform this function?” type questions. Always happy to oblige.
• Establishing or changing codes in the system.
• Calls following up on older or ongoing issues.
• OPAC stuff – with 48 libraries and 83 custom scopes on each of our two Web servers, there is always something to changte or address. Staff also have a lot of questions all the time about how indexes work and aboutpatron OPAC functions.

1:00 pm – Conference Call re: program registration (a short call, thank goodness!)

1:30 pm – more calls, working on reports, etc. Also created a meeting agenda for the Program Registration user group meeting we’re holding on Thursday.

2:30 pm – Oops! Just realized I never ate lunch. Wolf down some tuna and grapes.

2:45 pm – Gotta get some of these reports done before I leave today and get back to the 4 people who called while I was eating.

4:35 pm – Race out the door to get to daycare and pick up the kids.

5:00 – 7:30 pm Chaos.

7:30 – both kids in bed. Collapse in my chair and get back to the emails that have come in to me since 4:30.

All in all, not too busy a day, as my days go. Only 47 emails I had to respond to in total (not including call center calls and phone questions), and I actually got some of the reports I was working on close to done. Plus, we have an agenda for Thursday. Yay multitasking!

Tuesday, July 28

6:00-8:00 am – See Monday, July 27th. Add a little more chaos.

8:00 am – Stop at doctor’s office for a quick blood draw, then head to the office. Got to fit that “real life” stuff in somewhere.

8:45 am – Get to the office and work on emails. This never stops. Also, work on setting up my “to do” list for the rest of the week, prioritizing the items.

9:30 am – Take two phone calls and eat some crackers for breakfast.

10:00 am – Our consortium’s Executive Board meeting.

11:30 am – return to my desk and triage the phone calls, emails, and call center tickets that have come in since 10:00.  Add this stuff to my “to do” list.

11:45 am – 2:40 – plug away at the “to do” list. Some of the things I accomplished:

• Made updates to the OPAC screens of 3 libraries to change links, make cosmetic changes, move things around, etc. Since each of our libraries has at least one (some more like 3-4) custom scopes in each of our two catalogs, making changes is sometimes really time consuming. The handful of changes I made today required changes to 54 html screens.
• Made new custom OPAC screens live for three OPAC scopes (two libraries) on each of our two catalogs.
• Made cosmetic changes to the OPAC screens for our Program Registration interface.
• Went through Program Registration meeting agenda and mode notes about each item so I can intelligently talk about them.
• Exported two large statistical reports and formatted them.

2:40 pm – A colleague asks me if I had lunch yet (they all know I forget). No. Scarf down a bite.

2:50 pm – Back to program registration prep and answering questions from the libraries. Except for the questions and calls related to our ongoing system issues, nothing too pressing. Just helping out the libraries and figuring some stuff out.

4:45 pm – OMG I lost track of time and am going to be late for daycare pickup!!!

4:46 – 7:30 pm Chaos.

7:30 pm – I don’t care if you don’t want to go to bed. It’s bedtime. Goodnight.

7:40 pm – Put the drum away and get back in your bed.

8:00 pm – I can see you peeking out the window. Get back in your bed.

8:30 pm – OK, kids finally asleep. Too tired to check emails tonight.

Wednesday, July 29th

5:30 am – Claire wakes up and screams for a bottle. Good morning!

6:00 am – Robert joins us, but refuses to wear pants. Apparently he is a grown up, and grown ups don’t need to wear pants. Are you in for a surprise, kid!

6:05 am – 8:15 am – Chaos.

Whirlwind morning – OPAC changes for a few libraries, Instructions added to our wiki on several topics, calls from all sides. Crazy.

Took part of the afternoon off for a Doctor’s appointment.

4:00 pm leave the Dr’s office and check my email on my phone. Major system issues. Yikes!

5:00-7:30 Chaos.

7:30 Check back in on the system issues and answer emails from people in the libraries asking questions.

10:30 bed.

Thursday, July 30th

6:00 am – Kids wake up. Chaos.

7:49 am – Getting ready for work in the middle of chaos, get a text message that one of our servers is down. I’d better rush through the rest of the morning and get to the office.

8:45 am – Get to the office. Things are being handled with the server, so I stay out of it and field calls.

9:12 am – All is well with the server again. Whew!

9:30 am – Go to the auditorium to set up for our Program Registration user’s group meeting. Can’t get the screen resolution right for a while, but finally figure it out.

10:00 am – 12:00 pm Program Registration meeting. This basically involves me speaking to a group of about 50 people representing the 23 libraries in our consortium who use Millennium Program Registration. It’s a fun meeting because it’s such a great group, and no matter what I have planned to present, it always turns into a big discussion group with people exchanging creative ideas – my favorite thing to do!

12:00 – 12:30 pm Meeting over, I stick around to talk to some folks and tear down the setup.

12:30 pm – Get back to my desk and start putting documentation for things discussed at the meeting up on our consortium wiki. I catch up on my emails and take a handful of calls form our call center and solve those problems. I also answer a whole bunch of incoming phone calls and get the update from my boss about those system issues I’ve referred to and what the next step is going to be in resolving them. Oh, yeah, and I also changed a bunch of links on OPAC pages for some ouf our libraries.

4:40 pm – Panic! Oh, no, am I going to be late to pick up the kids again? I need an alarm clock.

4:45 pm – 7:30 pm – Chaos. And I mean it.

8:00 pm double check email, but turn off the computer right away. Nothing that won’t wait until the morning.

Hang out and knit a hat for Claire until bedtime.

Friday, July 31st

6:00-8:00 am – See Monday, July 27th. But not too chaotic. My email tells me that the work that went on with our system overnight went well.

8:50 am – Get to work, excited about the day. After a hectic week, it’s nice to look forward to a day in the office with no meetings. Hopefully I can get some of those “to do” items checked off. That’s always rewarding, so I’m looking forward to the day.

9:00 am – Call center reports start coming in about a problem with accessing some of the records in our system. Calls follow. I follow up with the callers, reporoduce their problem, and open an urgent ticket for the issue. Then, I communicate via Listserv and Twitter to the rest of the libraries in our consortium that this issue is going on and it is being handled.

9:40 am – Second round of call center calls and phone calls from libraries on a second system issue. This is not good. Repeat the process listed above, but this time take extra time to determine that this seemingly seperate problem is really related to the first one. Troubleshooting. Communication.

10:20 am – Begin working on getting the statistical reports I have been working on on and off all week done. Periodically stop to answer a phone call, email, or call center call regarding the system issues we are waiting to get resolved. Answer the occasional unrelated question.

12:01 pm – Follow up to get a progress report on the system issues. Get good news. Not fixed yet, but close. Return to statistical reports.

12:30 pm – Stop of my own accord and heat up some leftover pasta for lunch. Eat it while still plugging away at the reports. Gonna get these done today if it kills me.

12:48 pm – Good news! One of the system issues is now resolved and the other is getting there. Do some testing myself while speaking to the engineer working on the issues. Notify the libraries of the progress that has been made.

1:05 pm – More reports. More calls. Same old, same old.

2:49 pm – Got a good update re: the second issue pending. But not a full resolution. Asked a series of questions to make sure that the problem is completely solved leaving no extraneous loopholes for problems.

3:05 pm – Final push to get these reports finished and off my desk before the weekend.Take a few phone calls while working on them.

4:03 pm – DONE WITH THE REPORTS!

4:04 pm – Work on putting more documentation and instructions on our consortium wiki. Not everything that was asked for, but a piece of it at least.

4:30 pm – Check in with all of my colleagues about the status of the system before leaving for the weekend.

5:00 pm – Pick up the kids at daycare. Chaos.

7:45 pm – Double check emails and get back to a couple that I didn’t want to wait until Monday. Write this up. Listen to Robert throw a tantrum because his father caught him wandering around upstairs after bedtime.

Which leads me to now. I’m about ready for a day or two off.

Saturday will mostly be off for me, but I will, as usual, check my email for anything really pressing that can’t wait until Monday and I’ll be doing work on the system if necessary to clean up any outstanding issues left from today’s system problems. Sunday is family day at our house, and we have a no tv, no phones, no computers rule. So, unless there is a serious system crash, I won’t be doing any work, emails, etc. until at least Sunday night after the kids are in bed.

And as I look back over this week’s activities, I think it is time for a brief rest and some family time this weekend. I enjoy working hard, and love my job in part because by working hard I feel like I can make a difference to our libraries, our profession, and most of all, to the 1.4 million residents of our County. But it is exhausting work and life is short. See you next week.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

Coming soon: a post for the Library Day in the Life project. Actually, I’ll do a week in the life, if you don’t mind… If the point is to get an idea of what someone in my position does, a day just won’t cut it. Each day holds something entirely different for me, which is part of what makes my job appealing to me.

I’ve actually been thinking of doing something like this for some time now, based on the questions I get from people about what I do. Seems there are some common misperceptions out there, so I think there are some who will be surprised to see a somewhat typical week in action.

So keep an eye out towards the end of the week if you’re interested.

Disclaimer: Let me start this post by pointing out that even though I am a librarian, I do not actually work in a library. I visit libraries all the time, but my actual office is in an office building. Because of this, my son has no idea that I am a librarian. He just doesn’t conenct me and what I do with libraries. When you ask him what Mommy does for work, he says “Meetings. And Computer.” (And he’s right!) So nothing he knows about librarians comes from me.

Playing "Librarian"

While visiting my parents last week, my son Robert, who will inform you that he is three-and-a-half, decided to play a new game. He set up a bunch of boxes my Mom had out for moving, and put his play laptop on the boxes, along with the phone and a couple of Grandpa’s paperback books.

“What are you doing, Robert?” I asked.

“I’m not Robert,” he replied. “I’m a Librarian.”

At first I was tickled. He pretty much got it right, based on what he sees going on at the library. He sat there on a stool, typing away and occasionally picking up the phone and saying, “Hello, Hi. OK, Let me see.”

And the thing that tickled me most was the fact that the books were sort of an afterthought. He occasionally picked one up to refer to it, or “beep” it with an imaginary scanner. But mostly his library work was done with the phone and computer.

Then something a little disturnbing happened.

Robert got more boxes, some pillows, and my Mom’s leg, and used them to create a barrier around himself and his little setup. Soon, he was entirely closed in.

“Now what are you doing?” I asked.

“I not want those kids bothering me. I is the Librarian. Don’t bother me.”

Really???

After a few more minutes, I asked him again what he was doing.

"Go Away! I'm too busy!"

He looked at me with a disgusted expression.

“Go away! I’m too busy!” He told me, and turned back to the computer.

Oh, really??

So that’s what librarians do, according to my 3 and a half year old frequent library patron. They work on the computer, answer the phone, occasionally consult a book, build barriers around themselves so people don’t bother them, and tell people they are too busy.

Sigh.

Is this really what we do? Is this what kids see? I hope not.

How much do I love the ALA 2009 event tracker developed by Heather Devine?

ALA 2009 event tracker

Way to develop an easy way to  allow those who didn’t attend to follow along easily as well as an archive the goings on.

Thank you!