The last few weeks have been pretty intense. The fall semester’s in full swing here in Oakland, and when your library is the peanut-buttery filling between the crusty loaves of Pitt and CMU, you’re kept hopping. A lot.
I think the best moment, though, was when we had six reference librarians at the desk helping with the elementary school tour group that ended up staying all day, doing research for their History Day projects. Imagine reference service as a basketball game. Zone defense, as opposed to person-to-person, of course. It was awesome, in multiple senses of the term!
Other things October hath wrought:
The database committee met to vote on some renewals, and entertain some suggestions I had. Most were approved. Essentially, I want to expand the committee’s charge to include not only the selection of databases, but also the promotion of electronic resources and training both staff and patrons to use them. This was met with much more support and enthusiasm than I expected, so once again I’m back to the brainstorming board, dreaming dreams and scheming schemes.
LJ and SRRT both sent me new books to review, so I’m knee-deep in reading and note-taking there. Given that this is an “extra-curricular” kind of thing, it’s challenging to make room for it in a day, especially when there’s so much guilty pleasure reading to be done. All the same, this is one of those things that, ultimately, falls under “service to one’s peers,” so I’m definitely down with sacrificing a lunch hour or five.
Speaking of school tours, I just gave one this morning to a writing class from Pitt. The focus was on finding magazines and journals, and also covered how to research publication markets. Secondhand info from a colleague, who had a friend in the class, relates it was a job well-done. It’s nice to be able to put one’s pre-librarian teaching experience into service for the institution, and there’s just as much of a need for BI and LI, I think, in the public sector as there is in academe.
The PaLA presentation (dun dun dun!). My chief concern is making us all look good while still being faithful to the notion that Library 2.0 is going to look different at CLP than it does at other institutions. Why? Our patrons have different needs. The digital divide is a big concern here (see above about BI and LI), and while we’re taking strides in the technological realm, there are still a lot of traditional library services that our patrons need and want. The key is balance, a middle path.
As I have commented elsewhere this week, moderation is not “sexy,” per se – it does not boost one’s Technorati rating, or vault one into the library blogosphere spotlight. It does, however, help staff achieve goals and objectives, and helps everyone who works in a library deliver excellent service. The profession needs dreamers and doers. I perceive part of my job as negotiating a middle ground between both kinds of folk.
There’s more (there’s always more), but I would like to make a plan for tackling tomrorow’s tasks before I go home. What are you working on? I’d love to hear.
