Library Day in the Life, Day 4

Got little sleep last night, between the lingering awful heat and the nagging concerns about some of the things my boss told me she had been told by others were concerns about me.

Went to work a little early, realized I hadn't asked my tech to prepare various PCs for the Handheld Librarian conference yesterday, so thought I might have to do the prep. Turned out the conference site was overwhelmed, and no-one could get in for the first 40 minutes or so, anyway. And the AS Senior had it under control, anyway. I found her the alternate link to get in, and off we all went.

Periodically listened to the conference over the course of the day. Tom Peters keynote was interesting, about the "extinction behaviour" he sees in the current surge in library use and gathering place - the physical "lugging of guts" - and that he believes we will soon swing back to being less physically mobile, as we can reach out more thoroughly in a virtual sense, and that this will lead to a "singularity of place", an identification with home, with locale that harkens back to pre-industrial society. The other note I made and bolded, as a good reminder, was that it's no longer about what or the quantity of books that we own, it's what we do with the information that will distinguish us as libraries and keep us relevant and used. Shared my notes with the Web Team.

We have a grant to develop mobile reference services for the coming year, so we are working to change the culture and expectations of the library staff, in preparation. I think this conference was a good tool.

Talked to several colleagues about the issues I'd lost sleep over, got better clarity, and talked to my boss about them. I think I made her feel a little better about them, too. Maybe. We also did a little prep for a conversation we'll be having with our parent department (Library, Recreation, and Cultural Services) about technology support. The library has made the commitment and has a pretty good structure in place to support the integral tech necessary to provide modern library service. The other divisions have not, and we need to help them understand how integral the tech really is to what we do.

Part of the prep is for me to do a snapshot of each tech project I'm currently and recently working on; budget, status, who's involved, dependencies, timelines, etc.. I will be surprised if I will be able to accomplish this in the next 2 weeks. Will do my best. I know that if I can figure out a way to use Sharepoint to do this documentation, it will be very helpful down the line in utilizing the information in a variety of ways, and make it retrievable, instead of tossing it into the black hole of the Shared File server.

Quick leftover gazpacho for lunch. MMMMmmmm. (but super garlic breath for the rest of the day.)

Talked to the marketing lady about an interaction she'd had with my junior tech, tried to soothe some ruffled feathers. He wants to have the Circ folks design the language for the new self-check software, and so when she tried to give feedback, he was a bit brusque, apparently. Will talk to him about it next week when next he works.

Attended a Circ Managers meeting to discuss the implementation schedule and needs for the new Self Checks, and for the back-room RFID interface, which is also changing. Got it pinned down. My job to contact the branch manager and see what she wants to do.

Need to talk to the branch manager anyway, to work out the next steps of the Gates Grant we have at one of the branches.

Worked on the schedule and set-up for the New Zealand librarian visit next week, who wants to hear about our green building efforts and designs, and our energy efficiencies. Sustainability is a big topic in Eugene these days, I'm proud to say. I serve on the City-wide internal Sustainability Board, actually, too.

Checked on prep for the two good bye parties that happen tomorrow. Filled out leave slip for going home to let in the DirectTV repair guy.

Let staff know that the regional server/network folks are doing back-up testing on Saturday morning, and that it shouldn't affect us, but just in case.

Discussed why we'd been told that the new design of the print patron notifications would be fine, and then 2 weeks in were told - by the same person - that we now no longer qualified for bulk rate because the new design. Arghh.

Left to pick up my son.

Took a nap, ate ribs the boys went out to pick up. Checked FB, PreCentral, GoogleNews, etc. Remembered about 9 that dear friends are coming in from out of town for dinner tomorrow night, ran around and tried to make the house less of a hazardous environment and cesspit.

Decided to post to Library Day in the Life for yesterday and today.

Realize it's now midnight...signing off.