Week One. The first (paper) cut is the deepest.

I got through one whole week! It was good, for lots of reasons. The boarders arrived back fully on Wednesday, so I got to familiarise myself with lots of systems and learn my way around a bit before lots of kids arrived to make loud noises and make the place smell hormonal.

Things I can do now, with little, to no, help:
- Check things in/out
- Smile, in a friendly, welcoming manner to new students.
- Look serious and hopefully slightly authoritative to everyone else. (I'm yet to master the one-eyebrow raise to accompany such phrases as: "You do realise that you're in a library? Must we be doing gymnastics on the sofa?")
- Order text books for staff, sending the details to the relevant people before doing so.
- Distribute the books when they arrive, giving various copies of the receipts to relevant people.
- Forget everybody's names within three seconds of learning them.
- Photocopy!
- Weed and check for new editions of things from various sources.
- Use Eclipse, the Library Management System the school uses. It has it's drawbacks, which I'll probably do another post on. We're hoping to switch to Heritage I've heard, which would be nice, and mean I get to use two systems before the year is out!

and finally, I have still maintained the ability to shelve. It's not hard, nor the most thrilling part of the job, but to me - a person that quite likes a bit of order, very satisfying. I have re-shelved and put back together the entirety of one library on the school site that had serious works done to it over the summer. With two colleagues, I unpacked 106 boxes of books, shelved them all, got very dusty and felt very chuffed at the end when it was all over. It's better for the students to use now: there are more computers, they have a new sofa and carpet and at some point there will be a portrait of the old head to cast her beady eye over them, hopefully instilling some calm. The library staff also have a new desk!

N.B: Point of interest. You can't just put any old shelves into libraries. They have to have fully adjustable shelves, so the height can be altered to account for any large books. *Library fact*

My 'line manager' (the Librarian) has been very patient with me. Every time we try to learn something new, or try to get something done, it tends to get interrupted with requests from teachers for book orders or a group of new students coming for their induction sessions on how to use the library. Hopefully they'll be more to update next week! I also fallen foul of one of the occupational hazards of working in the library environment. I got my first paper cut.

Over and Out.