New everything. A day in the life of newness. *Ironically, an old post. See Intro*

IMPORTANT This was a post I drafted just after Christmas and never got around to posting. I thought about deleting it as it's now massively out of date but it still does an okay job of describing my day to day activities so I thought I'd post it anyway (in March. Yes it's been a while). I will be writing a more recent post shortly.

I'm free! Dissertation has been submitted and I've had Christmas break to chill out a bit. So, what's new. Everything. I have a job that I love, working in a college library. Thought I'd do one of those 'day in the life of' posts. This isn't a typical day, but that's why I like my job... there isn't a typical day. But here's what happened yesterday....*fade out music*

“Yes, you can borrow the stapler.”

Sometimes people think that because I work in a library, all I do is shelve, stamp books and act as an endless supply of stationary. Well, yeah, I do that and yeah, you can borrow that pen. But I do other stuff too. 

11am. I don’t usually rock up at this time, but today I’m on the ‘late’ shift – 11am-7pm. There’s three members of staff and we each do one late shift per week. After a quick catch up with colleagues on how the morning has been and answering a couple of emails I scoot up to floor one. Floor one is where the art books live and after a library ‘meet and greet’ with the art staff before the Christmas break I’ve offered to put together a selection of materials for a tutor for a project she’s doing with her classes. This includes a lot of educated guesswork, as although she sent me the project brief, as with many art projects, the students are left to interpret in it their own way. Basically there’s going to be lots of topics covered so my job is to get the books that could be used by as many as possible.  I begin the search.

11.30 I stop the search to go with a colleague to visit the science staff room. Earlier in the week we put up a notice in the staff room to let them know we’d come and visit so they could talk to us about resources they need, or what we can offer them. We’re armed with i-pads, journals and e-resource guides. Unfortunately, we don’t have a copy of everyone’s teaching timetable so have to guess at when people might be on a break. We tend to avoid dinner time, as there is nothing tutors hate more than finally getting a break then being harassed by the library staff whilst they try to eat their sandwich. We meet one teacher, who advised us that we might catch more tutors by visiting at the end of the subject staff meetings.

12-2.30ish: I shelve some books then carry on with my art task. I put together a selection, make a list (1 copy for me one copy for the tutor) and re-cover some books that were looking a bit tatty. Tatty can be a sign of a good book – it might look knackered because loads of people have used it and lots of people might have used it because it’s useful. Don’t overlook them. But when you're devilering books to other departments who you've only just started working with it's good to have the books looking their best :) 

Many students visit the desk with book type questions. I sign out books, return books and order books. Yesterday I had a chat with a French tutor and an English tutor and some materials that they ordered have arrived (wahoo next day delivery!) so I begin to get them ready to be added to the system. It’s important to be quick as possible about turning around orders. We need to shake the image that libraries are slow and not worth the effort. There’s a lot of socialising too: I have a long chat with a student about a business he wants to set up, another student comes to tell me she has had offers from three universities. Students often stop by just to ask how we are, or how our Christmas was. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like all the students love the library folk, but a few who visit often will usually come and say hello, or to chat about something. Lots of people ask to borrow the stapler. Students need printer help, computer help, want to book out a room. I don’t sit still for long and can often fix the smaller issues myself. Sometimes I sit with a student for half an hour or so, just helping them to use Microsoft word, or showing them how to save their work to different places. The variety of things I get asked to help with is nice. I also get ask for the time twice today. (?)

 After a talk from my colleague about the Reading Ahead scheme, the Entry Level students arrive en mass to choose books to begin their challenge. I photocopy some articles from magazine for those who didn’t like the idea of reading a whole book.  We have a chat between ourselves about the best option for students who cannot read. This is a topic that we’ll discuss more later in the week, as it require careful preparation and co-ordination between departments.

3pm: Delivery of the art trolley. I dropped off the books, and after the tutor had had a quick glance over them she seemed to like what I’d brought and asked if I could do the same sort of thing for a project running with one of her other classes. I'm in my happy place (praise sponge). That’s put on the list of things to do this evening, when it goes a bit quieter, as is the task of locating a box, as I the previous selection already filled my trolley (yes I have my own trolley. It’s purple and fabulous). I make a note to come and collect the books early March, when the project is due in, as they’ll no longer be needed and I’ll be missing my trolley too much by then.

3.30pm A second visit to the science staff room. It is empty, so we decide to definitely enquire about visiting the staff at their weekly learning hour or subject meeting. There we’re guaranteed to see people and interact with staff about their needs and what we can offer them. Outreach is important. Myself and the other library assistant have the two faculties at the college divided between us, so that we can be the main point of inter-department communication for specific subjects and the workload is shared evenly. It’s still a hell of a lot of subjects each though.

4.30pm-7pm: The college buses leave at 4.45 today which means the majority of students have left by this time. The library gets much quieter and I help prepare floor one, which is being used for an induction evening just before a lotttt of people appear looking to enrol at the college for a variety of courses. I’m not actually involved in that process, they’re just using the library space. But during the evening I often direct a lost looking person up to the correct place. I do a quick tidy downstairs and check the social media accounts as well as the reservation and holdings on the LMS. The library in the evening is usually used by higher education students, those doing a degree via the college. Sourcing the correct level of material for these students is important, as not everything on the shelves will be of degree level. If I see higher education students looking at the shelves I make sure to go over and point out which sections are degree level or relevant to what they’re studying. A student asks about getting Microsoft Office for his computer at home, and I let him know about how it should be free for students and email him the link so he can set it up on his computer. An adult learner comes to ask about English grammar books to help with his G.C.S.E. Towards the end of the evening, just because I love it, I shelve some more books that have been returned. Even when I leave the college is still busy. Some classes go on till 9pm. TBH I’m glad I’m only working in education right now, rather than being in it.

It’s different to working in a school, but there are some similarities. I might do another post comparing the two one day. Basically the one main aspect of my job that no-one seems to imagine is that it’s a massively human job. Like, you’re constantly talking with staff, students, external agencies and sometimes yourself. I haven’t lost my voice yet, though one student did ask if I was Canadian (eh?). For now, chill time.

Over and out.