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 I thought about deleting it as it's now massively out of date but it still does an okay job of describing my day to day activities so I thought I'd post it anyway (in March.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. 

When life gives you lemons and you throw them away.

This is just going to be one long moan, so perhaps skip it and go and bake a cake or something.

I'm going to sit and write this evening. There's fifty seven other things I need to be doing. But it's time for a reflection before I actually give up on everything.

This dissertation mark the last ever academic piece of work I plan to do in my whole entire life. The whole process has been one long stress inducing, panic overloading nightmare. I've been sick, tired and nervous for months. And it's not getting any better.

In hindsight, deciding to write a dissertation on Mobile Libraries was a poor choice. Yes, it is a neglected research area. But I'm slowly learning why. Mobile libraries are, well, mobile. The communities they serve are rural, out of the way and tiny. Gathering enough data to analyse is difficult. This is not due to the mobile library staff, who are amazing, and have been ever so supportive. This is simply due to the fact that THEY ALL LIVE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Seriously, I was trying to find one of the villages on one of the routes. I passed some houses, kept going, then ten minutes down the road realised that that tiny collection of houses was the village. And I cannot go around knocking on peoples doors or posting things through letterboxes due to the universities ethical guidelines, so I am relying on the help of a few willing local people and businesses who are leaving my questionnaires in waiting rooms and handing them out after church to get data from people who don't use the service. As for gathering data from the people who do use it, I've been essentially taking days off work to stalk the van around it's usual route then hover awkwardly in the vehicle asking anyone who comes aboard if they could possibly spare five minutes to fill in a questionnaire that may or may not be the difference between me passing or failing this thing. I am inept at asking people for things, and it usually ends up with me babbling and melting into an awkward floop.

I love my new job, I really do. But working every weekday, knowing all I have to come home to is an unfinished rambling about elderly library users and grounded theory is soul destroying. And also, most of the time,

I have no idea what I'm even doing.

Like literally.

I have a vague notion of the theories I'm using. I know that my interviews produced qualitative data. My research questions are changing by the minute to fit whatever theories are developing. Does my questionnaire produce qual data or quan? Because I've written an awful lot about qualitative data, then realised a few days ago, that maybe, just maybe, I'm doing a mixed methods approach. Who knows? I certainly don't. All the reading I did seemed to be hell bent on design of the study. Analysis? Anyone? I'm 23, and when I was in my teens, I honestly thought being 23, I would be the ultimate adult. Sure of everything and powerful, like Tina Fey or something. But I'm not. I'm sitting in my old bedroom at my parents house worrying about whether internet access affects mobile library usage in elderly people.

One glimmer of hope is that at the end of November I get to move to my new apartment. But however shiny this thought is, what plays on my mind most of the time, is that that moving in weekend will be a whole other weekend lost that I probably need to spend working on this nightmare. My emotions are warring right now. Sometimes I'm happy, especially at work. I'm doing a job I enjoy. Then half an hour later I'll be in work worrying about data analysis and thinking that I should be at home typing away like some possessed thing. The worst thing is waiting for data to come back. Twiddling my thumbs wondering if anything that comes back will even remotely fit the theories I'd drawn up. Or just wondering if anything will come back.

I'm tired of feeling guilty for doing fun things too. Like at the weekend I'll do some gaming with JJ and spend the next week internally beating myself up for it. It's wasted time. I'm constantly moaning about lack of time, so why take time to game, or watch anime, or see friends. Because I'm a massive hypocrite and my own worst enemy, that's why #emo.

I paid mucho moneys to do this course, which is why I wanted to do this dissertation, y'know, to get the most degree for my money. I have a supportive family, friendship group, supervisor and new boss. I've had so much time to write this thing. Life is hurling lemons at me and I just feel like I'm stomping them into an acidic, pulpy nothing.

This will literally be the most boring, whingey post I've ever written. You probably just skipped all of it. But writing it down helps. It always has. So, sorry, and maybe the next post will be more uplifting (but probably not, unless it's after Christmas). I hope the rest of the human world is happy today.

Over and out.

Hi stranger

Yes, it's been a while. Yes, I keep starting posts in this manner. Yes, I'm sorry.

I need to keep this blog going really. It gives me time, in between all the other crazy things I've got going on right now, to sit back and reflect. So let's reflect. What's changed since the last post?

I have a full time job! I am now an assistant librarian at an FE college. I will have been there for two months now, and I really, really enjoy the job. Now that's not to say I come home every night leaping for joy - some parts of the job can be tough. But I will do a separate post on the trials and tribulations of FE employment at a later date, there's way too much to squeeze in here.

I have no permanent home! So the new job was closer to my parents place than my Manchester flat, so for the time being I've moved back to live with them whilst me and JJ attempt to find a house that is commutable for us both. Watch this space for developments on that front.

I got an extension for my dissertation! Because of my shiny new job and the severe lack of time this now gives me to work on my project, they extended my deadline until Christmas. I am very grateful for this and it has basically saved my degree 'cause there was no way in hell that that dissertation would have been finished in time for September otherwise.

Progress has actually been made on the dissertation! I am about half way through, actually understand what it is I'm supposed to be doing, and am fairly on track. Essentially I might actually scrape a pass, and I am feeling marginally more optimistic about the whole situation. Cross all of your fingers and toes that I actually pull this off, as the whole process has been more draining and stress inducing than anything I've ever done in my life before. Ever.

So that's that. The whole last couple of months squeezed into some short points. Perhaps I'll blog again soon as I want to keep track of things I'm doing in my new job, as I love looking back on the posts I did when I was at the school library. Then again, perhaps I'll disappear again until Christmas, who knows.

If you're reading this, thanks.

Over and out.

School Librarian interview questions

Following on from my last post I had a job interview for the position of School Librarian at a mixed Grammar School recently. Here's the process and the sorts of questions I was asked as part of my interview.

Firstly, I had a tour of the school led by three year eight pupils. This was a good opportunity to ask them any questions about the librarian, the school and anything else relevant. They were fairly chatty, and probably happy to be skipping lessons. This was about 20 minutes long.

I then had my interview. This was given by the Head of English and the Vice Principal of the school and lasted roughly 15-20 minutes. I really should have written down what they asked me but various questions that come to mind include:

- A group of year nine boys are being disruptive in the library, how would you handle the situation? What would you do if they started to undermine your authority?

- What made you apply for the role? Tell us about yourself.

- How would you promote the library, or an event/it's services? Beyond 'lots of posters'.

- How would you entice a group of young teenage boys who do not read for pleasure to use the library?

- [Typical safeguarding question] What would you do if a student came and told you something in confidence.

- Are you still a candidate for the job? (As in...do I still want it? Well duh, if I turned up, surely!)

Lastly I had to lead a book group session. This was observed by an English teacher and the Librarian. I was only told that six children would bring their own books to talk about and I would have to lead a discussion on three things:

'The value of reading'
'What makes a good book'
'Age ranges/suitability'

I had no idea how old these children would be, or how long I was supposed to go on for. I planned something that I hoped I could adapt last minute for age ranges and something in case the kids I got were all super quiet (which they were). The kids ended up being a mix of boys and girls from year eight and I tried to keep it going for about 15 minutes, however I lost track of the time in the end. I don't think I did terribly, but this was definitely my weakest section, despite running book clubs in the past for high schoolers.

Sadly I didn't get the job, however I was by far the youngest there and my feedback was mainly that I needed more years of experience. Le sigh. I hope someone out there finds this useful.

Over and out.

Library Assistant interview questions

Quick Tuesday post!

So this morning I had an interview. It's the first interview for a library related job I've had since starting my course, for a part time library assistant position at a small public library. I just thought I'd share the questions that I was asked, a) to help me remember for the future and b) to help anyone else out there prepare for a similar interview. I had three people interviewing me, and overall the interview lasted about 30-40 minutes.

*I can't remember the order that I was asked these questions, nor can I remember exactly how they were worded so bear with me on the dodgy grammar here*

How do you like to feel when you come to work in the morning? (This threw me a little, I hadn't prepared for this!)

Can you give some examples of good teamwork you've been a part of in a previous role? What are good teamwork skills?

What do you think are important qualities for a library assistant today? Has the role changed?

How would you suggest a book to someone? [Then after this] How would you suggest a book to someone if a person were looking for a book from a genre you weren't familiar with. What resources would you use?

What do you know about [the library where the role was based]? What services do we offer? Who do we work with?

How would you approach leading a rhyme time session for pre-schoolers?

How would you handle an unhappy library user?

Give an example of a book you read and really enjoyed.

Talk about this years summer reading challenge theme (I was asked to research this in the email that offered me the interview, so could prepare for this).

How do you like to feel at the end of a working day?

And at the end they asked if I had any questions and I had a couple prepared so I didn't do the "ermmmmmm, not really" that I usually do.

And that's all I can remember! There was probably others, but that's all I could dredge from my relieved brain on the train home. I will hear whether or not I was successful tomorrow. For now,

Over and out.

The 'D' word.

No, not that word.

Continuing the theme of getting back into the swing of things, it's that time of the year when the 'dissertation' word keeps popping up in social media feeds and in my own brain once in a while. So far I have completed the taught part of my post graduate degree, which if you study full time at my university lasts from September to May. This gets me a Post Graduate Diploma. To make it into a full Masters degree I have to spend my summer months writing a dissertation.

Now, after the pure hell that was April/May I seriously considered not completing it. Just skipping far, far away with my PGDip and never worrying about it again. However I have decided, against all my grumpy thoughts, to do it. Why? Three golden reasons:

One: I paid lots of shiny money to do this course. I'm getting all the teaching time/access to recourses with my money that I possibly can squeeze from this degree.

You know you're old when this makes you grumpy rather than happy. WHAT AM I PAYING FOR DANGNABBIT?!

(Picture Credit: Reddit)

Two: It's only 18,000 words. Which sounds like a lot, but it's only a similar length to my undergrad dissertation (even though that one was creative writing based and probably was a lot more fun than this one is going to be).

When you over use a thesaurus because you need so, so many words.

(Picture Credit: weknowmemes)

Three: I'm sort of a completest. I was the kid who had to get every single gem on each level of Spyro. I'm the adult who never (almost) gives up on a book, even if it's awful and boring, because I've started, so I MUST FINISH so I can give it a sucky one star review on Goodreads. So I feel like if I complete this degree to the end, I have completed it, very fully, all levels passed and there's no re-doing it. Inner satisfaction will reign.

Nothing felt more satisfying than this ever 

(Picture Credit: addictedgamewise)

I'll hopefully be writing about Mobile Libraries, conducting case study, interview and questionnaire research in order to see how they're utilized today, what communities they serve and review best practise suggestions from leading bodies with the aim of suggesting improvements to either the services or the advice given by leading authorities on the topic. A little side-aim is to help add to the literature justifying the need for Mobile Libraries, as all the articles recently seem to be about closures to services :(  All I need is consent from a few county councils to come and look at their vehicles and talk to their libraries, which so far is proving more difficult that I would have guessed. First, no-one will answer your emails, then you're passed from person to person which so far has left me with no-one willing to chat with me about it. I will persevere. I hope the librarian ideals of being helpful and sharing information will come out in some council authorities soon and they'll be willing to work with me. I'm a nice person, honestly! 

Wish me luck,
Over and out.

I'm back from hell and blogging again. My thoughts on the Manchester homeless protest...

It's been nearly five months since the last post. That's mainly down to the five months of being stuck in an endless cycle of assignment hell. I don't think I've ever been more stressed in my entire life. Never do I ever want to go through that ever again. Ever. My education journey ends when I submit my dissertation in September. But enough of that misery. Something that's very much on my radar right now is the homeless protest at Manchester Central Library.

Now, this is something that both the local and national press have picked up. Even if you don't really know why they're doing it, most in Manchester have now seen the cluster of tents pitched outside the central library building and the adjacent town hall. The council continues to battle to evict them as we speak, and continues to talk with them about their concerns. Their aim, so far as I can tell, is that the protesters want homelessness to be addressed properly by the council, after figures of homeless people shot up within a year: "Government figures show homelessness was up 79 per cent from 24 to 43 people in Manchester between 2013 and 2014" As of the 7th May the court allowed them to stay in their current location for at least another week, until their appeal hearing.

Picture from The Guardian

This is all very well, but what does it have to do with the library? Apart from the fact that their tents are pitched all around the entrance? The picture above shows the entrance to the library with tents right up to the front door under the arch. The library itself hadn't been under much fire from the protestors, as they were mainly focussing on the council, who occupy buildings next door to the library. But then this happened:

From The Guardian: “Unfortunately, the protesters had to be removed from central library on two occasions yesterday, after physically attempting to force their way into the building in order to occupy it, causing distress to children and families using the library as well as members of city council staff. Members of the group were arrested for public order offences and assaults on security staff,” he said in a statement.

The library had to close early and as a result homeless persons have been banned from the library, including use of their toilets. Now I have several thought on this.

1) Surely there must be some homeless people not involved with the protest who are now really pissed that a small few have restricted their privilege to what should be a free and open space for all. I'm not saying that the library should become a shelter for the homeless, but I often see homeless persons in the library simply reading the newspaper, or possibly just sitting somewhere safe for a few hours. I've never seen them be abusive or distressing to others. The actions of a few have decided the outcome for a large number of people.

2) A library is supposed to be a free and open space for all. Its one of the only places you can go without a reason to be there. you can just walk in and browse or sit. But when offering a service like this, it comes with a certain amount of trust on both sides. The public trusts the library to provide them with materials and services, the library trusts the public to use them well and fairly. With the storming of the library the balance shifted and there were consequences to this. What did the protestors expect would come of this?

3) One thing it did achieve was to give the protest more fuel, as in: "the council won't let us use the library, our rights are being infringed" etc. The action of barring the homeless from the library paints it in a really bad light, when they really only did what they could do ensure the safety of the other library users. How would they have looked if they continued to allow the group access, and set up camp in the foyer or if something more extreme happened, causing someone from either the protest group, the library/council or another member of the public to get hurt?

4) In the protestors defence, I do believe access to the library should be allowed by all. However after banning the homeless, the library could concentrate more on it's outreach provision. I wonder how much central library does in their provision of services to homeless shelters or temporary housing. This could be a way of appeasing both sides.

5) Homeless people can usually use libraries, provided they abide by the 'house rules' that apply to everyone e.g, not being aggressive or abusive to staff and other members. However many can not become members of the library, one reason for example, might be due to having no address. This is a tricky one. Libraries are underfunded, that's sort of a given right now. So if stock is lent out to the homeless and is either not returned, or returned damaged from rain or other factors that might arise from living outside and being on the move often, then the library will have to replace it. It might be considered a cost that can be avoided. However the library wants to have as many people as possible using the service, so providing materials to the homeless might be one way of boosting usage.

It's a difficult situation, however (and I may be shouted at for this) I believe the library's reaction to the storming was justified. I just think it could have been tailored: perhaps just banning the certain individuals involved in the protest. But overall I think they did what they thought was best for the majority of the library users. I think they need to talk on neutral ground with the protestors about library services for the homeless and re-evaluate what the library expects from it's users to keep the balance of trust. Otherwise this is going to go no-where, and the protestors will continue to use the banning as fuel for their campaign.

On a more light-hearted note, hopefully I'll be blogging more often now the bulk of my work is done, so keep an eye out for further posts. Sorry this was so long and serious!

Over and out.