Library Day in the Life #6 - Monday

I have always wanted to participate in the Library Day in the Life project hosted by Bobbi Newman. In the past, I have been an avid reader of those that have participated in previous editions, but I never really felt that I had much to contribute myself...partly because of the extremely small library systems I have worked for. I am now working as the Campus Librarian and Adjunct Instructor at a small business/career college in the northern part of Indiana, and I feel as if my job duties have much more meaning these days! So without further ado, welcome to my Library Day in the Life for Monday!

Mondays for the most part are spent grading and inputting grades into our online gradebook. That way, the rest of my week can be devoted to more library-related tasks.

6:45am - 7:15am
Nothing but hitting the snooze button! I have my morning routine down to a science...and I know exactly how many times I can hit that snooze button before my feet absolutely have to hit the floor. Once I'm up, I put Ditters out (which he did NOT like this morning due to the extra snow), feed him, and get ready to be out the door by 7:45 (much later than it has been being since the list of building openers has been modified and I no longer have to open at 7:30 - yay!). I notice the snow and realize I will most likely be late today *sigh.

7:45am - 8:05am
I hit the road by 7:45, and on a good day, I can make to work on time...but we had snow on top of snow this morning so it was slow going.

8:05am - 10:00am
I arrive at 8:05 (not too shabby considering the weather). I notice that I'm missing a chair at one of our Library computers...time to hunt down said chair. Mondays are usually pretty busy with student questions, so we need everything in place! The library is a very small room (about the size of what a large living room might be in a home). We have 16 computers available to students with printing capabilities, and 5 bookshelves filled with the necessities for student projects, etc... Most of our ammo is in our online databases and e-book collections.

So, I find the chair and return it safely to its home. I turn on all computers, including mine. I get all my windows up and running on my computer:
*Pidgin - used with libraryh3lp for our online chat reference service.
*IE and Firefox - our campus gradebook portal can only be used with IE...stupid if you ask me! So all my work that I graded over the weekend has to wait to be entered on Monday since I have a Mac at home with no IE. (I'm teaching 3 sections of an Information Literacy class!)
*Outlook
*Polaris - our ILS system...although we are currently in the works of looking into different options.

Once everything is up and running, I get this post started, and get to work answering e-mail and inputting my grades for my Information Literacy classes (I can't enter them at home because our gradebook isn't compatible with Safari or Firefox...boo!). I also eat my breakfast...a low-sugar/low-fat blueberry muffin.

10:00am - 12:00am
Spent some time getting all grades for my online class ready to submit. Also answered 2 student e-mail questions, requested a book for a staff member via ILL, and spent some time doing some converting of file types with zamzar for a colleague who had a student submit with word perfect (REALLY?? Who uses WPerfect these days?!).

Also dealt with an issue we are having with the Google Wonder Wheel on campus. Last week, I sent several e-mails to our IT department to see what could be done...and they fixed it! A Librarian from another campus e-mailed me back to say: "You're a rockstar! I've been trying to get them to turn off strict safe search for months!" ... so yay!

Spent a little bit of time chatting with a Librarian colleague at a different campus and also created a check in/out document for our work-studies to use when myself, or the Assistant Librarian is not available.

Posted to our campus Facebook page with admissions information. The library is truly becoming the information hub of the campus!

12:00pm - 12:30pm
Finalize grades for online class and make an executive decision to stay in and order lunch due to the snow. Wishing I would have brought my nook with me... but I'll get more grading done I guess.

12:30pm - 1:30pm
Lunch consisted of Jimmy John's since it can be delivered!

1:30pm - 3:00pm
Assisted students with projects in the Library, and assisted co-workers with a few questions as well. One of our faculty members is working on a Master's degree and wanted APA clarification. I also finished inputting grades for my ground classes (2 of them).

3:30pm - 5:00pm
Answering e-mail and formulating a to-do list for the rest of the week.


5:15pm - ...
Leave work to head home for the evening. Dinner will consist of soup, and then the rest of the evening will be spent working on a document for searching our PAC, as well as working on my lecture for Friday. With the teaching duties completed for the week, I will now be able to focus on more library-related duties.

More to come tomorrow!