Thursday, July 24, 2014

#TeamNoSleep

One of my biggest issues with my creativity is that I get my best ideas at the worst times...like when I'm trying to sleep. So, for that past several weeks I've been sleep deprived. For the students that translates into an exciting Fall semester; for my coworkers random projects; for my supervisor a few shakes of his head; for library administration a few calls to the office; and for me endless posts to social media sites seeking input, raving about students' success, and an opportunity to finally sleep.

I know it's been over a week since I announced my returned to the world of blogging, but there was so much going on I didn't know where to start. Here's a brief recap:

Shelf-reading project
Reports
New policy and procedures manual for Information Literacy
Quarterly statistics of IL department...along with a summary
Meetings, meetings, meetings, and a few more meetings...most of which were fairly productive
Revising the IL instruction request form
Reading and finding a way to implement the ACRL's new framework for Information Literacy to be implemented THIS fall
Planning a SOLE session to update Library staff on all out changes
Creating new IL brochures for the different colleges (I actually had a little help on this one)
Creating marketing tools for LibGuides...look out New Faculty Orientation

Hopefully you guys are all caught up with my work life over the past week and a half...whew, I'm exhausted. I'm sure I inadvertently omitted a couple things, but that's life when you're #teamnosleep By the way, I did actually get some rest last night. All thanks to sweet 6.7 oz. baby Jesus and that Ambien I was saving for a rainy day. Until next time folks...

Saturday, July 12, 2014

It's Official...the Procrastanista is Back

So a little more than a year after this project began I've completed a whopping 4 entries...pathetic, I know. The past year has definitely been a busy one for me if that's any consolation for anyone that's missed me. I've managed to go out on a few limbs, fall off said limbs, try to redefine myself and ultimately climb a completely different tree. In this profession I've found this is absolutely necessary from time to time. A little reinvention/adaptation/metamorphosis of sorts. Truthfully, I probably should have done it sooner. Anyway, I just want you guys to know I'm back and ready to give this blogging thing a go once more.

Friday, July 12, 2013

A Couple Days Behind

Sooo...it's Friday and I haven't posted since Tuesday. What does that mean? Since this blog is about what I do on a daily basis it means I'm a couple days behind on my posting. I'll start with Tuesday evening and continue from there.

Tuesday: July 9
This evening I worked to catch you guys up on the blog from the previous week. I also sat at the reference desk for a few hours (should have only been 1.5 hours, but I digress). I answered a whopping ZERO reference questions but plenty about printing and the like. Clearly I understand more and more each day why this desk is called "Information" and not "Reference" anymore.

Wednesday: July 10
I am completely clueless as to what transpired today. I remember it rained, like the bottom fell out of the sky and I was stuck in Walmart on my lunch type of rain. I did do a few hours on the Information Desk throughout the day. Other than that I believe all this rain the past week has washed away my memory. I need a vacation...a real vacation. In a land far far away from Alabama.

Thursday: July 11
Today was devoted to working on the Serials Project. I think I've mentioned this once before, but in case I didn't here goes. With this project, several of the librarians are working with the Local Holding Record Data (serials inventory and LHR on OCLC ) to update our serials collection. This process is tedious to say the least. We must manually check the current shelves, microfiche and microfilm cabinets, bound stacks, and storage shelves for all serials titles and their respective holdings. Sheesh, I'm tired just thinking about it. And no, I'm not done. You will hear plenty about this over the remainder of the summer.

-NJJ

Let's Talk Desk Time

Sitting at the desk, putting in hours
By hours I mean hours and hours
By desk I mean information then office
Officially desked out, decked out, checking out, ready to check out for the weekend.

Today is Friday, which means I have formal reference duties practically all day. I am at the "Information Desk" from 7:45-11, then answering LibAnswers from 1-5. Let us bow our heads and pray for a little action to help pass the time.

A side note...this is the summer semester, so there are no classes on Fridays. This means the campus and the Library are basically ghost towns. I'll keep you guys posted on how these extended desk hours play out.

-NJJ

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Procrastanista

So...it didn't take long for the procrastinator in me to rear its ugly head. I haven't posted in a week, so here's my attempt in a mass update for all you crazy kids. I'll begin with today and work my way back to last Tuesday. I guarantee I'll miss a few things, but never you mind because there's always tomorrow.

Today: July 9, 2013
Read and responded to a million +/- a few emails. Apparently this is what happens when you miss a few days of work. Realized there were several webinars happening today: ALA Annual Conference Tech Wrap-Up with Expert Panel, one on Psychology & Behavioral Collection, and one more that I can't think of at the moment.
Of course I had no clue what any of these webinars were about in earnest, so I had to read about each of them, the panels presenting, etc.
I realized papers are due...the everlasting line of students needing a stapler and hole punchers began to form at my office door. Then the one knock I waited for all morning came at 9:43 (moments before the 10:00 start of all the webinars)
Can you help me figure out where I found these sources? (I just remembered what the third webinar was about- it was a New Librarianship Master Class...after 8 years in the business I may not qualify as so new anymore.)
Needless to say I missed the webinars so I wasn't forced to make a decision after all.

Monday: July 8, 2013
I didn't work today

Sunday: July 7, 2013
It was my Sunday to work. We're open from 2-6 during the summer semester. Today I was BUSY...but probably not the way you're thinking. Apparently some report is due on Tuesday and we literally have to count how many books are in the catalog. I'm doing this at the reference desk. I got to 413, which is the number of books we have whose call number starts with D (not DA, DB, DC, etc. just D). I was just a little eager to pass this project on to the next person.

Thursday-Saturday: July 4-6
I celebrated our nation's independence. There definitely has to be a separate blog for this, as it was also my fiance's 35 birthday weekend. So...shhh, this is a library!

Wednesday: July 3
In anticipation of my extended weekend I could barely contain myself today...yeah, right. I had two Information Literacy sessions to prepare for this afternoon. The procrastinator in me went into submission earlier this week when I tried to prep in advance, but who am I kidding. I didn't make any real progress until this morning. I made sure the appropriate LibGuides were ready, uploaded the July instruction evaluation, and called the instructor to confirm the session.
In other news, I received an email from an instructor via my supervisor requesting a tour. The correspondence and the tour actually occurred about two or more weeks ago, but I was supposed to update my supervisor when it happened...yay me. Well, guess what? I updated him today, Wednesday, the third day of the seventh month of the year 2013.

Tuesday: July 2
So, we've finally made it to Tuesday. The day this whole blog thing actually started. I spent the majority of the morning researching ways to keep track of what I do on a daily basis. One coworker suggested a daily log, I thought not. I ran across a few blogs of library interns and decided I would give it a try. I even found an article about it, which I read in its entirety. Ultimately, I set out on this journey to keep myself entertained and you in the know, whomever you may be.

While this blog should be daily I guess you've realized by now that I'm a procrastinista and I'll shout it from the rooftop, baby!

-NJJ

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Yesterday

So I told Mrs. P that I would start keeping a daily log beginning with the month of July. I'm a only a day late, so not too shabby for a procrastinator like myself. Anyway, to appease the powers that be that feel it necessary to know my every move, here's a list of what I did on the first day of the seventh month of the year 2013:

1. Came to work (a little late, lol)
2. Checked emails
3. Compiled the number of students that use the Mac Lab for the QEP office and sent the document to them.
4. Compiled the QEP statistics for the month of June the number of IL sessions.
5. Found out my sister's aunt passed...decided an impromptu trip to St. Louis is in order next week.
6. Started preparing for Wednesday's IL sessions
7. Went home

Well, this is officially the end of my first blog entry. It wasn't that bad. Stay tuned, because later today I'll let you know what I did tomorrow, as in today, or Tuesday, the second day of the seventh month of the year 2013.

-NJJ