Last day at Branch 1

Today was my last day at the first branch.  It was also like the start of a new branch because the people who I had worked with were either on RDO or lates (meaning they don't start until 1pm).  The new people will be at the branch I go to next week...and were also people I met at the Home Library Service meeting I attended. 

This was quite good as they gave me some new tasks.  This involved looking through an unallocated and available list -- cancelling reserves that couldn't be met or suggesting requests for purchases (after searching Books in print) to see if the items were available.

I also collected items from the stack location that had been reserved.  The stack location is 2 sides of a compactus.  Many of these items are old and in a MUSTIE condition. 

I also was one of the staff members on ref desk for the morning.  I only had a few questions which included helping with photocoping, searching for some new titles and also placing some requests for purchase.

After lunch, I continuted on ref desk (allowing a staff member to have some precious time at their desk).  Then I caught up with the Library Co-ordinator who explained her role.  In a way, position title are different down here.  My role at home as Branch Manager could be called Team Leader here (I think) however a team leader is not responsible for rosters, timesheets etc. 

Each branch has a team leader and an admin officer.  My plan next week is to try and crack these roles and compare them to the roles we have.

Among many other things, the Library co-ordinator is responible for

• Human resources (with support from Council's HR team)
• Staffing at each branch
• Attending team meetings
• Ensuring the library is operational

I also received a copy of the library's strategic plan.  One admin officer also gave me copies of the daily, weekly and monthly checklists that I think are great.  These help ensure that each branch is up to date and current.

I received my plan for the next two weeks.  So far, there is more Collection Management and Perfect Ordering which will keep me busy.  I'm looking forward to next week at a new branch.

Day 4

What happened today?????

After helping put the in transit items onto the trolleys, it was storytime.  Today's storytime was run by a different person.  This guys is really talented, playing the guitar and reading books.  If I didn't know better, it was just like a playschool episode.  Once again, we used the halloween theme and read the same books.  We had in excess of 26 kids and 22 parents (stats are kept on adults and kid participants).  We sang a fwe more songs, and then did the craft.

After storytime, I helped weed the adult cassette collection.  This involved selecting items based on their age, looking at the condition, no. of times issued and if the item is available in another format (eg CD).

After lunch, I attended a Youth Team meeting.  This was quite interesting and very informative.  Items discussed included

• Promotions -- visiting schools, maternity groups, having schools visit etc
• Storytime, baby time, toddler time
• Graphic novels for juniors and teenages
• Funding allocations
• Weeding -- using the CREW formula

Tomorrow is my last day at this branch.  Sis has picked up some muffins for me to take to morning tea. 
Not sure what is on my job list tomorrow.  I collected quite a few brochures today which I'll look through and bring back to show you all.

Day 3

Well, what exciting happened today........

This morning I arrived at work and got off the bus at the right stop in plenty of time for a coffee in a lovely coffee shop. 

After putting the courier boxes on the trolley and then some shelving I managed to have a chat to 2 librarians.  The first, explained why Librarians shelve

• to be out and about in the library -- roaming
• to check out the collections and take note of what needs attention or weeding

The second librarian talked about the homelibrary services offered.  These include

• a typical housebound service -- staff select books based on patron profiles and either a courier delivers or volunteers deliver
• the home library service bus which is driven by volunteers who go around and pick up patrons to come to the library.  They then select their own books and are taken back home
• One on one homelibrary service -- volunteers are matched with house bound patrons who select and deliver books
• Institutional borrowers -- Library staff select a bulk loan of items and a courier delivers to the institution

After that, I spent some time on the information desk.  I placed a few items on inter-branch reserve, helped a man print and showed a person how to photocopy.

I then searched the large print collection for westerns (this library service doesn't place any genre stickers on any times) while putting these in perfect order.

After lunch, I helped change the status of some items before attending the home library service team meeting.  Discussions took place re: borrower categories, promotion of this service, recognition of volunteers, statistics and procedures and policies.

Then it was home time.  I caught a different bus home today as I had to go via Aust Post.  I got there before closing time so this was also successful.

Additional services

This isn't so much a blog post but a details about the additional services

 

Craft Group

• Held an interest meeting with a library staff member moderating
• Group selected when and where to meet  eg days and times
• Talked about what the group will get out of the sessions
• Talked about what the library was prepared to do
• space
• additional resources books etc
• Promotion of the group
• Talked about mini-projects that may be suitable for the group
• No cost to patrons and no financial support by library
• Membership forms??

From this, the group meets twice a week, and have created some mini-projects.


One on One computer sessions

• Cost is $40 per hour session
• Bookings essential
• Librarians will provide one on one computer sessions taylored to the patrons needs
• Space is in main library???

Seniors Computer Classes

• 2 staff members involved -- one to present and the other as a roamer
• Two hour sessions including a morning tea break
• Use laptops set up in a dedicated room -- each laptop has a mouse
• Original plan was to use attendees as per mentors however this doesn't really happen
• 5 monthly sessions
• Files and folders
• Emails
• Attaching files etc to emails
• Cameras, scanners, photos etc (as requested)
• Follow up and Review
• Evaluate at the end of each session
• ***Be wary of assuming participants have existing knowledge  eg  some may be able to use mouse, others not.
• No cost to patrons
• Library prints and binds books
• Library provides coffee and tea
• Sessions are run with 12 laptops and are rotated between branches

Bookgroups

• There are multiple bookgroups in the library service
• Most are self-run
• Library provides tea and coffee
• Sessions run for 1 hour
• Library provide access to resouces eg Books
• Wish to create a list on the opac of items with more than 10 holdings.
• Groups select titles (mainly) on a monthly basis

Bookchats

• Looking at starting in 2010
• Based on what you are reading
• Discuss what you are reading or have read
• Readers advistory type sessions

  

Day 2

Well, where do I start today......

Firstly I caught the bus. Headed off early so I didn't have to rush and made it in plenty of time. I got off the bus right in front of the library today so I am proud of myself (did I tell you I was off 2 stops too early getting to work and walked for miles to catch it home). Anyhow after I got off the bus, I walked up to the next spot and guess what.....there is a bus interchange. Great. Now I know where to go to catch the bus home without having to walk for miles and without having to hail it. I was early so I stopped into a little cafe for a coffee. And a good one it was.

Anyhow, first up I helped unpack the boxes from the courier. Didn't seem as many today but then I saw the empty crates and realised I didn't see them all. After that I helped out with Story time. Today's theme.....Halloween. Personally I was reluctant when Court suggested Halloween as it is not something that is widely recognised in Australia and seems a little commercial for me. It went well. Similar to our story time with songs, stories and a colouring in. The main person who normally does story time is on leave so I will try to catch up with her to see if they share activities. I was surprised by the number of books read. In excess of 5 I would guess. The craft was also a colouring in with glitter. They had more than 25 kids and probably 15+ adults at the session. This was fairly full on. Many kids were there with their grandparents. They use a vinyl type pad for each of the kids. This means that the crayons (only crayons on offer) don't get pushed through the page. This worked well.

After story time, we had morning tea. We then talked about the online resources that are available to patrons. This includes resources that we have access to .... Tumbleweeds, novelist etc but also includes ancestry.com, books in print and also a local history page/portal that includes cemetery records.

We also discussed other services like book groups, book talks and a craft group they have in the library. I'll create a new post about this as it was quite interesting.

Day 1

Well, I managed to catch the bus and get the right one. Guaranteed I got off at least 2 stops early but at least I made it. Got in early so went for a walk around the "town". This area has a large Asian population based on the shops in the main street. I haven't made it as far as the shopping centre yet.

Well...what did I do and what did I learn.

I have a new idea.......Trace, don't moan as they are always a good idea.
Lets have a "Perfect Order" library. What I hear you say. Well really its a fancy name for shelf checking but each bay is numbered and each staff member has to check 1 bay per day. What do you think.......I love the idea and think that Perfect order is much more positive than shelf checking. I was excited to do it but I don't think I would be if it was called Shelf checking. Maybe we could change the name of this task every 12 months so we get excited to do it.

What else did I learn. The library I am going to (I won't use names as I don't want to) uses Spydus (same version as us). They use the workflow manager instead of placing reservations and using a pick list. Works for them but I feel it takes quite a bit of staff time doing this rather than printing a pick list and collecting it but now I think about it, maybe it takes the same time. It also means that items are collected rather than being on the list day in day out.

I also helped with the intransit items. Wow....2 deliveries per day and today we had around 8 crates each time. The intransit status is removed automatically so I guess that makes it easier. All staff shelve however shelvers come in to do the adult nons, adult fiction and junior fiction trolley. They have a paperback collection for each age group which is on spinners - no order but they also have a fiction collection for each.

This afternoon I watched a session on AskNow. This is quite interesting and a bit tricky as the 2 questions we had were by uni students. This wasn't the hard bit but their questions required database searching. It was difficult to know what databases they have access to as we aren't even sure what state they are in as to what access they have.

Looking forward to storytime tomorrow :)

Psyching up day

Well today has been a slow day compared to yesterday. I was woken at 6.30 by an alarm sis has set on her phone. From that we went back to bed and I only woke at 10.30. We've been watching the V8 supercars....go Murph....

We headed to the South Melbourne Markets and did our meat and vege shopping. We also had lunch at Q11 which is a lovely organic cafe located at South Melbourne. I had eggs bene with smoked salmon. The smoked salmon was the best I had ever eaten.

Anyhow, I'm actually on the net to look up the bus timetable and to work out how I'm getting to work tomorrow.

Must go and do that.

Getting there

Well its not really day 1 as Prac doesn't start until Monday but it is the start of the adventure.

Today I left Gatton at 3.40am......to catch my first of three flights for the day. I flew to Sydney for the Sign Expo. The expo was double headed with a point of purchase expo which I thought would be more library appropriate.....I'll explain more about that later when I'm not paying for internet access. Anyhow the sign expo was good. Saw a product similar to our multiscreen which I will get a quote on for comparision.

I'm in Brissy at the moment waiting for my 3rd flight. I might add more to this post soon if I can get a few more gold coins. If not, I'll take this opportunity to read my book. If only I didn't waste my laptop battery I could do some assignments.......Oh well