8:00: in office, tea in hand.  Send out final plea asking for feedback on revised SFX menu display.  I’ve only heard from 4 out of a possible 11 librarians.  Realize that I am perhaps the only person who thinks this is a big deal.  Will update menu at the end of the day.

9:00: Focus on fixing header and footer CSS style issues in LibData header and footer.

11:00 Where did the morning go?  I never realized how much time troubleshooting takes, nor did I realize how much I would learn from figuring things out myself.  The learning is the best part of being a librarian.

11:15: Staff member fills me in on latest publisher saga.  After a snafu with our periodicals vendor, publisher will not be sending us two issues from the fall.  Consider going electronic only, but the e-license will cost $300 more and I am not convinced these titles get enough use.  Also, publisher refuses to work with periodicals vendor for the electronic purchase.  Since all our money is with our periodicals vendor, this little snag could pose real problems.  Make a mental note to follow up on Monday.

12:45: Break for lunch.

1:00: More CSS troubleshooting.  New footer is in place; no more tables!  Just learned new IE CSS hack  – CSS will no longer validate, but perhaps will display properly.   It’s all about choices.

2:00: Call colleague to talk me down from extreme frustration on getting margin thing figured out.  While talking to him, re-fresh my file one more time and voila!  It’s fixed.  Sometimes you just need to talk it out.  And re-fresh.

3:00:  Run over to the Cleary Center to listen to chancellor’s open forum on campus budget woes.  Our library will get possible funding for more hours, but no money for materials such as journals and databases.   Not looking forward to trying to wringing another year out of a budget that hasn’t increased in 10 years.  Wondering if I should share my 2002 paper on how to central many library services in order to save money.  Publishers have been asking me lately why we don’t order more journals consortially.  I have to make more progress in this area this semester.

3:40: Sneak out of forum.  Run to car (again a little too late) and drive home to pick-up daughter for her piano lessons.

4:30: Post blog posts for past few days and check email one last time.  Also, update display for SFX menu.

5:00:  Unplugging for the evening.

Pre-work: Same routine as Tuesday. Added attraction – tax materials are complete and just need to be dropped off at the accountant’s office.

8:15: arrive at office, slightly frozen; check email, blogs, and calendar. Talk to staff member about my position responsibilities possibly changing slightly. Discover that I’m actually on the reference desk from 9-10:30 instead of 10:30-12.

9:00-10:30: Many computers frozen, printer jams and paper outages. Eureka moment on how to fix our SFX menu so that the relating holdings information displays properly.

10:30: Work with staff member to figure out re-linked component nightmare in Voyager Acquisitions module. Draft email to librarians and staff asking for feedback on proposed SFX menu changes.

11:15: Hear back from Ex Libris about linking problem with Allen Press title. They are deleting the only record that works because the Library of Congress doesn’t list it in the official record. Quickly contact Allen Press. Learn that “problem ISSN” is actually the e-ISSN. Reply back to Ex Libris begging them to re-instate the ISSN so that we can link to this title.

11:30: Grab a chicken parmesan wrap from the library coffee shop and eat at desk while trying to clear out email inbox. Current emails in inbox: 716.

1:00: Wonder where the time has gone. Email inbox: 570. I think it’s taking such a long time because something has to be checked or read before I can safely delete each email.

2:45: Working on creating “chunks” for library instruction sessions. Simple chunks where students can run their own searches. Chucks like finding books, findings news articles, finding research articles, finding AV materials.

3:30: Running out of steam. I’ve decided to do a Course Page on finding topics so the instructor can run with it. Also thinking about asking students to take a tutorial: What is an article database and watch a “movie” on the differences between scholarly journals and popular press materials.

4:15: Another day gone too quickly. I feel like I got a lot accomplished today though.

Ever wonder just what it is that librarians do all day? Are we secretly curled up in a sunny window reading with our cats? Read about the real daily lives of all sorts of librarians at Library Day in the Life. And below, I give you my Tuesday.

Pre-work: 5:30: alarm goes off. Get the coffee started and eat breakfast. Give cat her spoonful of tuna, drop tuna on the floor on way to her bowl. Cat does not seem to mind. Get son up at 6:15; Realize that daughter is still sleeping at 6:45, wake her up. Leave house at 7:30 and drop daughter off at surround care.

8:00: Arrive at office, check email, get tea, check my calendar.

8:15: Update embedded librarian documents on course management system for new CST110 sections.

8:40: Send out Access query for determining how many standing order volumes we added in a given year so Tech Services Librarian can complete ALS statistics. Start work on figuring out query for our current journals, regardless of format.

9:00: Work on revising our library services web page. I am attempting to organize library services into categories. This task seems like it should be much simpler than it is. Sent out a draft page to web team members. Also ask for feedback on the new RSS feed display.

9:30: Answered staff questions about a Sage survey, signed timecards, and talked about how we fill checklists (each time a journal gets canceled, added, ceases, etc. lots of changes occur in the OPAC, link resolver, shelves, etc. We manage the changes through checklists).

10:00: Preparation for 10:30-1 reference shift. Tea re-filled, scone from our library coffee shop purchased and consumed, ran over to mail room, signed another time card.

10:30 – 1:00: Reference Shift – Typical questions for first week of the semester: Where is the restroom, where is the paper cutter, the printer is jammed, where is the computer lab?

1:15: Quick lunch

1:30: Created a database from ILL requests made from July –December 2008 by our Health Professions folks. We want to actively manage these requests so that we can order new subscriptions if need be. Results are not what I expected: 316 unique journal titles requested. Top two journal titles each had a mere 10 requests. We already have subscriptions for both titles, but requests were for outlying issues.

2:30: Was planning on working on instruction material for upcoming CST110 classes, but got an urgent email about a title not linking properly in SFX. I spent 40 minutes troubleshooting the problem, fixing it, and reporting it to Ex Libris.

3:10- running Xenu in background to make sure broken links reported last semester are fixed.

3:10-decided to run Xenu against all inks on library web site. Lots of broken links. Fixed about half of them.

4:00: heading home.