This week at the library; or, The endless days of summer

Monday

• Left around 11 to pick up marshmallows and a couple other things I needed for programs.
• Staff meeting
• Insane evening on the desk, flickering lights, finally left around 8:15
• Realized I forgot to write up the staff meeting minutes, but I got most of the teen summer reading slideshow finished. We have 27 teens participating this year, up from 19 last year, and their reading is varied! Confirms my suspicion that it's mostly adults reading/requesting Hunger Games read-alikes and bestsellers. Although I admit these 27 are probably not totally representative of the teen reader population.

Tuesday

• Was not supposed to be an endless day, but turned out to be one after all. 
• I came in leisurely at 9, got the first part of our 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program done and planned out displays with my aides for the fall, but the afternoon was a blur...
• let's just say I had to get my director to give me a scream break in the back and leave it at that. By the time I finished up all the last-minute things and chatted myself out of scream-mode, I ended up getting home about six
• then walked over to pick up a local book we couldn't buy elsewhere and Sara the Librarian and I went to dinner to vent and discuss PW's spring 2013 publishing notes.

Wednesday: Official endless day 1

• In at 9, last Preschool Interactive (including frantic call to Miss Pattie - where are my eye-droppers? Answer - her volunteer accidentally packed them in her tote. Fortunately, her office is in the school down the street and she ran them back over)
• the Scholastic Book Fair arrived in the morning (I had expected it yesterday and one of my two volunteers was now showing a steer and couldn't come). 
• Happily, I got three volunteers to come help set up and it only took about 2 hours
• Realized there was no starter money for the register, took a break to go grocery shopping and to the bank
• Stayed until 7pm for the committee meeting for the Craft Fair in the fall. Looks like I'm doing publicity. Got home around 7:15.

Thursday: Official endless day 2

• Came in around 8:45 to set up the register for the fair
• 9-12 on the information desk
• Fair opening volunteer did not appear and could not be contacted, so I worked the information desk AND the fair until 11:30, when my next volunteer came.
• Annoying computer problems
• Endless patron questions (remember through all this that we are BUSY.
• Started getting read for Lego Club. Realized I had scheduled a gap between my aides and had no one to set up Lego Club and no one to run the fair until my next volunteer came.
• Convinced one aide to stay late and snaffled a teen that was wandering through. Yay Kellee! She helped us move all the tables, set up all the chairs, and even stayed and sorted legos for a whole hour and a half. Yay Amanda! She showed up early to run the fair and stayed until 6.
• I closed out the fair and left around 6:15. I think. It might have been 6:30.

Friday: Official endless day 3

• Got an email at 7:40am "The IT guy is coming, who's going to be there at 8am to let him in?" Groan. Fortunately, I got hold of someone else who told me someone else had planned for someone else to let him in.
• Got to work around 8:45, set up the cash register, opened the library
• 9:30 - morning volunteer did not show up. Ran fair & desk again until our adult svs librarian came in at 10, when she took over the desk and I took over the fair until my next set of volunteers came in at 11:30.
• Then I grabbed lunch and went on the desk from 12-3. All the local adult group homes picked yesterday and today to visit the library, btw. Busy.
• Helped aides set up room for tomorrow. Did misc. stuff.
• Yay! Super Amanda showed up to help out with the fair again. I went back on the desk so our adult svs. librarian could go get her kids - who have probably forgotten what she looks like by now.
• Another volunteer actually came! Thank you Debbie! She brought her kids, who were unbelievably well-behaved. We were all in awe.
• Lugged boxes, sorting through summer reading prize books.
• Closed out the book fair when we closed at 6pm and got home eventually.
• For those of you who are wondering why we seem to have so much trouble covering desk shifts, I will tell you that we have three desks - upstairs adult reference/teen, which we gave up even trying to cover several years ago, downstairs children's desk, covered by yours truly when possible, and entrance information desk, manned by everyone else. That everyone else would be the adult services librarian, director, cataloger, myself, and the reference assistant. Did I mention the reference assistant and cataloger are part-time? And asides from us, all the other staff are circulation clerks? Meaning we do all the programming, technology, publicity, collection development, etc.
• Also, the director, reference assistant, and cataloger were gone. This may be the last time I do a Scholastic Book Fair.

Saturday - the LAST DAY

• Came in about 9:30 to finish setting things up.
• The community room was already set up for painting - the tables were all covered. I just had to put out the paint and fetch all the things I had forgotten.
• Set up and lit the fire for roasting marshmallows
• Aide and book fair volunteer came at 10. Book fair volunteer was not comfortable running the fair alone, so my aide joined her.
• Which was ok, because only about 30 people showed up. Our adult svs librarian supervised the fire, marshmallows, and sidewalk chalk and I kept an eye on the paint and the book fair.
• I would not have been surprised if 200 people had shown up, but I was very happy with 30. I think one more giant program would have given everyone concerned a heart attack. The weather was gorgeous, people dropped by the sale and did a little painting, roasted a few marshmallows, all very casual.
• The party ended around 11:30 and I did misc. stuff, spent some time talking to my 12-2 volunteer, who is one of the elementary school librarians and always helps us out.
• End of semester stats - 500 kids participated in summer reading and turned in around 1600 bookmarks. Or a little more, I haven't finished those stats.
• At 2pm, my four volunteers (kids who live nearby) helped me pack up the fair, move back the tables (this was very labor-intensive, as they're not intended to be moved and are heavy). We had lots of cookie breaks (I had a tub of homemade cookies) and at 3:15 we were done! They grabbed the rest of the cookies and left on their bikes, except the girl who lives a couple miles away and had walked so I drove her home.
• Came back to the library, did the money stuff that needed to be done (I'll finish the rest later next week. We earned about $600, which I'm not sure is really worth all the work), called the teen prize winner, cleaned up the summer reading from the desk and left around 3:45

DONE!