Saturday, August 18, 2012

This week at the library; or, Now that's over let's plan fall!

Phew. That was an...intense summer. I can only imagine how insane it would have been if I hadn't planned the heck out of it (and even so, there were a lot of things I will do differently next year, when programs don't go until the end of May, giving me less than two weeks for summer planning and visiting all the schools). We didn't do registration this year, we only counted actual participants in summer reading. So, we had 500 kids age 0 to 12 and 27 teens actually participating. Between Miss Pattie and myself we offered 58 programs to 3157 kids and parents. We didn't have a single program that wasn't a success (unless you count the Star Wars program, but that was more that it was too much of a success, since I had only planned for about 100 people and close to 200 showed up. Or that only 30 people came to the end of summer reading party, but I didn't publicize that on purpose b/c one more 200 person program would have killed me and probably all the assistants I had dragooned as well.)

Now I have until September 10 to plan the fall! (Sort of, I'm taking a week off when my mom and sister come up from Texas).

I took Monday and Tuesday afternoon off to recover (there was nobody to work my Monday evening and I had meetings Tuesday morning) and I also had Friday off, due to my 50+ hours last week and the fact that I'm working Saturday again this week. In between, this is a rough list of what I did (apart from desk time and helping a gazillion patrons)
  • Wrote thank-you notes for all our Scholastic Book Fair volunteers
  • Finished the financials for the Scholastic Book Fair
  • Met with a new rep and placed an order (I have relaxed my rule about no outside vendors for Usborne/Kane Miller)
  • Called the two elementary schools I want to attend open house at. Yes from one, left message for the principal at the other.
  • Talked to Kohls' about grant related to 1,000 books before kindergarten
  • Made resource list for 1,000 books before kindergarten
  • Called my vendor about damaged books. Yay the awesomeness of BWI!
  • Sent August order and replacement order
  • New books (new stickers, pics to slideshows, etc.)
  • Wrote grant for We Explore programming
  • Worked with aides on projects, mostly displays
  • Updated craft fair publicity
  • Hunted for a praying mantis (it's a long story)
  • Teen book club bookmarks, flyers, etc.
  • Purchased folders at Wal-mart for 1,000 books before kindergarten (this took me FORTY-FIVE MINUTES)
  • Put together 1,000 books before kindergarten materials for Kohls to stuff in folders
  • Last day for summer volunteer
  • Worked on fall order lists
  • Started shifting teen gns
  • Updated, revised, published as pdfs, and added to the website reading lists (specifically for 1,000 books before kindergarten)
  • Lego Club flyers
  • Flyers for Homeschool meet 'n' greet
  • Organized my programs and outreach (still have to plan actual content and there will be more outreach coming)
  • Scheduling for aide
  • Worked on website, updates, etc.
  • After school flyer, to distribute at the schools
Summer Reading Pies! I forgot them and had to drive all the way back home to get them. Just another fun part of this week's many enjoyable details.

1 comment:

shelf-employed said...

I completely understand you. Summer is so much fun, but also so much work. It's definitely vacation time for public librarians! Go ahead, you've earned it!