Random Commentary
- End of year thoughts - 2012 was busy and I did a lot of good stuff, but ultimately it was a year I could have lived without. Not as horrible as 2011, but it could definitely have been improved. As I read back through the year for my yearly report, I remember how horribly busy the winter/spring was. Things are still busy, but I've scaled back a lot and gotten more realistic about what I have time to do.
- Thinking over 2013, I have some things I'd like to do - winter reading program, after school science club, convince our director to hire a part-time marketing person (please, please, please), expand outreach (although that may not happen due to time constraints), and while I have a really good line-up for We Explore for the winter/spring, I will need to do a lot of work to keep the momentum going through the summer and fall, since that's when I'll need to start inviting people back for repeat visits.
- I have some grants I'd like to apply for, ALA Midwinter and Annual to attend, decisions to make on committee work in the future - do I really have time? and the excitement of seeing if any of my bulbs come up, or if the squirrels really did eat them all. I'll be working more with our cataloger to do some teen programming, maybe even try starting a TAB again (although she definitely needs to be full-time before we try to have her do anything like that) and several minor shifting projects as well as some little changes to make the children's area more early literacy and family-friendly.
- I'm looking forward to seeing how the system changes, since our youth services coordinator is leaving and they will be hiring a contract person for 200 hours a year in her place. I have some connections with neighboring ys librarians and I'd like to see what collaborations we can come up with, although that's always a stretch for those who have even more limited time than myself (and..uh..challenging directors). I'm making a few minor changes to the summer reading program, mostly adding a super readers club for ages 6-12, and I'm planning to do a summer reading program for the daycares which will take a lot of organizing. I'd like to get our summer reading numbers up. Right now we're at about 500, which is approximately 1/3 of the elementary age population and I'd like to get that up to half at some point in the future. I can totally do it, I just have to find the right combination of incentives and marketing. I'll have a bigger budget next year, so more collection development, some serious weeding in the teen and juvenile nonfiction areas.
- Blogging of course! and next fall there will be Cybils. I usually have posts written way ahead, but this fall has been so insanely busy that I only have a couple posts prepared for 2013, mostly nonfiction for Mondays. I'll be doing some intense reading to clear off my to be read shelves and fill up the schedule for the blog, plus there will be awesome new books at ALA to be excited about. I've thought a lot of about career choices in the past few weeks and while I would really love to end up in the Puget Sound area some day, for now I am really satisfied with my job here. As you can see, there is so much to do and try and I feel like I have a better handle on what I'm doing than in the past four years. There are still lots of changes to make and always ways to improve, but I am very optimistic about the future.
- A short week, since we were only open Wed. - Sat. Of course, that means the shelving was crazy, people racing in to grab stuff before we closed for the next holiday, and the usual grumpy old men complaining about us getting holidays. Last year some jerk was ranting about us all getting 80K (which is ridiculous and our salaries are public so it's not like it's a secret) and going on Hawaii to vacation - to the staff member who came in on her own time over the holidays to empty the book drops and had been at work since 7am that morning. People. Sheesh.
- More publicity and got a start on program planning. This is a pretty short break, so I don't expect to get everything planned until the next break, but I have to at least know what art projects and crafts I'm doing to I can order supplies and set the budget.
- Sorrow and Despair - I reached the E's in the lexile suggestion list I am making for 1000+ levels and discovered that Scholastic doesn't let you browse more than 1500 titles. So I have to download the rest in an Excel file, then enter each title back into Reading Counts to get the points, into our library catalog to see if we have it, and add it to the list in the format I'm using. Hate and Rage.
Approximate hours this week
- Wednesday, 8:45-5
- Thursday, 9:30-5:00
- Friday, 8:45-1:15
- Saturday, 9:40-2
No comments:
Post a Comment