This week at the library; or, the ideas are just popping!

Programs

• Coffee, Kids, and Conversation (Pattie)
• Toddlers 'n' Books, 2 sessions, (Pattie)
• Preschool Interactive
• Middle School Madness
• Lego Club
• Kohls Wild Theater

Random Commentary

• Monday
• Pre-work work - laid out a plan for my department's new positions, hiring schedule, etc., visited Game Stop to talk about suggestions for adding a new format of games to the library. PS3 seems to be the best option. Emailed back and forth some plans with Pattie.
• Actually at work now - monthly report, weekly newsletter to staff, minutes from all staff meeting last Friday, collection development project, clean off desk and put away all the stuff I bought last Friday, hauled in the laundry (yes, I never thought I'd say that either), finished most of the publicity through the end of the year, updated all our digital photo frames.
• Tuesday
• Pre-work work - sent a budget request to my director (in free verse. I am a fun employee), had an awesome idea combining bird feeders, writing centers, and citizen science and started working it out
• Actually at work now - finished most of the programs through the end of the year, made book bundles, started some weeding, complicated av order for my director (I am the queen of Amazon), worked some more on my collection development project, drew up new plans for the children's area. Dealt with sudden schedule drama as I suddenly realized we have nobody to do Books 'n' Babies on Thursday, or next Thursday. Worked on my art and stories program series for next year a little. Went through some stacks of new books.
• After-work work - drew up a brief Facebook poll. Our toddler storytime is getting out of hand again and I want patrons' feedback while the chaos is fresh in their minds.
• Wednesday
• Prepped for storytime, put several carts of picture books in order, storytime, chatting with parents, more new books, discussions with my director about various issues, phone tag with a teacher, middle school madness, clean-up, and done!
• Thursday
• Budget discussions, set up fifth grade visits (phone tag from yesterday), various collection development things, decided to try a poll on facebook and see if we can switch toddler times to a better slot than 10am (to which everyone is crowding again) and 11am (to which hardly anyone comes), a couple hours on the information desk, then had to clear everything off the youth services desk b/c the city guys are going to take my desk top and round the corners! Yay! No more small heads careening by sharp corners! Happily, our head of circ unhooked the computers for me, which was very nice. Especially since for a number of reasons I had missed most of my meals and felt pretty sick as a result. Only 20 people at Lego Club. Not sure if this is the natural ebb and flow of programming or I need to send more marketing to the schools. Probably a combination.
• After-work work - made the mistake of checking Facebook to see what the toddler moms thought about the times. Not that anyone was rude at all, but these things always make me stressed b/c somebody could get mad and then I would have to deal with it and be stressed and...yeah. Stressed.
• Friday
• The big thing today was Kohls Wild Theater. I always invite all the 4K classes from the biggest daycare/preschool/4k, which means about 80 kids plus all the families who come on their own. Last year the 4K kids came early and we split them into two groups and did tours. I think. I can't really remember exactly what we did last year. The school coordinator thought the teachers ran some tours. We decided to talk about it later, closer to the date. On Thursday I suddenly thought "hmmm....we never talked about it." So I came in before 9, prepared for anything! I grabbed a staff member to help me break down all the tables and then at 9:30 the kids showed up, so I went and got my director and was all "so, hey, you are running two back-to-back tours for 35 kids!" and she was cool with it, which is why being a small library is nice! We had about 60 people in addition to the 70 kids and teachers, everyone loved the show and it was All Good. Then I weeded the entire juvenile reference section (all two shelves of it) b/c I'd already pulled it off yesterday b/c of my desk being under construction and it's almost all 10 years old and covered in dust. I put our newish World Book back to circ and a couple other things and that's it. Then a couple hours on the desk, then I did all the end of year weeding of the magazines, moved the back issues to a new place, and relabeled boxes! Phew!
• After-work work - collection development for about an hour. Because it's relaxing.
• Other Thoughts
• Anna, at Future Librarian Superhero, is inviting people to write their stories of how they became librarians. I don't really have an exciting story...it never occurred to me that I wouldn't be a librarian. When I was about 12 I started cataloging my personal library, by the time I was 16 I was creating personalized reader's advisory lists for local homeschooling families and had convinced my dad to turn my closet into a mini library (no word from my sister on how she felt about keeping our clothes in my mom's closet. hey, she got at least FOUR shelves!) When I was 17 some people who knew of my interest recommended me for a cataloging project in a church/school library. I had decided when I was a teen that I was going to work maybe in Boston, b/c the library there looked cool. I volunteered in a large public library and a high school library in college and decided that what I really wanted to do was work in a small public library so I could do lots of different things. I interned/worked in a lot of different places in graduate school, just in case I developed a sudden love of academic libraries (I didn't) and then I got pretty much the job I'd always wanted. A couple years after I'd started there, I actually went out and interviewed at a LOT of different libraries, like maybe 15? b/c I'd pretty much taken the first offer I'd gotten and in the end I decided that, although someday I'd like to work in the Puget Sound area (and the Sno-Isle system is AMAZING) I'm pretty happy just where I am.