Thursday, February 25, 2010

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:30a - Arrive at library, put stuff away.

8:35a - Go through the stack of catalogs in my mailbox. Most of them get recycled, but a few are placed on the bookshelves in our office. We keep the most recent publisher and supplies catalogs.

8:37a - Open the department (turn on the lights, turn on computers, feed fish & frog, etc.).

8:45a - Set up the program room for my morning program (set up chairs, get my books and felt pieces ready, pick out some books for the book display, etc.)

9:10a - Chat with one of our Technical Services staff members about cataloging some new books.

9:20a - Check my email. I've been off for a few days, so I have a lot to wade through.

9:58a - Open the doors to the program room for Mother Goose on the Loose. MGOL is a weekly program for under-2s. If you get a chance to attend a Mother Goose on the Loose training, I highly recommend it!

10:00-10:45a - I do Mother Goose on the Loose. It's a 30-minute program of rhymes, books, and activities and then I bring out some toys and we have a 15-minute playtime. Our patrons love it and we've had great attendance since we started it last month.

10:45a - I clean up the room a little bit and then go sit on the desk while my staff person takes a break. While on desk I answer a call from a local preschool wanting to schedule a librarian to do storytime there and I help a patron find a book she's looking for.

11:30a - I finish cleaning up the program room and chat with my evening staffer who's just coming in for her shift.

11:40a - I call the preschool back because I accidentally scheduled the visit at the same time as another visit. We reschedule the visit.

11:50a - I start to plan for next week's Mother Goose on the Loose. A lot of the program is repeated from week to week, but I change about 5 or 6 things each week.

12:10p - I walk a few books over to Technical Services so they can be changed from Bookmobile status to Main Library. Sadly, our Bookmobile has been parked for several years due to budget cuts. At some point I'll get the books off there and either withdrawn or into our collection (many of the Bookmobile books were donations).

12:15p - I clean up around the department, refilling displays and putting away blocks and puzzles.

12:30p - Lunch time!

1:15p - I'm back from lunch. I start planning for our After School Adventures program that's starting next week.

1:45p - I decide the planning will go better if I create a planning sheet to work from, so I do this and share it with my coworker who will be doing the program with me. The program will run for six weeks, so I'm planning three and she'll plan three.

2:35p - I go up to the business office to drop off copies of our March staff schedule.

2:45p - Back in my office, I work on publicity for the After School Adventures program. It starts next week and we only have a few kids signed up. I create a flyer to fax or email to the schools in hopes that they'll post it or distribute it and help us spread the word!

3:20p - Cookie break!

3:30p - I read PUBYAC emails.

4:00p - Back to planning for After School Adventures and Mother Goose on the Loose, but it's getting pretty busy, I go out to help on the desk. While I'm sitting on the desk, I finish up planning my last After School Adventure program. H and I will meet together next week to put everything together.

4:40p - It's died down a little bit, so I go back into the office and finish up my plans for next week's MGOL. I pick out fingerplays and songs. Then I (attempt to) clean up my desk.

5:15p - Time to go home!