A Day in the Life of a COVID Work from Home Librarian

The world's a bit wonky right now and I know many (most? all?) of us are out of our normal daily routine. The life of librarians during the COVID-19 Pandemic looks very different right now and there are librarians dealing with all kinds of situations. There are librarians working from home (like I am lucky to be able to do). There are librarians not allowed to work from home, librarians who are reconfiguring jobs now that they can't do the work they normally would do, there are librarians who are on paid leave or unpaid leave or furloughed or laid off. My experience is by no means representative of the librarian population at large, but I thought you might be interested to see what a work from home day looks like for me.

So here we go... tomorrow might look completely different...

6:30am - My husband's alarm clock goes off and we both get up and start getting dressed. I check personal social media and snuggle with my cat Howie for a little bit before getting dressed. Yes, I'm getting dressed, doing my hair, and putting on makeup and earrings every morning. It helps me feel a little more normal at a time when nothing feels normal.

Photo of a librarian taking an early morning walk around the block

7:30am - I walk around the block for a morning "commute" and then eat breakfast. It's been helping me to add some movement in throughout my day, so I try to replicate the approximate times I would be traveling to and from the library with a short walk in the morning, at lunch time, and in the afternoon when my work is done for the day.

8:00am - I get settled in my "office" and start checking emails. In addition to going through my own email, I'm periodically checking our general information email where we've directed patrons to contact us with questions or help getting connected to our digital materials. We have several librarians checking it throughout the day to provide responses as quickly as possible. I also check our library's Facebook page to check for any questions or requests for help that have come through on there.

Photo of my "office" - a corner of my library with an armchair and a reading lamp. It's not the most comfortable for long-term sitting, so I tend to move around my house throughout the day.

8:30am - Only a few emails this morning, so I start working on some blog posts. Our staff blog is one of the few ways we have to communicate with our patrons right now, so we're trying to update it daily-ish. During normal times we update it twice a week and I have a team who are scheduled to post. We've been getting a lot of questions about accessing our digital resources, so I write up a post about getting started with our digital services for easy sharing.

10:45am - I switch over to working on creating some Hoopla collections. We are preparing to run our Summer Reading Program virtually, so one thing I have been thinking of is how to translate our grade-level book lists to digital formats. So far, I've been working with Hoopla and I'll tackle Overdrive in the future, too.

12:15pm - Time for a walk around the block and lunch! I heat up some 5 bean chili and watch an episode of Kim's Convenience while I eat. That's been a nice, happy show for me during this quarantine.

1:15pm - Back the the grind with more emails. I check up on some emails to patrons, answer emails about ALSC committee work and our spring reading program.

Photo of my "coworker", my cat Howie snuggling on my legs as I work

2:30pm - Time to work on some purchasing. I am still ordering materials while we are closed, although we are having our physical shipments held until we get staff back in the building regularly. Of course I am ordering digital materials, as well. My director has just cautioned us to be careful with our spending since tax delays and a high unemployment rate may affect our funding and the timing of getting our cash draws. I've recalculated my weekly spending goals and I'm sorting my "Upcoming" carts by popularity to make sure that I'm prioritizing the more popular books coming out in the next month or so.

4:00pm - Time for a brief ALSC Membership Committee meeting via Zoom.

4:30pm - Our meeting's done, so I check email again and then "clock out" and head to the park for a stress relief walk. I have been walking up a storm to help keep my anxiety at bay and to get some movement in my day since I'm sitting all day now. I'm on the lookout for ducklings at my local park, but haven't spotted any yet. I'm sure there will be some soon!

Photo of a tree with white blossoms against the blue spring sky

5:30pm - Back from the park, I check all of the email inboxes one last time before unplugging for the evening.

5:40pm - I shower from my walk and start cooking dinner (tacos tonight!)

6:30pm - My husband and I eat dinner and watch the news, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy (our normal routine).

8:00pm - I get started on some work for NoveList. I love my side gig writing readalikes as a NoveList contributor

8:00pm - WELL. The plan was to work on some NoveList work after dinner, BUT my amazing husband bought me a Nintendo Switch for our anniversary, so instead we spend the evening playing Animal Crossing. I'll work on NoveList stuff this weekend. ;)

10:00pm - Heading to bed with a book. I'm reading Parachutes by Kelly Yang (her YA debut) and I'm loving it.

10:30pm - I'm exhausted and it's time for lights out. Good night!

A Day in the Life

What does a Collection Development Librarian do all day long? Read on to find out. Click on the Day in the Life tag to find more (most recently for my collection development position, but older ones are from my Youth Services days).

8:00am - Arrive at work and start checking in books for Our New Branch! We're opening our first branch in a couple of weeks and it was time to get the books we'd ordered up there.

8:30am - While our processor keeps working on checking in new books, I decide I should process the weekly magazines that have arrived so I can go ahead and get those out to patrons who might be waiting for them. To do this, I barcode them, input the new issues into the system, mark our spreadsheet with the issues that have arrived, and put a "current issue" sticker on them so patrons know they don't check out yet. Newest issues of magazines can be read in the library, but only later issues can check out.

9:00am - I help a staff member collect the book drop (we always have two people get it together for safety reasons). When we come back in, a patron's waiting to use the meeting room, so I head down there and unlock it for her. Even though I'm in a behind the scenes position now, we all pitch in to help patrons whenever needed.

9:15am - Back in the office, I resume checking in the new books for the branch. Because it's a floating collection, the books are cataloged and processed just like the books for our central location, but they'll circulate as part of the branch collection for as long as the branch wants them. Patrons at either location can place holds for materials at either collection.

9:50am - I start setting up a placement experiment on Collection HQ for the titles that have been mentioned on our staff blog. Each month I set up this program to track the circulation of those specific titles so I can gather data on how our blog might be affecting circulation.

10:25am - Our Marketing Coordinator stops by for a chat about the blog - we talk about new users recently added and troubleshoot why the RSS feed is not working after changing the blog's URL.

11:00am - Time to head to the branch to deliver the new books! My staff in Collection Development come along since they have not yet seen the new location. They head back after about an hour, but I stay to try to get the books in some kind of order. When our new Branch Manager takes over, she may rearrange or relocate them, but I at least want her to be able to make sense of what we have. We have a VERY small physical collection since it's a tiny space. We're concentrating on digital access and our Makerspace up there.

1:15pm - Back at the central library, I now head home for lunch.

2:15pm - I'm back from lunch and I work on an Overdrive order of ebooks and e-audiobooks. I try to place an Overdrive order every week, even if it's a small one. Having new stuff added regularly encourages patrons to log in regularly and see what's new. I've found that it's really working to increase our circulation of our ebooks.

3:00pm - I finish up the Collection HQ placement experiment.

3:30pm - I need to investigate changing the email we use as contact for our Gale Courses and as I'm looking into this I fall into a little rabbit hole of marketing materials for our databases. I start brainstorming some ideas about how to increase their usage and make some notes about ways to market them.

4:00pm - Our new Branch Manager stops by and I show her the photos I took of the books at the branch and explain how I arranged them and basically how the collection works and what we think the procedure will be for moving materials around and handling holds both at the branch and the central library. Since this is our first branch, this is all new to us!

4:45pm - We wrap up our conversation and I have just enough time to check Library's Journal's Book Pulse and add some books to my weekly carts. I try to place orders once a week, but I work on the carts a little bit each day.

5:10pm - Got that under control, time to head home!

A Day in the Life

I've done many Day in the Life posts before for my previous Life as a Youth Services Librarian... it's high time that I type up a Day in the Life for my current position as Collection Development Leader! This day turned out to be a day that I had lots of little tasks instead of working steadily on a couple of big projects. Although my days are definitely more similar to each other now, I do have lots of different things that I work on. I've worked up a loose schedule of weekly tasks that I like to complete and then there are always long-term projects and a million little things to work on in-between.

So what does a day in the life of a collection development librarian look like? It could look like this:

7:40am - Arrive at work, put things away, check bullet journal for today’s tasks. It's a casual dress day, so I am wearing my new shirt from Book Riot and nerdily excited about it.

7:45am - We’re considering our options for digital content, so I read through a current contract, highlighting relevant information and jotting down some talking points and questions to go over with my Director later.

8:05am - Done with contract, skip down to lounge in search of something for breakfast. Check emails, greet colleagues as they come in.

8:15am - Since I am very new to the world of selection and acquisition, my director and I thought it would be a good idea for me to take a cataloging class. Now, I check in to my cataloging class and add to the discussion boards. I work on and submit my assignment for the week.

9:15am - I want to submit my weekly book order today, so I log in and start working on carts. I have been building them all week, but I check on how close I am to my weekly spending goal and add/subtract titles as necessary. I also double-check that I have my grids set on everything (grids tell our processing and cataloging team which area of the collection they’re for and which branch, if we had a branch) and that there are no books put in without a quantity.

10:00am - Short break for a conference call with our main book vendor. We’re outsourcing our processing to them and still in the process of getting it all set up. We chatted about how things are going and switching to electronic invoicing.

10:10am - Back to finishing up these orders. I’ve submitted them and now make sure that I enter the amounts I’ve spent into my budget spreadsheet.

10:30am - Short break to answer a question about changing call numbers and to look into the process of making global changes in our catalog. Then back to updating budget spreadsheets.

10:45am - We get an email about with the program schedule for an upcoming conference and I shoot out a recommendation to my staff on a session that I would like them to go to.

11:00am - Fun with POs! I put in POs for some previous orders and get a few in order to take up to our Business Office for processing.

11:30am - Early lunch today so I can make sure to be back on time for a call this afternoon. I am lucky to live close enough to work that I can go home for lunch.

12:30pm - Back from lunch and I spent some time poking around Edelweiss. This is a great resource for finding pre-publication books and I am not super familiar with it. I'm on the hunt for finding out about diverse books enough ahead of time that I might be able to read them and potentially nominate them for Library Reads.

1:00pm - My cataloger and I have a conference call with someone from our ILS who is training us on using their online selection and acquisitions module. We learn about updating vendors, importing MARC records, and placing orders through their system so that they get into our catalog as "on order".

2:15pm - I continue the discussion with our cataloger about the new module and what our next steps will be. We got a response to our help ticket about making global changes to the catalog, so we try out the instructions and discover that it is something we can do quite easily.

3:15pm - Read and respond to emails about Hoopla's new Book Club site, resources for finding diverse adult books, etc. I clean up my desk since it's possible we may have some visitors to the office tomorrow.

3:50pm - Work on letter of recommendation for one of my colleagues who is applying to library school.

4:30pm - Help our cataloger finish cataloging some video games and game controllers that were brought in by our Public Services Dept. for us to put in the circulating collection.

4:45pm - Run a report to find the new Large Print titles that have been added so I can update our new LP binder… then think better of it and email our most recent large print selector and homebound outreach coordinator to make sure the binder is still useful now that we’ve implemented some other strategies to make patrons aware of new books. She felt like we don’t need it, which saves me quite a bit of work. I write up a little reminder for her about running a list of the new titles in case she needs it and we’ll leave it at that!

5:00pm - Type up this Day in the Life and schedule it to post...

5:20pm - Done! Time to head for home!

Days Like This

Here's the note I wrote on our walk-around log in the Teen Scene tonight:

Tonight I: 

- had to kick teens out of the library

- had to call the police about a car illegally parked in an accessible parking space

- had to chase out an adult couple making out on the couch in the Teen Scene

All in a day's work. Nothing more to add except that if you sometimes have days like this, just know that we all have days like this! 

A Day in the Life of a Youth Services Librarian

A Day in the Life of a Youth Services Librarian

8:40am – Arrive at work, put stuff away, greet colleagues. 

8:50am – Get program room set up for this morning’s Preschool Storytime. Get tables and chairs set up, put out display books, collect felts & scarves, set up activity tables. 

9:20am – Quickly read through storytime books and make sure I know how all the felt stories and rhymes go. 

9:30am – Put this week’s desk shifts and other tasks in my bullet journal, check email. 

10:00 – 11:00am – Preschool Explorers. Theme: Bath time! Check out my Bath Time Storytime here. 

11:00am – Clean up program room, record statistics, put books and supplies away. Type up words and source for Five Elephants in the Bathtub rhyme to add to our flannel collection. Help get room ready for a class of fourth graders coming in for a field trip. 

11:45am – Check in on the class discussion for the online class I’m taking. 

12pm-1:00pm – Lunch time! 

1:00 – 2:00pm – On the Teen Desk. Since the kids are in school, it’s very quiet in the Teen Scene and I work on approving my staff’s timesheets, sending out reminder emails for booktalks, and typing up blog posts. 

2:00pm – Off desk, I take some photos for blog posts and work on my ALSC Blog post: Using Scarves in Storytime. 

2:45pm – One of our library assistants is back from vacation, so I take a few minutes to get him caught up on what’s been going on. 

3:00pm – Work on finalizing my monthly report to send to my new director and read through the last of my staff’s monthly reports, which they’re submitting to me. 

4:00pm – Run a report to get a list of potential weeding candidates because we’ll have some volunteers coming in who can start pulling them. Weeding has gotten exponentially easier for me since I started having teen volunteers pull carts of books for me to evaluate. I still love to spend some time in the stacks weeding, but utilizing volunteers helps me meet my weeding goals each year. 

4:15pm – I change over our catalog list to feature titles for African American History Month. 

4:30pm – Make coupon call for Summer Reading donations. This year I delegated this task because I hate it so much, but my teen librarian and I are tag-teaming it because sometimes these folks are just really hard to get ahold of! 

4:40pm – Pull books for next week’s booktalks. I check them all out on our department library card and arrange them in my office by when I’ll need them. 

5:20pm – Time to go home!

One thing I love about youth librarianship is that every day is different! Check out more day in the life posts here!

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

One thing I love about my job is that every day is different! Last Tuesday (St. Patrick's Day!), here's what my day at work was like:

8:45am - Arrive at work, put stuff away, check email, touch base with staff member who is coordinating our upcoming volunteer luncheon.

9:00am - Print off staff schedules for the next couple of weeks, highlight upcoming programs and make notes about reminder emails I need to send.

9:15am - Set up program room for Mother Goose on the Loose - go over my books and songs, get out the bells, scarves, felt pieces, etc.

9:30am - Send reminder emails for this week’s booktalking programs and the programs coming up after spring break.

9:45am - Head out to Children’s Desk to wait for my babies to arrive. Everyone’s wearing green today!

10:00am - Mother Goose on the Loose. Today I read Higher, Higher by Leslie Patricelli and my favorite new song is Mama's Little Baby Loves Dancing, which I learned from the wonderful gals at Jbrary!

10:30am - Wind down storytime and bring out the toys for some play time.

10:40am - Time to clean up!

10:45am - Everyone’s out of the program room, I grab my stuff and put everything away. We have Toddler Time at 11am, so I have to get my stuff cleared out to make way.

11:00am - Get stuff together for this afternoon’s Afterschool storytime and booktalks. Put together my bags with books and crafts and practice my booktalks a few times.

11:20am - Put together a cart to order on Amazon - we need new foam blocks and I promised my staff a new pencil sharpener for the office.

11:40am - Work on some book carts and put in the PO requests for all my orders.

12:00pm - Time for lunch! During my lunch break, I start the fabulous debut novel The Honest Truth by Dan Gemeinhart. (More on that at a later date.)

1:00pm - Back from lunch, place book orders.

1:05pm - Chat about our upcoming homeschool program with a potential volunteer. She is not able to help on that day, so I take some time to rethink my activity plans for that day.

1:30pm - Pull some books to fill up our Women’s History Month display.

1:40pm - Leave library and head to schools for a couple of outreach visits.

2:00pm - Booktalk to a class of fourth graders at one of our elementary schools.

I booktalk the following books:

The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs: A Scientific Mystery by Sandra Markle

A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie “Peanut” Johnson by Michelle Y. Greene

Stay: The True Story of Ten Dogs by Michaela Muntean

How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor

The Right Word: Roget and his Thesaurus by Jen Bryant

2:30pm - Head to second school for Afterschool storytime.

3:00pm - Afterschool storytime for K-4th.

I read the following books:

Beware of the Frog by William Bee

Egg Drop by Mini Grey

This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen

And I hand out small blank books made of printer paper stapled together and the kids make their own books. This craft has been a big hit with our afterschool kids. It's a big hit with me, too, since it is SO cheap and easy and it allows the kids to be creative. Win!

4:00pm - Arrive back at library, put stuff away, record stats for program and bring in a School Collection box to be checked in.

4:15pm - Open up box of Junior Library Guild books and evaluate for call numbers before I take them over to Technical Services.

4:30pm - Check mail and put a bunch of catalogs in the recycling bin. RSVP to the annual baby fair, which will be held at the local hospital in June.

4:50pm - Take the last few minutes of the day to clean off my desk - a tip I learned from Marge Loch-Waters’s youth services management class!

5:15pm - Time to go home!

A Day in the Life of a Children's Manager

It's been quite awhile since I posted about a day in the life of a Children's librarian. Since I recently took an AMAZING online class on youth services management, I wanted to choose a day when I have several manager things to do. It certainly varies a lot from day to day, but here's one day in the life of a Children's Services Manager:

8:45am - I arrive at work and debrief with one of my staff members about what had happened over the weekend, etc.

9am - 12pm - I work at the Children's reference desk. I pull the holds list, pull a School Collection, and work on an ALSC Blog post in between answering questions about:

- Choosing a poem to recite for a school project
- Bob books
- Dinosaurs
- Where people vote at the library
- Name tags for storytime

11:30am - One of my staff members arrives back from last week's vacation, so I catch her up on what's been going on.

12:00pm - Off desk, I get booktalking stuff together for later in the day.

12:15 - 1:15pm - Lunch time!

1:15 - 1:45pm - I email out reminders for next week's booktalking programs.

1:45pm - I leave for this afternoon's booktalking program. I booktalk five books to a fourth grade class at one of our local schools. I visit them every month!

2:35pm - I'm back at the library; I put my things away and record my statistics from the booktalking program.

2:50pm - I clean off my desk (mostly?) and prepare for a staff evaluation meeting. I've already written the evaluation, but I get all my ducks in a row and make sure I have my notes for questions I need to ask and things we need to touch base on. We're doing annual evaluations right now.

3:30pm - I meet with one of my staff members to go over her annual evaluation.

4:00pm - Our meeting is done; I polish up the evaluation and add the goals that we discussed together and get that printed off for my employee to sign and add comments if she wishes. The original signed copy will go to our director and I make copies for myself and my employee.

(Side note: I once worked for a library that refused to give us copies of our staff evaluations, even when I asked for one. It was the weirdest thing! So I always make sure everyone gets a copy!)

4:30pm - I print out a PO to take up to the Business Office and deal with an order of books that's come in.

5:00pm - As manager, I'm here late tonight covering a program for one of my employees who had to be off. It actually doesn't happen that often, but I make sure that I am familiar with all our programs being offered so I can step in if need be!

I start getting ready for tonight's program (Books and Building, a.k.a. Lego Club!). I pull the books I'm going to read, set up tables, and set up our arrow sign pointing to the room we'll be in.

5:20pm - I work on a book order.

6:00pm - I tackle my email inbox. Oy.

6:30 - 7:30pm - Time for Books & Building! We do this program weekly and share books in some way each week - it might be one or two readalouds or a few brief booktalks. After our books, we break out the Legos and have some time for building!

This week, I read Sam & Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Candlewick, 2014) and Ugly Fish by Kara LaReau, illustrated by Scott Magoon (HMH, 2006). We have a nice crowd of about 13 kids (great for us in the evening!) and everyone has a fun time. The kids are SO imaginative and they mostly like to help each other out, looking for specific pieces, etc.

7:45pm - I've got the room all cleaned up and reset to how we'll need it for the next morning and it's been a long day, so I head for home!

And that's just one day in the life of a children's librarian! If you want to see more, check out the posts I've tagged with "day in the life". One thing I LOVE about being a librarian is that each day is different!

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

Oh, man. You turn around and discover that this is the first Day in the Life that I've done all year. Well, it's high time! And Tuesday, September 3 was the perfect day to do it. Here's how my day went:

8:35a - I arrive at work, return my library books and CDs, and put my stuff away.

8:40a - I start setting up the meeting room for Mother Goose on the Loose - our first storytime of the fall session! Woo! We’re switching things up a little bit, so I spend a little extra time going over my storytime plan. We use the same format every week, but I was a bit tired of the same old things, so now I have to ignore my autopilot and pay attention to our new plans.

9:10a - I refill displays around the department and take down our craft table before we have the perfect storm of kiddos coming in. (If you have a craft table, do you take it down when you know a large group will be coming in? Or does that make me Mean Librarian?)

9:25a - I research lesson plans for Mr. Popper's Penguins for one of our local teachers and email her with what I find.

10:00a - Mother Goose on the Loose! We have 4 kids, three of whom are new faces. We’ve changed the program outline a little bit, too, so I’m constantly checking my notes to make sure I don’t go back to autopilot and miss a bunch of stuff.

10:40a - I help clean up toys, wrap-up my program, and come out to desk so that T can start getting ready for Toddler Time.

10:40a - 1pm - I'm on desk. I sign up a couple of Mother Goosers for our brand-new 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program. We're actually much quieter than I expected on our first storytime day, but I suspect that the long weekend has thrown everyone's morning schedules off a bit.  I chat with one of my new employees about the Success by 6 Action Team and Conscious Discipline, which our school system is using this year. I check email. Miss A comes in at 12 and is back from almost a week of vacation, so we chat about school collections, etc.

12:45p - Our regular volunteer comes in for her hours and I get her started shelf-reading the paperback series books and prepping some craft supplies.

1-2pm - Lunch time!

2:00p - I work on some budget stuff for my director. I send email to my department with new procedures for marking items as damaged or missing (changing ILS’s is hard to do).

2:40p - I discuss a school collection issue with staff member. Then I meet with one of our local historians about a Bicentennial project we're helping with.

3:00p - I print off booktalks for tomorrow and prep for other programs later in the week. On Friday, a local pre-K class is coming in for storytime and I pull together the stuff I need. This week is jam-packed, so I'm taking advantage of every spare minute!

3:45p - I report to Miss A to help out with today’s storytime! It's our very first beginning readers' storytime and Miss A has planned it. Since Miss A is new to our staff and new to storytime, I'm helping out with the first one. I greet people and get out the nametags for them before we open up the doors to the program room.

4:00 - 4:45p - Reading Rock Stars storytime!!!! I'll definitely have a blog post up with more about what we did. Afterwards, I spend a little time giving Miss A some feedback and helping her clean up.

5:00p - I heck emails one last time and respond to my director about professional committee commitments of my staff for this year and next.

5:30p - Time to go home!

A Day in the Life at @alscblog

Folks, I'm over at ALSC Blog today with A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian! Please click on through and check it out. Here's a teaser:

10:00am – It’s time for Mother Goose on the Loose! I had 15 very active under-2’s and the room was a million degrees (I knew I shouldn’t have worn these boots!)

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

As promised, here's another Day in the Life...!

10:00am - Today’s day started before I even got to work as I worked on an article I’m co-authoring on using blogs for teen collection development. It's based on a presentation that I did with a fellow librarian at the CYPD Conference last year.

11:00am - Writing done, draft sent off to co-author, now time to grab some lunch on my way to work. I pick up a sandwich and eat in the staff lounge before my shift begins.

12:00pm - On desk, catch up with staff member about various goings-on. It’s super quiet so I peruse the new books and select some to check out.

1:00pm - A little more work on the article and I help a homeschooler with a computer question.

1:20pm - Head back to my office to get some things done. Start answering emails and send out our article to a few trusted colleagues for general editing and looking-over.

2:00pm - Start adding things to a list of long-term projects I’d like to do with the department at some point and get off on a tangent thinking about reorganizing our picture book collection. I'm contemplating interfiling the holiday books (they already have holiday stickers) and pulling out the picture book nonfiction. But then I'm also quite intrigued by the "I Want a Truck Book" presentation by the folks at the Darien Library in Connecticut. Have a few Twitter conversations with other librarians who are thinking about it or starting the project.

3:00pm - Get responses back from colleagues about article and do some editing.

3:15pm - I work on putting together a cart of books to order in Baker & Taylor. We're wrapping up our budget year, so I'm trying to get my hands on as much significant stuff as I can to spend the rest of this year's money! My goal is always to own the Newbery and Caldecott winners (although sometimes they're a surprise!).

4:00pm - “Lunch” time! (Always so weird, the timing of meal breaks during an evening shift...) I grab a sandwich from our library cafe and take it to the staff lounge with Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (it's so good, you guys!).

5:00pm - On desk and our clerk is here until 7 tonight. It’s very slow so I do some work on an ILF presentation coming up in a couple of weeks.

6:15pm - Some small children are rough-housing in the stacks, so I head back there to break it up... parents nowhere in sight (of course). I find them some books to look at so that maybe they’ll settle down. (SOMEtimes that works.)

Answer the following reference questions:

- Where are Disney princess books?

- I need a fiction book about rodeos on a 6th grade reading level. I recommend Bull Rider by Suzanne Williams. Even though it’s only a 4.1 AR level, hopefully the teacher will accept it for the assignment. (Insert a short rant here... This particular assignment calls for kids to read a fiction and nonfiction book about the same subject. Now, if the teacher had let us know that the kids would be coming in, would could have pulled a bunch of choices for them. We could even have sent them to the classroom in a teacher collection. At the very least, we could have advised them that it would be much easier to find a fiction book first and then look for a nonfiction book about that subject. But now I've got kids who have already decided on their nonfiction topic looking for chapter fiction books about kangaroos, leopards, rodeos, etc. and then getting disappointed when the library doesn't have it. What I'm saying here is that I want teachers to know that librarians are here to help and we want you to use us!)

- I need short mysteries for a 4th grader. Another classroom is doing a genre assignment right now. We've had lots of kids coming in for mystery books. I recommended Geronimo Stilton, A to Z mysteries, and other mysteries by Ron Roy.

And one of my regular families was in tonight, so I also played puzzles with a Spanish-speaking 2-year-old and helped one of the older girls print something. 

8:10pm - The first closing announcement comes on and I start wrapping up my ILF presentation work and cleaning up the department. I turn off the computers that aren't being used, pick up any books left out around the department, and straighten up toys, chairs, and headphones. 

8:30pm - The library is closed, time to turn out lights and head on home! 

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

Ahhh, it's been forever since I did A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian! Well, it's back and I've got another one coming to you next week.

8:35am - Arrive at library, put my purse away.

8:40am - Start getting room set up for this morning’s storytime. To set up the room, I put out chairs for parents and set up a table for display books. I get all the materials together that I'm going to use - usually all the stuff I plan to use and one or two extra books or rhymes in case we blitz through everything or in case one of the books or activities doesn't grab the kids.

9:15am - Pull some music to use with the storytime, download a song I want to use and burn it to a CD. As much as I try to be prepared well in advance for programs, I almost invariably get some last-minute ideas.

9:45am - With the room all ready for storytime, I sit out at the reference desk and help the kids find their nametags as they come in. Each week that they attend storytime they get a little sticker to put on their nametag.

10:00am - Storytime! This week, we're talking about clouds, which is perfect since it's a cloudy day outside.

10:30am - Done with storytime, sit out at desk for a little to help clean up nametags and answer questions.

10:45am - Take photos of storytime stuff and write up blog post about this week’s storytime. I try to do this right after storytime is over because once I clean everything up, I hate to dig it back out again.

11:30am - Check email.

11:45am - Put storytime stuff back for the next people who will use it. Check calendar and realize I have a meeting at 3pm that I forgot about...

11:55am - Start cleaning off desk, determined to get desk cleaned off before taking a lunch break. I am a piler. I tend to pile up stuff and let it lay there until I can’t stand it anymore and having a cleaning fit.

12:30pm - Desk is (relatively) clean. I can see that the top is brown, everything’s in fairly neat piles, and that’s good enough for me. Now off to lunch!

1:30pm - Back from lunch, chat with staff about the schedule, etc.

1:45pm - Work on handouts for the YALSA YA Lit Symposium.

2:15pm - Make some changes to the department schedule for November.

3:00pm - Meet with members of the city’s Bicentennial Committee to discuss creating a coloring book for Pre-K through 1st graders. One of the ladies on the committee has been tasked with creating something for the littles, so she commissioned a local artist to create a coloring book. We talk about what people and places should be in the coloring book, activities we can include to involve the whole family, and how the coloring books will be distributed.

4:15pm - Finished with the meeting, hang out on desk for a little bit and help one of our homeschoolers find some CDs.

4:30pm - Chat with staff member about workload and projects.

4:50pm - Chat with other staff members about our upcoming Winter Break Lego Day and the start of our monthly Lego Club.

5:15pm - Send off a few last emails... and...

5:30pm - Time to go home!

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

**Confession!** It was super hard for me to remember to write everything down on a single day this summer, so this is actually an amalgamation of two days, a Tuesday morning and then the following Wednesday afternoon.

8:45am - Arrive at work, put stuff away, get out stuff for this morning’s baby storytime. I go over the felts and rhymes that I’m going to use and make sure I have all the stuff together.

9:15am - Run off copies of our fall calendar so that I can pass them out at our programs this morning.

9:25am - Work on some publicity for the fall storytimes. I edit and print out some signs for our fall programs and work on getting together the handouts for our homeschooler programs which are starting again in the fall.

9:50am - Try to help someone on the computers who is submitting a resume online. Sometimes the quick fix is to ask them to switch computers, which is what I did after trying to fix it every other way I knew how.

10:00am - Mother Goose on the Loose! It’s our last time for the summer so I’m a little sad, but then 25 babies show up (and with them 28 adults, which means 53 people in the room) and there’s no time or space for sadness! We sing, read, bounce, march, and more! I’m sad that I won’t see them until September, but I hope that they’ll come back in the fall.

10:45am-12:00pm - Once I finish with MGOL and get my stuff somewhat cleaned up, I take over on desk so Miss T can go do Toddler Time. I help lots of Summer Reading Club finishers and answer questions about Star Wars, Dora, headphones for the computers, and children’s programs...

12:00pm - Lunch time! I actually brought my lunch today since it’s supposed to be eleventy billion degrees out. I eat in the staff lounge while reading Dominique Moceanu’s memoir Off Balance.

1:00pm - Back in my office, work on some handouts for our fall homeschooling programs. We’re revamping our homeschooler program for the fall and I work on a mystery book list for our October meeting. (More info on the revamp in a future post!)

1:50pm - One of the daycares that has been visiting regularly over the summer arrives for their programs. The leader tells me that they were late leaving the last time and have to make sure that they get out on time today, so I alert my staff. One of my staff does booktalks for the older group while the younger group spends time in the department choosing books to check out. I get their previous book collections checked in and then float around the department asking kids if they need help finding anything.

2:25pm - The booktalks are done, so the younger group goes into the meeting room for stories while the older group comes out to choose their books. We’ve been tweaking this group visit all summer and I think we’ve FINALLY found the smoothest way to structure it (and, of course, this is their last visit).

3:00pm - The storytime is over, all the books are checked out, and we say goodbye to the daycamp kids! Now it’s time to put our department back together. We had another daycare in from 1:30 to about 2:30, so the department is trashed. We collect the books left out on tables, refill displays, and straighten things up.

3:20pm - Back in the office, I work on an agenda for our Friday department meeting. I’ve really been making an effort to have a monthly staff meeting with as many staff in attendance as possible. It’s part of my plan to be more organized and communicative this year.

3:45pm - Work on some plans for fall storytime. We’re having our meeting on Friday to decide on themes for the fall so that we can get our publicity out. Sometimes I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants at these planning meetings and I end up with a storytime theme I’m not that excited about. This time, I’m determined to do my research and be prepared, so I’m working on a jungle theme and a construction theme. I want to see what books and extension activities I can find so I know there will be plenty to choose from when it’s time to start planning in earnest.

We’re changing up how we do storytimes this fall and we’re going to offer two separate series of four weeks apiece instead of one series of six to eight weeks. We’ll see how it goes!

4:45pm - Send out some emails including booking a local balloon artist for a program we’re having in August and sending out Friday’s agenda to my staff.

5:00pm - Do a walkthrough of my department and make sure evening staff know about any programs or issues they might have to deal with. Straighten up shelves and fill displays.

5:15pm - Time to go home!

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

A couple weeks ago was the 8th Round of the Library Day in the Life Project. As per usual, I could not get my act together to actually participate (mainly because I tend to schedule blog posts in advance whenever possible), but I did take a day and keep track of all the things I did! So, here's another installment of A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian!

8:45am - Arrive at work, greet staff member and let her know about other staff member who is sick today. Arrange desk coverage.

8:50am - Put belongings away, turn on computer, get my bag of storytime stuff for outreach storytime.

8:55am - Realize that my outreach storytime is not at the school I thought it was. Look up directions to the school. (Good thing I realized this before I left!)

9:00am - Check email. A bunch of listserv emails came in today because our spam filters had been blocking them.

9:15am - Log on to library Facebook account to read email from a teen requesting that we buy the sequel to Mercy by Rebecca Lim, which she loooved. The book’s out in Australia, but not in the US yet. I email our teen librarian about ordering the book when it’s available.

9:25am - Get agendas ready for Summer Reading Club meeting that’s happening this afternoon.

9:35am - Leave library and drive to Head Start for this morning's outreach storytimes.

9:45am - 10:45am - Visit two classrooms with stories about winter. Here's what I did:

In the Snow by Sharon Denslow - A great, simple book about animals eating seeds in the snow. Kids love to name the animals and I teach them "chickadee", "sparrow", "cardinal", and "possum". Great for vocabulary.

On My Own by Miela Ford - I love the photo illustrations and I have the kids do the actions as I read. 

Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson - A perennial favorite. I read this one with the first class, but not with the second class who seem younger and are a bit more squirrelly. 

We made pretend snowmen and sang “Once I Built a Snowman”

We did the rhyme 5 Little Snowmen with our felt snowmen

We sang “Sleepy Bear” with my bear puppet

11:00am - Back at the library, debrief about visit with my staff member who coordinates our outreach visits.

11:30am - Put away books and props from storytime and write up the storytime plan so that we can keep track of which stories we’ve read. We visit this group once a month, so I don't want to repeat the same things.

11:45am - Add a book that a patron requested to our Baker & Taylor cart. Whenever possible, I order books that our patrons request. We have a healthy book budget and I want our shelves to reflect the interests of our community.

11:50am - Run off materials for SRC meeting this afternoon.

12:00pm - Lunch time! Check the mail and mail a letter on the way to lunch. While I eat, I'm reading The Difference Between You and Me by Madeleine George.

1:00pm - Back from lunch, get some things ready for the Afterschool visits this week: pull books, get crafts sorted, put away leftover craft stuff from last time, etc.

1:30pm - Run upstairs to drop off staff schedule with administration. Talk to Reference Manager about Anime Club, teen programming, and other stuff. 

2:00pm - Staff meeting. We talk about Summer Reading Club logistics and programs, our upcoming Spring Storytimes, and teen programs.

4:00pm - Finish penciling in summer programs on the office calendar. I start an email to department staff with notes from the meeting so we're all on the same page and everyone knows what they ought to be working on.

4:15pm - One staff member stops by to chat about summer ideas. We love to brainstorm! In my department, two (or three or four) heads are most definitely better than one. Everyone has great ideas!

4:40pm - Another staff member stops by to chat about summer ideas.

5:15pm - Back to working on my email to staff.

5:40pm - Email sent, now it's time to go home! 

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

Here's a day from a couple of weeks ago...!

11:45am - Arrive at work, put stuff away. Chat with staff about how the morning's programs went (one staff person went to visit three classes at a local preschool, another staff member presented preschool storytime at the library).

12:00pm - On desk. After the storytime crowd dissipates, it's pretty slow, so I straighten up the computer headphones and refill displays. While I'm on desk, I help a young patron find books about Chinese characters (we actually had a surprising number of them!).

12:15pm - Check email and realize that several teens have requested to sign up for the Zombie Prom via Facebook, but all the spots are taken. I give the bad news and devise a plan to give out free books to any teen who mentions that they saw me or the Teen Scene on Facebook.

1:30pm - My staff's all back from lunch and meetings and I grab the materials for next week's storytime so we can go over them. We also discuss a few storytime-related items.

2:00pm - I go upstairs to turn in my registration information for ALA Midwinter and discover that the library is going to cover my hotel and airfare in addition to my registration. I'm so thankful to have such a supportive administrative staff at my library! I know I'm quite lucky. :)

2:20pm - I meet with my boss and fill her in on Zombie Prom and various other goings-on.

3:00pm - I'm back in my office, working on music for Zombie Prom. I'm creating mix CDs with fun dance/hanging out music.

4:00pm - Break time!

5:00pm - Back from break, I chat with one of my staff members about things that need to happen to get ready for Zombie Prom. (Zombie Prom is taking over my life at this point...)

5:15 - 8:30pm - On desk. Tonight's a great night for reference questions and I answer the following:

- A homeschooling family just moved to the area and I told them all about our programs, local homeschooling resources, and gave them a tour of the library and my business card so they can contact me with questions or requests any time.

- A request for fractured fairy tales

- A request for what order the Warriors series go in and a list of all the books in each of the series

- A request for appealing nonfiction for a boy whose teacher told him to branch out into reading nonfiction. I gave him How to Survive Being Lost at Sea (and others in that series), You Wouldn't Want to Be on the Hindenburg (and let him know there are many others in that series if he liked that one), Aliens and UFOs... And his sister grabbed Life-Size Zoo and Exploding Ants from the pile I had pulled.

- Help with getting on a computer to type homework

- A question about our preschool storytimes and request for information about local moms' groups and homeschooling groups

8:15pm - Time to start closing up. I turn off computer monitors, shut down our print kiosk and computer admin program. I straighten everything, pick up stray books, and refill displays.

8:30pm - We shut down the library, lock everything up, and head home!

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

11:20am - Arrive at work, inform staff about coworker who's not going to be in today.

11:30am - Sign timesheets and turn them in. Log everyone's work hours in my ESRs.

12:00pm - Eat sandwich at my desk while I'm finalizing and submitting my latest book order.

12:30pm - Run upstairs to grab some books to booktalk at tonight's Teen Scene Initiative meeting. Get some last minute stuff together for today's outreach visit.

1:00pm - Meet with book vendor to look over some of the new books coming out. Together with staff, I decide on some books to buy.

2:30pm - Meet teen librarian and leave for a teacher meeting we've been invited to.

2:40pm - Arrive at local high school and get set up. They're having a meeting of some teachers in the school district and they've invited local groups to set up tables and promote their services. We are *extremely* happy to be invited as we are always looking for ways to connect with teachers!

3:00pm - Our table's set up and we wait for teachers to arrive...

3:30pm - Teachers begin arriving and we start talking up the library. I offer booktalks or storytime and teacher cards to any teacher who meets my eye. I'm hoping to be invited to some classrooms for booktalks, but we'll see...

4:40pm - Teachers have gone into their meeting and we tear down the table, even though we've been invited to stay until 6. We have to get back for our TSI meeting. We leave the handouts and flyers there, so hopefully teachers came by and picked them up!

4:50pm - Back at the library, we finish getting things set up for TSI.

5:00pm - Kids start arriving!

5:15pm - Teen Scene Initiative meeting. The teens are super excited about our upcoming Zombie Prom and I'm going to have them help me make the decorations. We also discuss other upcoming programs and I promote the Teen Scene Facebook Page. (It worked! I got 4 new "likes" after the meeting!)

6:15pm - We wrap up the meeting and clean up. I go out to relieve my staff person on desk.

6:15-8:30 - On desk.

- Where are Gary Paulsen books?
- How do I print in color?
- Chat with teen about Thursday's Anime Club meeting.
- Running child falls and bumps his head. I get an ice pack. (He was fine.)
- How do you spell "tomorrow"?

8:30pm - Time to go home! We start closing up the library, but we had a fantastic adult program on extreme couponing, so it takes us a little longer than usual to close up.

8:45pm - Okay, NOW we're going home!

(And it's not an omission... I didn't have time to take a break at all today. Some days are like that!)

A Day in the Life of a Youth Services* Librarian

Here's what I did on Tuesday!

11:55am - Arrive at work and everything is crazy-go-nuts! Our toddler time has just let out and the department is full of kids. The computers upstairs are down until Thursday because they’re doing construction. A daycare came in to register all their kids for the Summer Reading Club. I touch base with staff and send them all off to lunch while I cover the desk. The dept. settles down after about 15 minutes.

12:10pm - Check email.

12:20pm - Check out DVD for tonight’s Anime Club meeting. Straighten up department.

- Recommend fantasy books for an adult who’s enjoying the Angie Sage books and The Lightning Thief.

1:00pm - Go over to the storage Annex to get candy castle for tomorrow’s Life-Sized Candy Land program.

1:20pm - Put together registration sheets for our fall programs.

1:45pm - Work on weeding videos. (OMG, we have a video called Pound Puppy Tales... I wonder if we have any Poppels videos**...)

3:15pm - Set up Auditorium for tonight’s program and for tomorrow’s Candy Land program.

4:00pm - Lunch time!

5:00pm - Check email.

5:10pm - Get stuff together and finish setting up for Anime Club.

5:45pm - Open doors for Anime Club. Teens are already showing up!

6:00pm-8:00pm - Anime Club! We have 27 teens, which is awesome attendance for us. You can read a little bit about what we did at last month's Anime Club meeting. This month, I provided a couple of laptops for the kids to watch other stuff and we put out some games, too.

8:00pm - Kick out*** the last of the kids and clean up the room.

8:15pm - Look at photos I took at the program. Decide I don't have enough time to put them on Facebook tonight.

8:20pm - Help my closer close up our department for the night (pick up books, turn off computers and lights, etc.).

8:30pm - We close up and I go home!

* Okay, technically my title is Children's Librarian, but my department's getting more involved in the teen programming, so I'm angling to change it to Youth Services (or something along those lines). 

** Sadly/luckily, we do not. ;)

*** You know I do this with love, right? 

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

The Summer-Reading-Club-Starts-Next-Week Version!

8:50am - Arrive at library. I am a tiny bit late because I forgot to set my alarm and I ignored my kitty cat alarm clock. That'll show me!

8:55am - Check email, look up email from teen librarian to make sure I have the right time for our middle school visit today. Respond to a nice email from a local homeschooling parent.

9:10am - Talk with staff member about her schedule, remind staff that we'll meet this afternoon about the Summer Reading Club. Chat with staff who are going on a school visit this morning and ask them to run a bunch of errands while they are out. (My employees are so awesome!)

9:15am - Grab some music from our CD collection and start listening to pick out the music I'll use for Mother Goose on the Loose this summer. I picked out several of the Putumayo children's CDs because I like to use music from a variety of cultures and in using children's music I can be sure that the songs are child-friendly even if I don't speak the language!

9:25am - While I'm listening to music and deciding which tracks to use, I make promotional signs for some of our summer programs. I'm not making signs for all of them, but just the programs that I think will need a little push.

10:15am - N comes down from the Business Office with a new print cartridge for us, so I install it in our printer.

10:20am - I continue working on the signs and music.

10:30am - I put together the registration sheets for our summer programs that require registration. Since we do not have a computer system, we use a binder at the reference desk with a file separator to show where each program's sheet is.

10:45am - I take a short break and then get my stuff together for the middle school visit I'm going on.

11:00am - I leave for one of our local middle schools.

11:25am - Arrive at middle school and meet our teen librarian in the office.

11:30am-2:00pm - We set up a table in the commons area outside the cafeteria where we will pass out information about our summer programs and sign up kids for the Summer Reading Club. Some of them have seen us before and they're very excited to sign up again. Other kids aren't so sure. This is the first year I've gone along on the middle school visits, and I'm trying to figure out how we can more effectively get the word out. Our Teen Summer Reading Club is fairly new still, and we're definitely always trying to improve it!

2:00pm - We leave the middle school and rendezvous at one of the high schools on the way back. We meet with the librarian, get a quick tour of their fantastic, remodeled library (I had never been there) and chat a little bit about the layoffs happening in our school district. We give her information about our summer programs so she can promote them with her students.

2:15pm - We get out just before the buses and head back to the library.

2:45pm - I get to the library and grab a quick snack before holding a meeting with my staff about the Summer Reading Club, which starts next week. I go over all the sign-up procedures with them and explain all the stuff the kids are going to get. We go over the prizes and what to do when the kids finish and bring their logs in. Then we take turns simulating a parent signing up for the reading club to make sure everyone's comfortable with what to do. My staff have great questions and they make me think about some things I hadn't thought about!

3:45pm - I am starving, so I run out and get some lunch/dinner!

4:30pm - I'm back from eating and I pull together some of the stuff for our TSI (Teen Scene Initiative) meeting. We always put out ARCs for the teens and we always have snacks.

4:45pm - Before our meeting gets started, I try to clear off my desk somewhat. I manage to make small piles, anyway...

5:15pm - TSI! We do various things with our TSI and this month, we asked the kids to help take down the eggs from the ceiling. With 12 or 13 kids, they got all the eggs taken down and put away in record time! And then we had pizza and some booktalks. :) Our meetings always go by so fast! I think we're going to try holding TSI every week in the fall and maybe then we'll have more time for fun stuff. :)

6:15pm - Eggs done, teens gone, I check my email one last time...

6:30pm - Long day... time to head home! (Especially since I have to be in extra early tomorrow for a Summer Reading Club visit at one of our elementary schools!)

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:45a - Arrive at work, put stuff away, greet coworkers, etc.

8:55a - Start pulling materials for the preschool storytimes we're doing at a local early learning center.  We are building our professional collection to make this an easy process.  On a shelf in our office, we keep copies of awesome books that we like to use in programs.  They don't circulate, so they're always available when we need them for storytimes.

9:20a - I am so sick of snow that, in addition to stories on snow and snowmen, I pull Bark, George to take with us.  It's one of my favorite favorites and I never get bored with it!

9:35a - A and I leave for the school.

9:45a - We arrive at the school, sign in at the office, and make our way to the first classroom.  We'll be visiting three classes on this visit.

9:50a - 11:15a - We visit three preschool classes and share the following books with each of them: Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner, Snowballs by Lois Ehlert (this was an unexpected hit with the kids.  They LOVED spotting all the different objects used in the snowman pictures!), and Bark, George by Jules Feiffer.  We also did an activity having the kids help us "build" a snowman (we brought a prop snowman made out of Styrofoam balls) and we did a Five Little Snowmen felt rhyme (on a glove so we didn't have to bring a felt board with us).

11:30a - We're back from the school and record our statistics.

11:40a - I work on my staff's time sheets.

12:30p - Lunch time!  I grab my lunch and eat in the staff room, reading Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer.

1:30p - Back from lunch, I zip up to the teen section to take a look at the space and check out what displays and booklists our teen librarian has put out.

2:00p - I have a meeting with one of my staff members to touch base on some projects and programs she's working on.

2:30p - Done with the meeting, I try to clean some things off my desk.

3:30p - I do some thinking about the Summer Reading Club and delve into trying to figure out a budget for us.  The money for our SRC comes from the Friends of the Library (and any outside sources I can scrounge up), so I need to figure out how much to ask for at their meeting early next month.  I look at performers, supplies like reading logs and book bags, decorations, and prizes.

4:50p - Inspired by this SRC work, I start working on a mock up of a baby Summer Reading Club log.  I think we're going to try having a separate club for pre-readers and parents will have a bingo sheet and cross off various early literacy activities that they complete throughout the summer.  We'll have space on the back for parents to record the titles of books they read to their kids if they want to (I think it's nice to have a record they can look back on in 10 or 20 years!).

5:30p - I finish my mock up and then it's time to go home!

Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:40am - Arrive at library, put stuff away.

8:45a - Check email, work on a short article for the newsletter about upcoming holiday programs (Holidays in the Library and the Gingerbread House Workshop).

9:10a - Get my program room set up for Mother Goose on the Loose (baby storytime) and look over the materials I planned.

9:12a - Decide I don't like the book I chose for this week and pick out another.  You can never go wrong with The Wheels on the Bus by Paul O. Zelinsky!

9:20a - Talk with one of my staff members about creating a story prop for our visits to local afterschool programs.  She's great at figuring out how to make stuff.

9:25a - Continue getting ready for Mother Goose on the Loose.  (Get my felts in order, pull a CD for intro and playtime music, set up book display, etc.)

9:45a - Read email from listservs and make a to-do list for today.

10:00a - Mother Goose on the Loose!  Afterwards one of the moms tells me that her daughter has been talking about me at home.  I stay out in the department after the program and play with the kids for a little longer... alas...

11:00a - Go back to the office and sort through some surveys that we've been handing out to help one of our local early childhood organizations.

11:10a - Practice Coyote's Crying Song for the staff in the office.  I'm telling it for our homeschooler program later in the week.  They like it!

11:20a - Take the surveys upstairs to mail.

11:25a - Clean up the program room from MGOL.

11:30a - Work on book order.

12:10p - Chat with Anthony Nava, a local Cherokee and Pascua Yaqui Indian, who brings me some information about the programs he offers.  It's too late to book him for this November (we plan and publicize our programs at least a couple of months ahead of time), but I'd like to have him in the summer when we celebrate One World, Many Stories!

12:25p - Work on book order.

1:10p - Guess I'd better eat lunch, eh?

2:00p - Meet with the staff association (I'm the Vice President, which sounds more impressive than it really is... we're an association of four and we're all officers...).  We're planning the library's holiday party, so we discuss food, door prizes, entertainment, invitations, etc.

2:45p - I leave with one of my staff members for a visit to one of our YMCA Afterschool programs.  We've been visiting all the afterschool programs over the past couple of months and it has been great fun!  Our after school programs at the library have not had great attendance, so we're trying this out and it's been much more successful!

3:05p - Arrive at school and do our program.  We share stories for 15-25 minutes (length really depends on the kids - after sitting down at school all day they don't always want to sit and listen to many stories).  Then we do a simple craft.  Here's what we read:

'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey

Some Thanksgiving jokes from Let's Celebrate Thanksgiving by Connie Roop

Miss Nelson is Missing by Harry Allard (the kids *love* this book!  Even if they've already heard it, they love to hear it again.  Which is good because I could read this one over and over and not get tired of it...)

Shark in the Park by Nick Sharratt

And then we pass out paper, crayons, and leaves and do leaf rubbings with the kids.  Some of them have already done it (I say, "Great!  Then you're an expert!  Will you help your friends if they don't know how to do it?"), but many of them haven't.  It's simple, not messy, cheap, and the kids can be creative with their choices of colors.  I get leaves from the many, MANY different trees in my apartment complex to offer them lots of shape choices.

3:45p - We pack up and leave the school.

4:00p - We're back at the library and I leave a little early to make it to my choir rehearsal!

Just another day in the life...

A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian

8:35am - Arrive at work, set up program room for the first Mother Goose on the Loose of the fall!  To set up the room, I arrange tables and chairs, get my books and props ready, pull books for a book display, get the music ready, go over the rhymes to make sure I know them, print out the words to a new rhyme we're doing so the parents can follow along, and set out brochures for the Imagination Library.

9:20a - Check email.  I respond to an email about setting up library programs at our local YMCA after school programs.

9:43a - Print out flyers about upcoming parent workshops to hand out at the program.

10:00a - Mother Goose on the Loose!  This is our program for under-2's.  We took a break from the program for August and it's great to see my babies again!  I see lots of familiar faces and a few new ones - one of my moms has brought along her new baby that she had while we were on break!

10:45a - The program's over but I leave the room set up because we'll be doing it again tomorrow.  I head upstairs to administration to have a few meetings with various managers.

11:30a - I talk to the director of our local Head Start preschool about setting up regular visits to their classes.

11:45a - Our evening shift worker comes in and I chat with her a little bit.

12:00p - I work on August's monthly report (which is over a week late - whoops!).

12:20p - Email report to my boss and start a file for my September monthly report.  In library school, our children's services professor assigned us a monthly report with the idea of teaching us to keep up our reports as we went along instead of sitting down at the end of the month and remembering everything that happened.  I guess it didn't quite stick, but I'm working on it!

12:30p - Lunch time!  I go out and grab a sandwich and read Kelly Creagh's Nevermore while I eat.

1:30p - I'm back from lunch and I show my staff what I've been working on for our fall storytime handouts.  This fall we're going to try giving patrons a take-home craft instead of doing one at the library and we'll be including handouts that go along with the storytime theme each week.  The handouts are half-pages, and one side has a list of related preschool-appropriate books and the other side has early literacy activities, rhymes, and crafts that they can do at home.

1:50p - I attempt to clean off my desk.  I tend to let things pile up, but I try to clean off my desk at least once a week.

2:06p - One of the things on my desk is an invoice for some shelving units we ordered, so I open the boxes to make sure we got what I ordered.  We ordered new bins for the board books and my looking at the bins somehow turns into me weeding the board book collection (for condition) and moving all of the board books into the bins and putting them out.

3:30p - Done with the board books, I put in an order for some craft supplies.

4:00p - I head up to the business office to turn in the invoice for the shelving units and complete the order for craft supplies.

4:30p - On my way back down, I stop by computer services to ask a couple of questions and our tech guy shows me the stuff he's been working on for our website updates.

5:05p - Back in my department, I talk with staff and make a sign to indicate where the board books have moved.

5:15p - I get things squared away and then head home... to make millions of piñatas for the program that's coming up on Friday...!