Circulation Breakdown

Today I worked most of the day with Ava at circulation. I was there about 10 minutes and then she put me to work. It kind of felt good to be in the middle of things again. I also had the chance to see her hire a few people and turn a few people down. Also I spent a couple hours with Clay learning about billing. I never realized it was such a complicated process!

Free Ice Cream Makes Any Day Great

Whew, today was pleasantly less full than yesterday. I was starting to notice that there is no possible way to keep most of the meetings to just one hour. People have so much to say once you get them started. So after tomorrow (which will be crazy) I've started scheduling coffee breaks and meetings for at least 2 hours or giving myself some bumper time in between meetings. At least most days.

First thing this morning I met with Steven from circulation. I was really surprised how prepared he was. He even had a little sheet with a list of things he wanted to cover. I learned how to place a hold, process the holds, check books in and out, and how to work the Pharos machines.

At 10 I had my regular meeting with Teresa, which is always nice.

Then there was the free ice cream at the Fine Arts Library. Yum!

Then back to circulation to practice what Steven had taught me and to learn about guest cards with Mark.

At 3 I went to my first ZPS meeting where we discussed Mr. Jäger and his company, Absolut. I knew I liked this library.

Then I had my meeting with Martha. We talked about many different things, but mostly our observations as new people to the library. She seemed really interested in having me shadow her, and said that she would see if there were administrative meetings that I could sit in on with her. I don't think Sarah got the chance to do that, so I asked her if she would want to go too and she said she would, so hopefully Martha can sneak us both in.

Beware the Man in the Crannie

Many more meetings today. First with Twila Firmature from EResources. She told me about the development of the electronic resouces team. She said I could come to one of their team meetings and talk with the other people on her team.

Second I met with Mike Kelley from CSWR. I'd never really thought about working in a special research area like the CSWR, but after talking to Mike it sounds so interesting maybe it could be a possibility. The way he explained it was that they house primary documents like manuscripts and photographs that people use to write the books that are found in the other parts of the library. Very interesting.

Next I met with Nancy Dennis. We ate at a Greek restaurant and talked about her many roles in the library and about the library world in general. She asked what was the best surprise and worst surprise about UNM. Interesting question, also posed to the dean at the faculty meeting, that seems incredibly dangerous to answer honestly.

After lunch I met with Bruce Neville from Centennial. He gave me the tour and introduced me to his faculty and staff and told me the CRAZY story about the flood. Many weird conincidences! It seems like it would be a good place to work, I can see why Sarah picked Centennial for some of her reference time.

Finally, I met with Russ, who showed me how to close down the library and "encourage" people to go home. He said that they have found people hiding in the library and Mark said that people have been left inside! It seems like a pretty hard building to clear with all of the nooks and crannies to hide in it would be really easy to be overlooked. Russ also told me about the tables in the Willard Room that used to have sheets of glass on top that would shatter into a million peices if they touched each other! He said they shattered one of the doors one time too.

I also worked a little bit on moving the Pack Back Lit Review files from the PB wiki to the wiki Teresa already has set up.

Day Two

Today was the second day of faculty orientation. The UNM services people gave us a ton of UNM stuff, I picked up an extra bag for Sarah since she didn't get to go last year. Also, I got to meet the new president of the university--he's from Oklahoma too.

Orienting to the Faculty World

I spent today at the faculty orientation meeting. Martha Bedard, the dean of the library, is new too so I spent a little time talking with her over lunch and I got us lost on the way to the library faculty meeting. At the meeting Sarah gave me a wonderful introduction. I'll have to remember to do that for the next resident if I'm here next year.

They're Burning Books in Britain

Today I met with Teresa twice, once for our regular meetings and once with Sarah to talk about the collection management tool, but we also talked about tenure and other career related things.

I also met with Randy from ILL. I didn't realize it was such an expensive program!

Most of the day was spent scheduling more meetings and working on the literature review for the article about the fire. An interesting fact: England is #1 for library arson.

The One Week Milestone!

Well, I survived the first week, and I think in that time I've spent more hours at Higher Grounds than people who work there. Today was pretty busy. I had 5 meetings, all with people who work in areas I'm interested in, so it was hard to keep it to one hour.

First was Christy Crowly, she works with DSPACE and is on the EResources team. I'm not very interested in DSPACE, but it was interesting to talk with Christy about the movement toward digital information and the difficulties with copyright and getting faculty to post their writings in the repository.

Next, I met with Paulita Aguilar. She is the curator for INLP and was one of the first residents. The INLP program sounds like a very special and unique program, and it is obvious that Paulita is very passionate about the work that she does. I asked if there might be a project I could work help with when I get to the project part of the residency, and she said that there was a possiblity for some web based work and maybe some other projects.

Third was the meeting with Fran, who has tons of information to share about working as a library administrator. She mentioned that it might be possible for Sarah and I to join her and Martha on their trip to the capital to talk with the legislators in January. I think that would be a very useful experience. I didn't know that deans did that type of thing, but it makes sense since it is a public institution and that's where the money comes from.

Fourth was the meeting with Patricia Bkrich in development. This is another area that I didn't really know existed in library land. Its amazing how much goes into getting people to give money and the types of factors the fundraisers look at to decide who the best candidates are to target for certain types of projects. Patricia also mentioned that it might be possible for me to work with her on a development project. I think it would be really interesting to see the process from start to finish.

Finally I met with Mark Emmons from instruction. Since instruction is an area I'm interested in as well, I had 90 million questions for Mark and I kept him well past his allotted hour. Luckily, he's pretty nice and didn't seem to mind too much. He told me about instruction both on the overall professional level as well as on the UNM library level. Mark also mentioned the LOEX conference that will be held in Albuquerque in 2009 and said it might be possible for me to help with the planning committeee, which would be awesome!