Day in the life -- Wednesday (?)

Well yesterday was a busy day. A lot of different things came up, which I understand is normal for a supervisor.

The day started off as usual, having to do the morning caretaking things we have to do to ready the library for opening -- getting and stamping the newspapers, pulling the morning holds list. There are only two of us here in the morning, me and my assisstant librarian, so I have to pitch in and help with these routine tasks. Upon opening, I work my one hour a day on the reference desk. I like to be there at opening and kind of take the pulse of the day as the morning crowd comes in -- the computer users, the regular newspaper readers. But I have too much "behind the scenes" stuff to do to to work more than an hour a day at the desk. I had to ask my assisstant librarian to cut back my hous on the desk -- I was running around like a chicken with no head and not getting done what I needed to do.

After my hour on the desk I spoke to some vendors and got quotes for some audiovisual supplies that we need. The City of New Orleans purchasing process is quite Byzantine. You have to get quotes for everything. It's the people's money after all. Once I got the quotes I submitted the paperwork for everything up the chain of command.

Then I worked on shifting the periodicals. I felt like I had to take a hand in this and not just dump it on the staff. One must lead by example, I think.

Then lunch.

In the afternoon I met with a fellow division head and a sales rep from Gale Cengage Learning, a major publisher of reference works and online databases. She was trying to sell us on databases. We were saying, our patrons are not computer-literate. We need paper sources.

Then working on the inventory project on the periodicals backfiles in the basement.

Library Week - Tuesday

Well a lot has changed since the last time I did this. I have accepted a promotion, and am now head of a department at the main library downtown. Of my old division I worked in pre-Katrina in fact, the Periodicals, Arts, & Recreation division.

I have a lot on my plate. I was brought in to stabilize the division -- it has seen a crazy amount of staff turnover this year -- and to prepare it for being shut down and turned into a new Teen Center for the main library. So I have to oversee the regular duties of the division, train new staff who were brought in, and start weeding, clearing out and deaccessioning the old materials to make way for the new. Things keep coming at me, and sometimes I get a little confused about what exactly I'm doing. My staff, who know I was brought in to rescue them to a certain extent, get upset if I can't answer their questions right off. But hey, I've never been a supervisor before, I'm figuring it out too. I know a lot about how the division is supposed to be run, but not everything. I last worked here as an associate after all.

Right now we are shifting the back issues of the magazines. This is done at the new year. Some of 2007's we have to keep, and they go down to the basement, and some we can discard. The records about which goes where, however, are not up to date, so I am having to make Solomonic decisions about what stays and what goes on a daily basis.

On top of that, I am currebtly also writing the annual report for last year. I need to take an HR training course on evaluating staff, which I have to do next month - annual evaluations. I am training a new paraprofessional. I need to get started on weeding the old PAR reference collection -- a lot of thaT\t stuff needs to go. We are in the middle of shifting our circulating books to the Information division. It's a lot to keep in the air at once.

So that's what I'm doing this week.

A Library Week in the Life

Well it is time for another round of the Library Day in the Life wiki. I hope this is actually doing some people some good, that library students areactually looking at it and learning something.

unfortunately, I wasn't well today and took a sick day, so I don't have anything to report on the work front. except, I guess, the fact that librarians get sick too. We may be pretty awesome,but we're not superheroes. :)

Inauguration

People are looking forward to this Inauguration far more than any I can remember in my lifetime. People are taking off work, travelling to Washington, and not just black people, either. Not everyone -- there are still plenty of Obama haters out there -- but more than I ever remember. One of my employees is reconfiguring one of our computers so staff and patrons can watch the swearing-in.

This isn't just a simple transfer of power. It has the air of a ritual of purgation, of re-conscecration. I think it must have felt somethign like this back in Bronze Age times, at the installation of a new sacred king. After they alaughter the old one. (Assuming such a thing ever really happened, outside the fever dreams of Robert Graves.)

Well, I guess we have advanced somewhat, the human race, in that we don't have to slaughter "43" to get rid of him, and we observe a peaceful transfer of power with the full cooperation of the old regime. But it definitely feels like a new day in America. I keep thinking, Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we're free at last!

OK, now THIS is corruption:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_re_us/blagojevich_corruption_probe


Wow, are we sure this guy isn't from Louisiana?

Well, no, Chicago pols are no slouches indeed when it comes to corruption. Mayor Richard Daley was alleged to have stolen the 1960 Preisdential Election from Richard Nixon for JFK by vigorous ballot stuffing in Chicago precincts. That election was one of the closest in history. The Daley poltical machine was one of the most notorious ever. But still -- selling a US Senate seat to the highest bidder? That is BRAZEN!

UPSET!

Wow!

Associated Press: Anh 'Joseph' Cao has beaten Rep. William Jefferson in 2nd Congressional District

So the wretched Dollar Bill has FINALLY been dethroned. I'm listening to his sour-grapes non-concession concession speech right now. Halle-freakin-lieujah!

I have never, ever voted for a Republican before, nor could I ever imagine voting for one. But I voted for Cao. I really think, in a newly bipartisan Obama Washington, even a newbie Republican Congressman has a beter chance of representing NOLA than Dollar Bill, even if he's never convicted of anything. I'm also happy to see the Vietnamese community take more of a part in local politics. Maybe it can help break the toxic racial deadlock that posions every poliyical discussion in New Orleans.

Go Cao!

OK, people have been nagging me to get back to my blog, and here's Arianna Huffington on Jon Stewart rhapsodizing about blogging. so here I am. Hoo freakin ray.

I didn't blog because I felt very shut down after Gustav. I didn't know how to feel about this hurricane redux -- should I feel angry that it happened, relieved to have been spared another Katrina, proud of the evacuation, scared, giddy, what? I didn't know what to feel, so I didn't feel anything at all. Not conducive to blogging -- no feely, no bloggy.

Later, when I was feeling better, I dunno, I just wasn't into it. I had gotten out of the habit.

Then, I got a new job, so I have been very very busy the last month or so. I've been promoted to head of the "Periodicals, Arts & Recreation" division of the Main Library downtown -- my old division where I worked as an associate before Katrina. You know, Kirsten 1.0? I am sitting at my old supervisor's desk. I have her phone extension. I'm signing people's timesheets. It's pretty weird.

And pretty hectic. I'm running around like a chicken with no head, in part because the division is severely understaffed and there is more than enough everyday grunt work for everyone, and in part because I am just trying to figure out what is going on. and make decisions about some of the stuff that has piled up since the division was without a head librarian. Busy busy busy. There aren't enough hours in the day -- every day, I'm like, damn, it's five o'clock already?

So that is what I have been up to lately. If you work downtown, come by the second floor of the Main library and see me. I'll be there.