Library Day in the Life: Day 5

It’s Friday AND payday! Two glorious days!

7:30: Arrived at work. Hadn’t gotten on the internet yet today, so started checking email. Checked bank balance because of the payday. Oh, it’s so nice to see that money there. Too bad it’s not for long…

8:00: Going to get coffee and breakfast. With the money. Because it’s payday.

8:15 – 8:45: Ate my eggs/drank my coffee while writing today’s “to-do” list.

11:45 I have been terrible about writing things down today. Have been a bit busy. Here’s what I did between 8:45 – 11:45:

- Catalogued several items. All of these items need binding, so put them in the “binding” pile. I’ll get out the binding supplies and do all these at once later.

- 3rd student worker showed up. I didn’t think she was coming back. School started 2 weeks ago. Anyway, she let me know she will be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whatever. (I may be transferring some of these students- another collection is interested in them, and I don’t need all 3 of them!)

- A horn student came in looking for “excerpts from Brahms I”. What? Luckily, I figured out she is looking for the Orchestral Musician’s CDROM, volume 3. There’s no way anyone but me could have figured this out. How can I improve that, since I’m not in the library every single hour it’s open.

- Found two identical copies of a Gershwin song book. No differences marked in call numbers. So, I recatalogued and relabeled them with “copy 1″ and “copy 2″ designations.

- Went to get lunch. Did a little online shopping during lunch.

 

To be continued..

Library Day in the Life Day 4

8:00 Arrive at work. Check to make sure things didn’t fall apart while I was gone. Check phone messages.  Listen to Lost podcast with Jay and Jack while making today’s to do list.

8:30 Long list of people to contact today. Better get started. Email is more fun than phone…

9:40 So far I have:

- Not contacted anyone I was supposed to

- Found out how many audiobooks are available in the Media Center for a patron (200+ on CD; 1000 on Cassette).

- Starting humming “Single Ladies” and can’t get it out of my head

- Worked with a student worker to try to find some claims returned items (guess what- none of them were found. Great.)

9:51 Student who I never thought I’d see again comes in to work. Remember, I was going to confront him about disappearing last week, but then he never showed up? So I asked him why he wasn’t here, and he said he was too sick to call, and something about it being too late. I was not prepared so I didn’t have the whole speech ready so I mumbled something about how I won’t sign him in and out if he disappears while he’s working. Grrrr… I hate having to deal with this.

10:00 – 11:00:  Downloaded some more items to catalog later. It is neverending. 

11:39 AM: Received an email from a student looking for a CD that was marked “Lost” in the catalog. He asked me to check on it. I went to the shelf and sure enough it was sitting there, even though it was due in September 2008. Someone hadn’t checked it in. Lovely.

 

11:40 – 11:55: Sent a bunch of nasty overdue/missing items emails. 2 to professors who claim to have turned in their items. I have looked for these items. 2 of my student workers have looked for these items. So….

12:00 Will now spend some time ordering some professor requests. My budget is so tight I don’t even order much that is *not* requested. I can’t even order everything requested. Also, there is limited space. So, I was hired to build a library, but told I have no money to do so, and no space to put anything I buy. 

12:10 Sent an email to a colleague that runs a sheet music store. Waiting to hear back. So I will process, with involves trying to figure out how to circulate a full score of 3 string quartets, and 3 actual quartets with parts.

12:45 Had an actual reference question. Student is looking for a score of Debussy’s Piano Trio in G. Couldn’t find it here. Had a chance to explain about Interlibrary Loan, WorldCat, and just going to other libraries and making copies. I love doing that.

12:45 – 1:30 Spent some time writing in call numbers and bib numbers in the multiple parts of 3 quartets. Fun.

1:30 – 2:00 went over to music to check my mail and say “Hello, I am your librarian, how can I help you?”

2:00 Came back, ironically, to frantic phone calls and messages from a faculty member looking for me. How funny.

2:00 – 3:00 Will spend the last hour preparing an order of piano music. Fun.

Leaving an hour early today to go watch my son during husband’s gig. Hope to work out and *not* repeatedly check my work email. Also, really hoping he and I can catch some Sponge Bob.

Library Day in the Life: Day 3

Today’s an easy day: I stayed home. It was kind of a snow day. As a former Texan, I freak out when the weather looks bad. If they close the public school, that’s it for me. Well, I felt kind of silly when it was sunny by the end of the day, but I had a nice vacation day with my son.

I did a little work through email. A faculty member called me at home to ask about reserves. I paniced and thought everything was falling apart, but it was no big deal.

Today will hopefully be very productive. I can already tell by the stack of things waiting for me on my desk…

Library Day in the Life, Day 2

Today I woke up super early and was able to finish half my workout before my son woke up. Today will be a little shorter day for me, because my husband got work for the next three days- so I have to leave at about 2:30.

I got here early to make sure I got everything done. I’ll probably end up coming in on Saturday to make up for stuff..

7:00 Arrive at work. Check email. Remember I have a student coming today that I have to confront- I sent him out to shelf read last time he was here- and I couldn’t find him. Who knows where he went? I have to let him know how uncool that is…. I guess they will just get away with as much as they can? Sad…

7:30 – 8:30 – Download new items to catalog. Place them in a pile to do later (can’t finish until tomorrow at the earliest).

8:30 Prepare things for my students to do. I love how they work here to make things easier, but I have to take 30 minutes to find work for them to do….

9:00 First student arrives. Tell her to reshelve stuff. 

Return to cataloging while listening to uplifting music (because I am a ray of sunshine today)…

9:15 Decided to go through paperwork on desk. Several overdue notices and reports that need to be shredded. So, I shredded them. I love getting things off my desk.

9:30 No really, I’m going to catalog now. I mean it.

10:00 We’re supposed to have a staff meeting at 10. I can’t hide from it because it occurs right next to my cubicle. However, no one is here yet. Waiting for the student to come at 10 for me to yell at. Hopefully he’ll get here before the meeting starts…

10:52 Meeting finally finished. Student never showed up. 

11:00 – 11:30 Followed up with student workers about reserves. Surprisingly, some of our employees still didn’t know there were music reserves. They do now. 

11:30 – 12:00 Ate lunch at my desk, playing on Facebook. Had some awesome Scrabble moves…

12:00 – 1:00: Back to work. MUST. FINISH. CATALOGING. THIS. PILE. OF.TO-DO….

1:00 – 2:00 After cataloging a few items (still need to be bound- that’s for another day) decided to download the new items so I can catalog them later (go to the bottom of the pile).

2:00 Leave early. Time to be a mom. I’m sure I’ll check my work email repeatedly, because I am unhealthy that way.

Library Day in the Life: Day 1

Ahhh, Monday….

I set my alarm this morning for 5:00 am. When I woke up at 3 and could not go back to sleep, I knew I was in trouble.

Sometime around 4:00 I went back to sleep, and then 5:00 came and went. I snoozed and continued my dream, which was about eating free coffee ice cream from Starbucks.

8:05 – Arrive at work.

Get coffee.

Figure out what’s going on.

See what kind of problems challenges opportunities presented themselves over the weekend.

Read overdue notices and reports of exceptions.

9:00 Student showed up to work – sent her out to reshelve and shelf read.

Cataloging:

- Here it is a 2 part process. First I have to search OCLC and download the record.  Then I have to wait 24 hours to have access to the record.

I have downloaded the items and now need to finish cataloging and processing. This will last a while today.

10:39 have cataloged and processed 2 items. Was interrupted by a faculty member to put items on reserve. I could use a break, so I’ll go ahead and take care of that (long process).

11:00 Took a break to have lunch. Have trouble getting back into things.

11:35 Back to work. Listening to this week’s “Wait, wait, don’t tell me” while processing the reserves (which requires some cataloging since they’re not in our collection). 

11:45 Receive a package. Great. I was almost done with the cataloging. Now there’s more to do:-) It will just have to wait until this pile is done. I’ll set it over there…

11:50 Back to reserves. Will they ever end?

1:25 Finally finished reserves and processed 3 catalogued items completely. How many more to go? (taking a break for some oatmeal snack…)

1:45 REFERENCE QUESTION! HOORAY! Student needed help finding book of American songs. I love when I get to do reference! (I think I may be a little too excited).

1:58 Calm down and get back to cataloging!

2:30 Reserve drama. Let me just share with you my frustration. My collection (and myself) are housed in the University’s media library. I have a shelf of reserves. Music Reserves. There is a book: “Music Reserves”. And still… people don’t look at it… they come to me and ask for things that are right in front of there face. These people don’t work for me- they work for the media center… but I’ve tried to train them.

3:25 Just heard from my husband that he got the job we’ve been waiting to hear about. I couldn’t concentrate worrying about it, and now I can’t concentrate because I’m so excited… I hope the rest of the day isn’t a bust…

To be continued…

On cataloging and classification….

Oh friends…

Let me just share some issues I’m having with the way things are catalogued.

Most composers have a “Thematic Catalog.”

A thematic catalog is:

 

 ”A list of compositions in a collection or of an individual composer, usually arranged by opus or a specific numbering scheme (i.e., BWV numbers for Bach, K. (Köchel) numbers for Mozart, etc.). Sometimes, incipits are included as a means to positively identify a work.” (Thanks to UNLV Music Library at http://library.nevada.edu/music/info/glossary.html for the definition).

Most thematic catalogs are classified as ML134.

As I was introducing graduate students to the music library’s holdings on Thursday evening, the professor asked about Thematic catalogs. I went to the ML134 area and there were *none*. Oh dear. I thought perhaps they had been placed with the M3s (Complete/Collected Works), and a few composers’ works were placed there. We began to search the online catalog and found some of them were placed in the Music Library in the ML410s. Wait, WHAT? ML410 is Biography. Who did that? Oh, and even more were placed in the Main Library, which is classed as Dewey. At least it seems they were correctly placed in Reference.

It looks like, in addition to the cataloging that is backing up that I need to do (which is difficult because I hate Cat Express and want to use OCLC Connexion like a *real* cataloger), I need to do a large scale re-classification of the Thematic Catalogs.

At least I have job security, right?:-)

Oh, and if that wasn’t bad enough, apparently Oxford Music Online now only allows 3 simulateous users, and it’s impossible to get in. People get very upset when they can’t access Grove. This could be bad…

Library Day in the Life: Day 5

This one is easy: I stayed home sick on Friday. However, I did check my email and answered some important questions.. as in, “How do I log on from home”.

However, stay tuned. In a separate post I’m going to illustrate my frustration at the way Thematic Catalogs are classified in my library…

Library Day in the Life: Day 4

Arrived at work at 7:30. I think that’s pretty much becoming the standard time, which is fine. It’s quiet and I enjoy the mornings here (once I get here).

Ate my cereal and drank my coffee while showing off pictures of my son’s birthday to my co-workers.

Checked email. Read blogs. Looks like the Hurricane is going to effect my friends in Houston.

Started reviewing first presentation for the day.

Received a call from a friend in Texas I haven’t talked to in a long time. That was nice.

9:00 student worker arrived. I don’t know what to do with these students. I know once I get settled I’ll find things for them to do. As it is now, shelving and shelf-reading is helpful.

Continued to work on presentation and uploaded it to slideshare on Facebook.

I must admit I’m having a hard time not checking the news in Houston. 

10:00 Other student showed up. Had him reshelve and then go study.

11:00 left for presentation. Gave presentation to Freshman music majors about how to use the library. I think it went well, but I got stuck on Naxos. That will show me for trying to listen to the Furtwengler recording of Tristan und Isolde.

12:30 back to office. Ate lunch at desk. Trying to put off going to get a chocolate frozen yogurt. Hey, it’s guilt free day…. I think if I wait until 1:15 I’m fine..

Working on outline for tonight’s presentation. Graduate students are so fun.

1:15 Mmmmm. Frozen yogurt.

Researching thematic catalogs and collected works. I really need to up my knowledge of these… We have a lot here, which is good.

Decided to try Catalog Express again. Gave up, and instead created a page and group on Facebook for my Music library. I am determined to use social networking in my library!

4:00 – getting ready to walk over for second presentation. Will last until 6, then going home. Goodnight!

Library Day in the Life: Day 3

I arrived at work at about 7:30- later than I would like, but it was another rough morning. 

When I got here I had a note from one of the workers from last night:

“Ms. B.-

We couldn’t find: 

Strategies for teaching K-4 and Strategies for Strings and Orchestra. The student has to complete an assignment and if you just e-mail her as soon as possible. Thanks.”

Attached to the note was the printout of a music reserve list for Music Education items. On the list it said: “… All the books are on reserve for MUED 2000; they should be available from the music library if you ask for the specific title and give the call number listed.”

Hmm… so they had LC call numbers, which meant they were music, right? (Main library books have Dewey. Long story). But, I could find no record of them in our catalog. I did, however, find one on reserve at the main library with a Dewey call number. Oh dear.

I emailed the student and gave her what information I had, and asked for her professor’s name so I could contact him/her and find out what is going on. Keep in mind I’ve been here for 2 weeks and 2 days.

Once that was done… it was time to go get coffee.

Wait.. before I could get coffee…

Someone from music called and wanted an in-house recording from last year. Sent that over, then prepared to leave to go get coffee. But wait…

Heard back from professor. Apparently, all the Music Ed. reserve books are on reserve at the MAIN library. Not quite sure why the students had a reserve list instructing them to ask for these items at the music library…

8:45. Finally… got…. coffee…

9:00 – 10:00 Media library staff meeting. My student showed up at 9:05 (forgot she was coming), so I told her to shelve things and then shelf read.

During the meeting we talked about things such as :
- Who keeps turning off the lights?

- Who will be out when?

- I got a chance to explain that students need to *please* return RESERVE items to the RESERVE shelves (even though I have multiple signs, they keep ending up on the re-shelving truck, not the reserve shelves).

My student called her mom even though we were all waiting for her so she could be trained at the desk. Come on, I don’t want to have to be mean boss…

- Holy moly- 10:15- just had another Music Ed student come ask for those items…

- Posted a sign for student workers asking them to direct Music Ed students to the main library’s reserve desk for said items.

- Posted a new blog entry on music library blog explaining that the Music Ed reserves are at the main library.

11:00 Things are getting unbelievably busy.

- Phone call: Euphonium professor needs an accompanist in November- asked me. Yay! (No this is not part of Music Librarian duties… this is me remembering that I play an instrument, and also me making some extra money).

- Received more items to catalog. So far, the cataloging backlog is growing, and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I don’t have a log-in for Cat Express, and I don’t really understand how it works with Voyager. I’m coming from a cataloging system using OCLC Connexion with the III/Milennium cataloging system. This makes no sense. It’s going to take me a lot longer to figure it out than I have today, so I should finish the preparation for the presentations tomorrow.

- Finished first presentation – the one for the freshmen. Uploaded to Slideshare.com. Now on to the graduate presentation- you know, the more complicated one. 2 hours until I have to leave. I could work 12 hours…

- Put stuff on reserve. Organized reserve lists. Gave up on presentation for tonight. Going home 15 minutes later than I had planned. Tired from this day. Hoping my son is in a good mood:-) Oh, Super Nanny is on tonight:-) Yay!

Library Day in the Life: Day 2

Again, woke up too late to workout. Had to prepare son for his first day of daycare.

- Arrived at work. Got coffee. Settled in to check email and read blogs.

- Worked on power point presentation: Introduction to the Music Library. I’m doing 2 presentations about the Music Library and its resources this Thursday. One for Freshman, and one for Graduate students. The differences are driving me nuts.

- Received some training on circulation desk. Music library is located within the Media Center, so it’s good that I learn how to do circulation the way *they* do it. 

- Tried to figure out my CatExpress login. The new scores are piling up, and the login they gave me doesn’t work.

- My student showed up, so I put him in the front of the TV with a training video, then dropped him off with Circulation supervisor so he could be trained (because I am in no position to train anyone on circulation yet).

- Called to check on my son. Apparently he’s doing fine at his first day of daycare, but is tired (it’s nap time). Also received a call from my husband around this time, while he walked between classes.

- A bunch of CD-ROMs showed up today. Normally, the Media Library orders them, but these are Music CD-ROMs that appear to only be PDFs of scores. So, they are not sure how to catalog them. I have the power to decide how they circulate, so I’m waiting to hear from the professor who requested them to tell me what kind of vision she had for these items.

- Ate lunch at desk. So far the day is flying by. This is a good thing.

- Worked further on presentations for Thursday. I’m getting a little crazy. I get really particular and I am driving myself nuts. Luckily I got distracted by someone looking for a video of Giulio Cesare (Handel), that is not in the catalog. I had to explain that, even though someone told her it was here, if I can’t find it in the catalog, I can’t get it for you…

- 4:00 go home, hopefully to get a work out in before making dinner and fighting with my son about when his bedtime is. I hope his first day of daycare went alright.