July already and another round of Performance Reviews.  What are my big five goals for the next year?  I find it impossible to say really.  Since last August there has been less time available to spend on the nice to do things let alone my last years 'big five' and it has been a daily rush just to get the basics done. Given the state of the local economy and the Government saying Local Councils need to save money....will I even survive another year.  No wonder I feel a certain lassitude towards goal setting and a certain frustration in not achieving my last 'big five'. How ever in an effort to stay positive I did look to do some reading that explained the way I felt.  I have a personal view that understanding helps in acceptance of situations and therefore hopefully inspires an action plan.  The book was 'Three signs of a miserable job' by Patrick Lencioni and it was a good read.  I found myself identifying with most of what he said.  The signs are, immesuability (how do you measure your daily achievement on the job, if you can't think of anything then how do you know you are doing it well), anonymity (the boss or your colleagues really don't know a thing about you,  it is hard to do anything about this because if you tell them all about yourself you run a risk of over exposing yourself, or being labeled as an  'it's all about me' person) and the last sign is irrelevance and that's about not really being necessary to the product or running of the organisation, if you are sick you are replaced and no one seems to have been upset by it.  My personal goal albeit a small one has been to try and find things I can count or score in some way so I know I'm doing a good job.  It is tough but worth the effort and it makes the job a bit more enjoyable.  I keep adding to the number of reference inquiries I can tot up in a day.  I must get or create a situation where there is a least one and any more are a bonus.   Since most of my job is check in, check out and shelve, the reference inquiry is a challenge, both in finding the time to address it and in delivering an in depth result.  Give the book a go and start measuring your success. 

A New Year

A few weeks ago I attended a session about e-books. Some discussion at the session revolved around when the participants thought books as we know them, would be superseded by electronic formats. The best guess was in about five years. It is a brave new world out there for sure and there can't be too many folk under thirty that don't use electronic tools to get through their day but I for one will always want a book to curl up with. I don't think an e-reader would survive being rained on, having coffee spilled on it or drop safely onto the floor as sleep invades consciousness, let alone be able to act as a furniture leveler or flower pressing weight. I'm not saying rain, coffee, dropping a book on the floor or using it for non book like activities is necessarily good for it, but at least it can still be read and will never flash the terminal blue screen before the ending is reached. A future without books....I hope not.

Survived

Have survived this round of restructuring and am now refocusing on doing a great job. Went to Reference and Information Services workshop and revisiting all the common sense ideas and the basics was re-invigorating. I was amazed to learn that good customer service, smiles , chatting to the customer etc was more important than actually giving competent service. Made me wonder why I put so much effort into doing the job well when all I really need to do is smile more. Did get given a few good blogs about what concerns librarians have and and thought you'd like to check them out as well.
http://freerangelibrarian.com
http://stephenslighthouse.com
http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com

Just hanging on

Just when I thought the way forward was clear the economic downturn hit. Many of us have been involved in a restructure couched in words such as 'growth and development of the region' but between the lines, it was a cost cutting exercise. It has been both frustrating and stressful and is not quite over. The sad thing is, restructure in this instance meant job cuts, now there are less of us to do the work, as it gets busier it will be harder to get excited about work every day especially when service falls short. There is this naievity that job cuts do not mean a drop in service. Eventually as job cuts increase to save money, services will suffer with less people to fulfil the obligations. A slow implosion as all service industries turn in ever tightening circles and in the end achieve nothing. It is a pity this is a sign of the times and unfortunately, I think this form of restructure is going to be the norm.

I finished my Professional Development Journal yeah!!! It was quite an eye opening experience, apart from seeing the actual evidence of all I have learned and attended written in one place, it also highlighted what still needs to be worked on and even suggested some project ideas. It also showed me that some of the projects I started or was asked to do never really saw total completion and it was with sudden illumination I understood why at times, my job frustrates me. Having realised this, the way forward is clearer.

I began putting my Professional Development journal together for revalidation. I took a week off work to complete it and it probably would have been ample time if I didn't find that the gardening needed doing and the house was over due for a spruce up before winter...you get the picture. Seems like everything else competed for my time but i have started it now and already I have found the process rewarding. Even if I have to say so myself, I have learned a lot in the few years that I have been a librarian.

Fines

There have been a lot of borrowers coming in with huge fines lately. Decided to advertise the resources we have within the libraries repertoire to help people avoid fines. To this end I have continued the 'Ask a librarian' theme on the display boards but ask the borrower do they know about ELF or ONLINE resources. We ran out of pamphlets the first day the display was up.

Library week

Have just finished putting up displays which encourage patrons to "Ask a Librarian" Might be my imagination but reference inquiries seem to have increased. While no one has really asked the answers to the questions posted on the display board with out being prompted I think the message may be getting through in a subliminal way. This week has certainly been more interesting on the information finding front.