Misadventures of the Monster Librarian

You know how you have that list of about 20 things to do at work, and you start the day with the first thing on your list thinking, "I will have all of this done by lunchtime." Yeah, thing 1 on the list took over 4 hours, 3 calls to SEO, and finally the SEO IT guy going into our account to fix things. Thank God for SEO!! SEO is: "The SEO ( Serving Every Ohioan ) Library Center, located in Caldwell, supports a consortium of 87 Library systems at 198 physical locations throughout 45 counties across Ohio using the OPLIN network. The power of this consortium resides in resource sharing among consortia members allowing small and rural library systems to have access to millions of items for their patrons free of charge. SEO Library Center houses, maintains and supports a centralized shared catalog database that includes over 6.9 million items with a patron database of 905,000+ borrowers. The SEO staff provides technical support as well as...

Just received this email from Ohio State Librarian, Beverly Cain.  Even if you're not from Ohio, it's worth the read.  Even if you're not a librarian, it's worth the read.  The following message is sent on behalf of State Librarian Beverly Cain: Dear Colleague, The White House has released its new budget blueprint, an advisory document that proposes increases in spending to military programs and national security, coupled with major decreases to—or the complete elimination of—many programs supporting museum and library services, scientific data and research, human health, and environmental safety; social uplift, education, and protection for the poor; international diplomacy, cooperation, and aid; and the arts, culture, and history. The House and Senate will now begin offering their own budget resolutions, and a long process of negotiation—informed by the will of the people, as expressed to our elected representatives—will ultimately re...

The Huron County Community Library has 2 Youth Programming Clerk positions available for immediate hire.  The positions are at separate locations (Greenwich and Willard), 25 hpw, $7.95 - $9.00 depending on experience.  Candidates with teen programming experience especially desirable.  We are a member of SEO, using the ILS Symphony WorkFlows. Resumes received prior to November 15 will be given first consideration, please send to director@huroncolib.org Laura Lee Wilson, MLIS Library Director Huron County Community Library 6 West Emerald Street Willard, OH 44890 PH: 419-933-2544 FX: 419-933-4783 llwilson@huroncolib.org

I feel like I have this deer-in-headlights-look today; still not believing that I have the keys, and the title, and the RESPONSIBILITY! I am a director. Holy cats! I am beat and have about ten million people to call to talk about my first day, so I will just bullet point what my first day looked like: Spent 2 hours just wading through 6 INCHES of paperwork and 12 INCHES of library journals and collection development magazines and flyers that have accumulated since the last director left Set up a meeting with the former director, to get aligned with a few things that need some overlap (he is kind enough to come during his free time and do this with me!) Set up my new Oplin email account Talked to the WONDERFUL and very helpful folks over at SEO (Serving Every Ohioan) a couple of times! They were so nice. Made my first decisions: dealt with a fine policy discrepancy Visited with the President of the Board, she popped in to say hello. So nice. :) Talked with another Board Member a...

We receive a monthly update from SEO (our FANTASTIC consortium); reading over the statistics, I was impressed by the 12 Most Popular Juvenile Fiction e-books in July within our consortium: Mockingjay , Collins Catching Fire , Collins Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children , Riggs Divergent , Roth The Lightning Thief , Riordan HP and the Sorcerer's Stone , Rowling The Hunger Games , Collins The Sea of Monsters , Riordan The Maze Runner , Dashner HP and the Chamber of Secrets , Rowling The Book Thief , Zusak HP and the Prisoner of Azkaban , Rowling Why is this pertinent?--you ask. Welp, it helps when, like us, you have an insanely small budget and want to make sure that when you do your e-book ordering you have a smattering of some of the more popular titles available, particularly the ones which have the most holds on them! And for the record, I hate doing the e-book ordering...I wish we had a librarian just for that job!

Things have been crazy busy lately. Sitting at home this morning waiting on the plumber who is back again to finish my shower--3 days to fix this hot mess! While I'm enjoying the quiet time at home and the ability to finish The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey--can you say, I'm pumped to see how the movie turns out, LOVED the book--I know I have a million things waiting for me at work! Our Summer Reading Kick-Off is again planned for the end of May with a "Touch-a-Truck" event with local ambulance, tractor, fire truck, and police car, 4-H animal petting zoo, face painting, and a giant used book sale. Everyone's lined up and ready to be here, and our small, but mighty FRIENDS of the Library group is running the book sale, leaving me with nothing to do but pray for a sunny day. I've finished our registration binder, have plenty of reading logs and calendars of events for kick-off day (last year over 500 people showed up!), all the prizes are purchased or donated (on...

Yesterday was my 8 month anniversary as a Library Director, so I thought I would share some of the interesting things I've learned and experienced while working at Sticks Library: Like in life, the Golden Rule should be observed Some days you're the first one in at 8a.m. and the last one out at 8p.m. Vanity be damned: sometimes you just have to wear sneakers with your work pants Staff concerns that seem petty still must be addressed seriously Sometimes laughing really hard with your staff can make the really long days tolerable Smile at EVERYone...smiling's my favorite I think I look forward to storytime more than the kids The process of buying all new computers, software, security, etc. really is arduous and crazy-making There will be lots of interesting surprises along the way, like the patron who sells the best and freshest asparagus in town and always makes sure to stop by and see if you need any; or the 60+ year old who invited me on a weekend motorcycl...