Returning from the Conference

After a lovely four days traveling to, attending, and returning from the state library conference, I returned to work today. I started off the day by e-mailing several librarians and vendors with whom I networked at the conference. One vendor called me by the end of the day, and we actually may get the suite of online preparation tests from them at some point.

I had my office supplies come in! I now have a binder for the daily stats log, a 3-hole-punch, and a DATE STAMP! Self inking, at that!

I got back in touch with the guy from Arizona, and we're taking a couple of hours on Wednesday afternoon to get Voyager up and running. Perhaps then I can get things in the catalog.

The biggest event of today was getting the library website set up. Sarah from St. Louis, at another branch of this chain, is the Libraryguides contact person since our e-resources librarian is on maternity leave. She walked me through setting up the website and I went from there. Because I am an idiot, it took forever for me to get a widget set up with the library facebook and twitter pages. The profile box automatically did that and I had no idea. There went an hour, whoops. I already have a section set up for online resources, and I put in a bunch of government web links.

Interestingly, a local hip hop station is setting up and broadcasting from the college tomorrow morning from 6 to 10. I'm going in early to hang out for a while, and starting work early so I can leave early and get to my junior board meeting. Busy, busy.

State Conference Update

A couple of months ago, my mother offered to pay for my trip to the state library conference as a professional investment for me. I signed up, got a hotel room, etc. Then, I received invitations to interview for my position at my college. I was worried that I wouldn't be allowed to attend the state conference, as it started the week after I began work. When I inquired about the situation during the interview, the Dean and the woman from national were both very excited that I was attending the conference, and they said I would still be able to attend.

I am now at the said conference, and I am very glad that I have attended. The first two years out of graduate school, I was unable to participate in the state library organization due to financial reasons. I was unable to network, get continuing education, etc. Now that I see what I've been missing, I am VERY sad that I missed out before but am overjoyed that I now have many opportunities before me. Over the past two days I have made several professional connections, several vendor connections, gotten advice on being mentored, on work study students, and on building up my collection. I've also seen library friends that I had not seen in about two years, and I've had a hell of a good time.

I was inducted into Beta Phi Mu, the library honors organization, and I was promptly elected secretary for the state organization. I'm also going to e-mail the ALLA president (past-president as of tomorrow morning), and she will help me get involved with the state library organization.

I've learned that I need to start up a policy and procedure wiki for my library. Circulation automation is REALLY COOL (but probably won't ever be needed at my small college).

I now have contact information for a couple of librarians at "proprietary" colleges (apparently the preferred term), so I will have some contacts, which is awesome.

A high level guy at the state department of education offered to help solve my [state database resources network] problem for me. Apparently I'm just going to have to get an access card for each computer since the [state organization] now utilizes geo location technology and we get our internet through corporate. The woman last Monday wasn't very helpful, but this guy was. I haven't made entries in a few days (my bad), but this was partly responsible for the large bottle of  Excedrin that now sits in my desk. Plus the two classes of library introduction and the grilling I received from one of them (which wasn't necessarily a bad thing).

I have an alumni mixer to attend tonight and will attend the transition workshop tomorrow morning, then I will head home from the beach with my mother. My fiance will be SO HAPPY. She has missed me greatly, and I have missed her as well.

I forgot to write down the web portal for my work email, so I'll have a huge stack of the stuff to go through when I get back. Also, I haven't had time to work at all on my comprehensive collection development policy so there will be that as well. I will receive some training on Monday so that I can set up my library website.

Day Number Three

My major achievement today was looking like an idiot in front of the Baker and Taylor rep. I had noticed that there may have been some correlation between the number of MARC records ordered and the number of books that did not have spine labels. I was informed that the books without spine labels did not have available cataloging, and the college ordered them anyway.

Pro Tip #1 - If you start a library with a core collection and some books arrive with spine labels, check first to see if the books did not have available cataloging.

I wasn't accusatory, at least. Then, I asked about the book that I thought they failed to send us. I mean, surely a workbook doesn't cost over $70, so they must have just not sent the main book, right?

Pro Tip #2 - yes, workbooks can cost over $70, so you/they may have just ordered the workbook instead of the actual book.

I have no idea why they did that. I'll have to order the main book now, which is over $300. This was all after leaving the rep a message with the wrong phone number. At least I now know what my phone number is. I later e-mailed her and apologized for the wrong number and questions, and she responded that I could contact her at any time with my questions.

My other main achievements today were 1) figuring up and letting the dean know my estimate for conference spending next year (one national and two state conferences is EXPENSIVE!), 2)setting up the twitter account for my library, and 3) designing a daily statistics log sheet for the library. I've already started getting a couple of patrons in the library, so I figured it would be good to start collecting statistics even though I have other tasks that are probably more pressing.

I also had my first patron come in and use materials! A potential student was killing time waiting for an admissions rep and wandered in the library. He zeroed in on a book about symbols (the very first book on the shelves), and sat down to read for about 45 minutes. We then spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get the copier to copy from a book. After the Dean fooled with it for a while, he advised us to just try downstairs. The copier in admissions worked. The potential student was very excited, and I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of him if he gets in.

Pro Tip #3 - if you can't find the operations manual for a new copier, check in one of the paper trays.

Seriously. I didn't have a chance to look through it before I left, but I did happen to look in one of the paper trays and found a box. Upon opening the box, I found several possible manuals and a CD with software(?).

First thing tomorrow I'm going to have to develop a short bibliographic instruction module, as I've been asked to speak to one of the classes tomorrow morning.

The Second Day

Today began with more placement test set-up. Today the students were taking the math portion. It was only about 2 hours before I got to work in the library.

Library-wise, the best event today was receiving my computer log-in. I was afraid I would have to use the student computer labs for a week or so before I received my user name, but the development branch of our parent organization moves a bit more quickly than HR usually does. Thus, I was able to download the accreditation requirements for the library, transfer a couple of reference documents from library school, and write up my To Do list.

Currently, my To Do list contains three main facets: meeting accreditation requirements, writing up policy, and setting up routine library procedures. I now have the requirements, so I will look over those later this week. I also spoke to the other three instructors, so hopefully I will soon begin receiving requests for materials to order.

In terms of policy, I know I need to write up the mission and vision statements, collection development policy, challenged materials policy, disaster response policy, internet use policy, and deselection policy (which probably won't have an impact for a couple of years). I want to have a policy binder ready by the end of April. I also need to write up the acquisition and cataloging procedures, but those will have to wait until 1) I receive a Voyager log-in so I can use acquisitions and cataloging, and 2) I figure out precisely how to catalog. The reason I don't know precisely how to catalog is a story for another day. I am confident, however, that I can pick up the basics fairly quickly.

Routine procedures I need to set up are opening and closing procedures, methods for keeping track of library usage (including a daily stats sheet), actually cataloging our materials, figuring out the budget (such a small thing, heh), and so forth.

The other pressing matter before me is the Baker & Taylor order. I spent an hour or so looking at the invoices from the core collection shipments, and I think I finally figured out why some of the books don't have spine labels. At the end of each invoice is a list of treatments applied to the books, including due date sheet, laminated covers, etc. One entry that seems to correlate with the presence or absence of spine labels has something to do with the MARC record. I'll have to look into it further tomorrow. Regardless, I need to contact my sales rep about the book they didn't send us. Problematically, I have no idea who ordered these books, so I don't know if it's acceptable to contact my sales person since I didn't order these books. I will probably contact him/her anyway.

The President asked me to keep the library open late one day per week, so I'll work 9-6 four days per week and 11-8 one day per week. No problem here. I was struggling to to find a way to staff the library so that the night classes could have some support without making me completely exhausted. This is a good way.

I also got my first office supplies. I was ridiculously excited about the notepads, pens, and pen holder. I am such a nerd. AND I got my ID badge today, so I no longer have to rely on following students into the building.

... and I almost forgot. I got my first reference question today! The woman who works in the college store downstairs came up and asked me about our state virtual library. She is a student at [a local college] who is doing a research paper and was having trouble finding appropriate databases for her subject. I maneuvered through the state virtual library site (which is somewhat confusing, in my opinion). I pulled up a list of databases and pointed out several that would yield good results. I also showed her the search feature in Google News. She was very excited that I could help her and said she would let me know how her paper turned out. My first satisfied patron!

First Day

Today was the first day of my new job. Surprisingly, I was not nervous. I felt like I knew what I needed to do, and I would do it. This is the first professional job I've had, so I had to gather up a newer wardrobe over the weekend. Thankfully my parents helped spring for it, so I ended up with nice slacks, shirts, and ties. I filled out all my job paperwork last night, had a nutritious breakfast, and rocked out to MGMT on the way over there.

The college is about 20 minutes from where I live, but it takes about ten minutes longer with traffic. I arrived at 8:30, about 30 minutes early, and the President drove up while I was waiting outside. He let me in and took me upstairs to find the Dean. I then spent the next four hours helping the Dean set up for class placement testing. I was happy to do so, as I like doing new things and I got the chance to meet the registrar and several instructors.

Then, I went to the library, which is on the second floor, and the Dean told me to just start unpacking the boxes that were already there. To start the collection, someone ordered 350-500 titles from Baker & Taylor. I spent the rest of the day unboxing these, and I managed to unbox all of them! There is still a cart left that needs to be shelved, but I'll get that first thing tomorrow.  All most of the books came with the spine labels already applied, but there were 20-30 that did not. I'm not sure why, as I think they paid for all of them to be labeled, so I'll have to look into that. Also, I think they did not send one of the books we ordered, though they did send the workbook for it.

I want to give a big hug to whoever ordered this collection, as they actually ordered some professional development stuff for me! Two nice books on collection development and cataloging. I already have my own book on collection development, which I will be bringing to the library in a few days, but I am in dire need of cataloging assistance. My heart soared when I saw that book.

Tomorrow I think I will give my paperwork to the HR people, finish shelving the books, throw out the empty boxes, and start writing policy. If I get a computer log-in, of course.

Background to Starting the Library

My name is James, and I graduated with my MLIS in May, 2009. Thus, I had been looking for full-time library work when I received an e-mail asking if I could be ready for a phone interview in five hours. Two interviews later I was hired by a small, for-profit college that was opening in my home town.

I was (and am) incredibly excited by this opportunity. Not only have did I finally find full-time work in my field, I would be starting the library FROM SCRATCH! I would be setting a budget, cataloging everything, providing reference services, working with faculty, and staffing the library all by myself (for now). Now, I haven't had experience in some of these areas, so I will have to teach myself and rely on the advice of colleagues.

I have decided to document this process for my own benefit; however, perhaps another librarian in a similar situation will find this information useful.