today our brand new library officially opens! what a treat to walk into the main doors of the library without swiping my card or having to maneuver around construction fences. when i walked in this morning, our very first patron was already there to check out two books. awesome!
8:30-9 emails [prompted me to give edit access to our Web librarian so he could rebrand our A-Z list and test access in the various Web browsers.]
9 standing daily 15-minute meeting with serials assistant to talk through invoice questions. summer is our busy time of the year, preparing the journal renewal list. this is more complicated with each passing year because we’re flipping access to so many journals from print to online-only, an invoicing nightmare.
9:20-10 i emailed myself an article over the weekend, which i’m printing now and will read over lunch. more emails, skim facebook home page, read first page of friendfeed.
10-10:30 our print periodical collection has been split due to the new display shelving configuration and now we have print journals in 3 places in the library. coordinated with serials assistant to get the locations in the order records changed so the labels print correctly. there’s some sort of gremlin in her system permissions that aren’t allowing her to make the change, so she’ll follow up with our Systems librarian.
10:30 prompted vendors via email to send me quotes for 2010 e-only pricing, and i’m still waiting on a title list to do a title reconciliation.
…our catalog has gone down and we can’t check in or make any changes to records. pandemonium in the department until everybody switches to offline tasks, of which there are plenty. i’m rarely in the back end of the catalog, so this hasn’t affected my tasks for the day.
11 reviewed the new library blog, http://lmulibrary.typepad.com, and sent future post ideas to the Web team.
11:15 i’ve been trying to figure out if we’re eligible for deeply discounted pricing for a print journal that came into a publisher package after we’d already negotiated our deal. it’s making my head hurt. it’s not helping that in serials solutions the package is split into two collections. aha! i found the title list and a contact name, so i’ve emailed to ask if it can be discounted. and with that success in my pocket, it’s lunch time!
nixed my plans to read an article and had thoroughly enjoyable lunch with a colleague, looking at the fantastic view of the bluff from our new building.
12:15 my university library is part of a consortium of american jesuit colleges and universities. once a year the library deans get together to report what’s new at their institutions. i’m going to spend some time to see what kinds of data they report, to see if there’s anything there related to e-resources.
well, that was educational. the reports were about two pages per university, reporting on institutional changes, library facilities, digital initiatives, campus collaborations with IT, and marketing. seven data points were reported from each institution, including “% of materials budget spent on electronic resources in 07/08”. the average of the 22 reporting institutions was 46.7%. the smallest percentage spent was 25, the most was 68.3. i wrote up what i found in an email to my boss, noting the percentage our university spends on e-resources.
1:30 my new office has myriad drawers and hanging file options. i worked on a new filing system, which may or may not be unstoppable.
…and the catalog is back up!
3 met with head of collection development to make decision on whether or not to move on a consortial deal for a publisher package to start in 2010. since the online package allows perpetual access to material published while subscribed we’ll move on it. this will allow us to line up these titles to be cancelled in print for 2011 and retain the online access only. filled out order form, got boss to sign off on it.
3:30 sent my boss some talking points for a meeting tomorrow on providing access to e-resources.
3:45 looked at the default wording in serials solutions for our direct subscriptions for e-journals. the default language to describe that access point is “single journal.” at some point in the past we decided that that was not satisfying and changed it to “loyola marymount individual titles.” i’m not a fan of that language because it doesn’t really tell me anything. i emailed the head of reference to describe the situation and ask if she thinks it should be changed, and to what. since she’s in touch with patrons each day, she may have some good suggestions for me.
4:15ish it’s nearing the end of my day, the time of day that i consider what i did during the day and look at my calendar for the rest of the week. i’ll generally use this time to figure out what i’m doing tomorrow morning so that when i come in i can get to work right away.
moving into a new office sounds lovely, do you have a window? Who is writing for the new library blog?
I *do* have a window! I couldn’t have imagined what a difference natural light in an office can make. Usually technical services departments are put in the basement or tucked away in undesirable areas of a library.
There is a committee working on the new library blog. It is going to be expanded so that each librarian can contribute as he/she has ideas. The pictures are fabulous, no?