nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

I’m realizing how repetitive my day is, and how little I get to concentrate. Well, I already knew that, but keeping track of time like this really points it out. Need to find some way to carve out some solid work time for myself.

Thursday

7:30 am-8:00 am - Yay! I finally got to work on time. Spent this half hour doing my time card for the two week period and submitting my vacation time.

8:00 am-8:20 am - Met with boss. No more meetings to set, but a change to an existing meeting.

8:20 am-8:50 am - Email and a phone call

8:50 am-10:15 am - Went to the Nebraska Library Commission to present my web design to them. I think they mostly liked it. Came back with a list of changes to make, which I will do this Saturday.

10:15 am-11:30 pm - Went through email some more, stopped that to get someone access to our web server so she can do her work. In the process, made a “how to log onto web server” page on the wiki, complete with screenshots. Then back to email, was able to handle most items quickly but one involved setting another meeting and another required me getting clarification from another person.

11:30 am- 12:00 pm - Trying to figure out, with the computer person, why my computer and others won’t burn DVD’s

12:00 pm-12:30 pm - Lunch.

12:30 pm-1:30 pm - Meeting minutes, still the meeting from last week. On day three, which was shorter, but messiest.

1:30 pm-2:00 pm - More meeting stuff, including figuring out where my boss’s 2:00 meeting is at, since the person’s address is listed differently in 3 places.

2:00 pm-4:15 pm - Server stuff. Trying to install a couple of programs, but the going is slow because I’m unfamiliar with the flavor of Linux and I REALLY don’t want to mess anything up. Also a couple of phone calls and errands in here.

4:15 pm-5:00 pm - The weather turned nasty, so I spent some time getting all my electronics into plastic bags so it wouldn’t get wet on the way home. Also replied to emails and did some cleanup around the office.

Friday

7:30 am-8:00 am - I opened my email inbox, even though I told myself I wouldn’t. Tabulated meeting responses.

8:00 am-8:15 am - Met with boss. Not a lot to talk about today.

8:15 am- 9:15 am - More email, and catching up on reading minutes and news from other areas of the library.

9:15 am - 11:30 am - Finished server installations from yesterday. WordPress gave me particular trouble, not because of the software, just because I kept doing things ever so slightly wrong. After I had it installed, I played with the themes some, and installed a few necessary plugins. Also answered some phone calls and got the mail.

11:30 am-12:00 pm - You guessed it! email. Getting so close to getting one meeting set. I hate setting meetings across time zones, and I really hate meetings where people have to fly or drive for several hours to get here.

12:00 pm- 2:00 pm - Working on the minutes some more. Very close to being done.

2:00 pm- 3:30 pm - Design work! I worked on concepts for a couple of logos. Didn’t come up with anything good. Will keep some ideas rolling around in my head over the weekend.

3:30 pm- 5:00 pm - Getting everything ready for next week. This included: reviewing my to do lists and moving some items off, getting my inbox back to zero, checking boss’s calendar and then printing out a version for the office and emailing it to some people, ordering some supplies, and straitening up. I’d like to say I did a “weekly review,” but it really wasn’t that systematic.

What I learned

Documenting my day was an interesting exercise. I saw a lot of places I can improve what I do and how I go about it. On paper my day sounds pretty boring, but I really enjoy this job because it lets me do a variety of things. The only thing I wish there was more of is interaction with the public. During the summer, especially, it can be really quiet around the office- in fact, on Friday we had no students in working at all, which is pretty unusual.

karin :: Jul.18.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

@ Work

I actually feel like I got a good amount done today, which is slightly unusual. There were only 3 phone calls all day. I really love summer, but I am trying not to get too used to this down time. Come fall, I won’t have any time for projects at all, as meeting setting and meeting minutes will take up much more of my day. Must finish what I can now!

7:45 am-8:00 am - Running late again. Sigh. Spent this time getting computer booted up and getting ready for meeting with boss.

8:00 am-8:15 am - meeting with boss. Got a few new meetings to set, and an update on projects. We have about 30 projects this year, though some are supposed to end in September.

8:15 am-8:45 am - Open up email, check paper calendar to make sure boss hasn’t added anything

8:45 am-9:30 am - Various web related things: Adding IP address to the allowed list of one of our restricted projects, fixing an access problem on another site. Also had to spend some time cleaning up hard drive because I’m out of space again.

9:30 am-10:00 am - Met with computer people about upgrade in our department next week to Office 2007 (NOT to Vista, thank god). Also set project meeting for later in the afternoon.

10:00 am-11:30 am - Working on a website. Mostly CSS stuff.

11:30 am-12:00 pm - Finally shipping the thing from yesterday

12:00 pm-12:30 pm - lunch

12:30 pm-3:00 pm - Minutes. Finished day two from the 3 day meeting. One day to go.

3:00 pm-4:00 pm - Email, managing calendar items, tasks relating to setting meetings (entering in available times into spreadsheet, etc.)

4:00 pm-5:00 pm - Wiki cleanup, more email (it never ends!!!), supply ordering, and setting up some batteries to charge overnight (department cameras, mostly.) Also checked the camera memory cards to make sure all the images had been placed on the shared drive.

@ Home

3 hours of reading for school, and then 45 minutes working on my Blackboard posts. I still have not chosen my paper topic, but since I’m done with the postings, I can do that tomorrow.

karin :: Jul.16.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

Here’s day two of the library day in the life postings! See the wiki for others doing the same thing.

Monday Evening

I am going to start with a bit from Monday evening relating to school and professional stuff outside of work:

• Checked blackboard to get an idea what I would be doing for the week, downloaded a few files to Zotero
• Checked school emails, added a few things to my calendar
• Blogged in all my various (4) blogs, since I had fallen way behind
• Started a blog entry for another blog I am participating in
• Did a little halfhearted research on my upcoming paper. I need to decide on a topic!

Tuesday Day

Today was a bit more of a normal day, though being summer it is pretty slow. During the school year when projects are in full swing, I’ll probably have 5-10 meetings a week, but during the summer this slows way down. In fact, the only meeting I have this week has to do with my practicum at the commission. I have a lot of time devoted to working on minutes this week- much of this is minutes from last week’s three day all hands meeting for The Walt Whitman Archive. Some of this requires serious cleanup, because people talked very fast! After these are done I will work farther back- I have some older minutes that need some cleanup.

7:45am-8:30am - Check email, sync boss’s calendar to my paper calendar, reply to any emails that just need a quick note, sort inbox
8:30am-8:45am - Meet with boss to discuss ongoing projects. Usually this would take a while, but it is summer, so there are not a lot of active projects
8:45am-9:45am - Continue emptying inbox, this time handling the emails that take slightly longer. This includes sending emails to set meetings, making quick web changes to the departmental site, etc. Also make tea sometime in here. mmmm, caffeine.
9:45am-10:30am - This is where my day started to get screwy, and why my job is hard to document. I started working on a website I am doing, but was interrupted by a phone call (I answer the phone for 7 people) and then was asked to burn a DVD because my co-workers computer wouldn’t. I also answered a couple more emails while I was waiting for the DVD files to copy over.
10:30am-11:30am - Continuing the DVD writing drama, my co-worker and I try many different computers. Finally got one that works. Tested DVD’s. In the meantime, more email came in, including some responses to meeting requests. I held a few tentative dates for meetings.
11:30am-12:00pm - Lunch! The Joint staff committee hosted an (indoor) picnic with hot dogs, chips and watermelon.
12:00pm-1:30pm - Working on minutes
1:30pm-2:00pm - More email, double checking room bookings for meetings (I’m paranoid) etc.
2:00pm-2:30pm - More meeting minute proofing. This sort of divulged into cleaning up the staff wiki, though.
2:30pm-3:00pm - Meet with a professor about possible changes to one of his sites, as well as installing and customizing word press.
3:00pm-4:00pm - Trying to ship a package. This shouldn’t have taken so long, but I had to look some stuff up, repackage, etc. In the end, I wasn’t able to ship it and will have to try again tomorrow. sigh.
4:00pm-5:00pm - Cleaning up the wiki some more, getting my inbox to 0 for next day, setting everything up for tomorrow and setting priorities.

Tuesday Evening

Homework Tuesday involved lots of reading. I downloaded all my readings to Zotero so I could read offline, and that’s pretty much all I did last night. I have a LOT of reading assigned this week, so I imagine this will be my routine for the next two nights as well.

karin :: Jul.16.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »

Photo by Simon Pow

I have been quiet on my blogs lately. I think I just needed a bit of a break- not to mention that school and my practicum are taking more time than I thought they would. I am back now to participate in the “A Day in the Life of a Library” meme, started by Bobbi L. Newman at Librarian by Day. You can see a list of other “Day in the Life” posts on the wiki.  (or sign up to participate yourself!)

Today was a little unusual, because I took a vacation day to go to my practicum at the Nebraska Library Commission. For those that don’t know, a practicum is a school requirement where I get to pay tuition to work for 90 hours. Exciting, huh? Usually, a practicum is used to get a sampling of what it might be like to work various jobs in a library. In my case, I was approached to help build a new website for the Nebraska Library Commission to supplement their existing site, and it was a too good an experience to pass up. I’m running a little bit behind on hours for the practicum (it’s over August 1st) which is why I am taking vacation days to finish it up.

It was actually really, really wonderful to be able to devote a full 8 hours to a project like this. My usual day (as you’ll see later this week) is a little bit of everything, with a LOT of interruptions. While it makes the day go quick, it can also make it hard to get things done. Today, on the other hand, I had the luxury of working almost non stop on one project. So today’s post will be somewhat short. Except I already rambled quite a bit already. oops.

I got to the Commission a little before 8. My first order of business was to talk to Michael Sauers. I had a favor to ask him having to do with the Other Job, and I wanted to touch base about the presentation we’ll be giving together this fall.

After that, I picked up where I left off last night on my website design. I have finished working out most of the design part, and am down to the nitty gritty of the CSS- not exactly my favorite thing to do. This is where having a lot of time to work on something comes in handy, because I can’t squash all those CSS cross browser bugs very quickly. Around 9:30 I checked the email account for the Other Job, responded to a couple of things, checked my personal email, checked Twitter, and started work on the CSS again.

I made a lot of progress today, which felt great. My next step in my practicum is to show my design proposals to the web committee, and hope they like them. I also have been working on a few suggestions for them. I am trying to leave them with well commented code and some Photoshop files they can use to make their own custom attractive graphics.

So that’s it for today. There will probably be some more variety in tomorrow’s post, but this being summer I can’t guarantee anything.

karin :: Jul.14.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 1 Comment »