Another day in the life of a librarian

As I've said before, when something comes up twice in a short period of time, it's appropriate to take notice of what the universe would like me to learn. Not sure what this one means, but it's worth recording. This post also comes under the "never a typical day" category (wait, I don't have that category -- yet).

I've been here 8 months, and throughout this time we have not had enough technology staffing. There have been days when there are no scheduled technology staff and nothing has gone down (yeah!). In truth, I've been comforting that little worry in the back of my mind with the knowledge that I can hopefully handle anything, drawing on my past experience as an automation librarian.

So, last Friday when Pine City called and said their Internet was down and our PC guy was off, I looked around and discovered that the closest help at hand was at the end of my own arm. I hopped in the van and headed north and fairly quickly had them connecting to the Internet. I congratulated myself and was back in the office in just over an hour.

Today, when a similar help-desk call came in, this time from Wyoming, I had exactly the same help available (0). I was beginning to feel a little spooked. In my first 8 months I've not had any "Internet down" calls, and now I have 2 in less than a week. So, again I hop in the same van, head out on the same highway, but this time headed south. This time the problem was not so quickly apparent, but I wiggled and jiggled, and reset connections, and powered down and powered back up. And voila -- all is well.

So, I'm feeling quite thankful that I've brought a wide range of experiences to draw on, and maybe the lesson of the universe is not to let any of my skills get rusty.

Oh yeah, the other part of this post is how atypical any day in this career field can be. While my raison d'etre is to provide leadership, I am often surprised by what I end up doing when I'm planning on doing something else. Besides being a de facto geek twice in the last week, on Saturday I got a crack at being the Bookmobile driver. What a gratifying experience -- to bring the world of the library rolling down the street to a town full of waiting patrons. I wrote about this humbling experience on the library blog. And to memorialize that first Bookmobile trip - a photo:

A view from the front lines

I've received lots of good wishes on the new job. Thought I'd share a photo of what we're facing here (a picture's worth a thousand words, right?)


and this is only one of 14 branches

We're in the midst of bringing a new integrated library system online. This is happening following a major system failure, caused by the perfect storm of circumstances that resulted in significant data losses (defined as re-cataloging bunches and bunches.) Hats off to one terrific cataloging team! . . . . as well as the entire dedicated, hard-working staff. This is a good place to be.