This post is part of the Library Day in the Life Project. For those of you who don’t know me I’m a Digital Branch Manager at the Chattahoochee Valley Libraries in Columbus Georgia. I have been here just over a year.
6:00 wake up and get to work. I drink coffee while checking my email and Twitter and Facebook. Facebook includes checking my Librarian by Day page, Libraries and Transliteracy page, and Day in the Life Group since FB doesn’t send email notifications for activity on these I try to check them a couple of times a day. I also walk my dogs and get ready for work.
8:15 arrive in the office. I have a Twitter class for staff at 9:00 so I go over my handouts and material and make some last-minute changes.
9:00 Twitter class for staff. Great overview and introduction including how to use twitter without having an account. The class went really well. I asked the Twitterati to say “hi” to the class. I got over 60 responses from all over the world so I plugged them into a google map, check it out.
View Hi’s from Twitter to Class in a larger map
10:00 After the class is over I stop by the office of the Head of Teen Services. We were both at ALA and are still waiting to get our reimbursement checks. She tells me they’ve promised it will be deposited tomorrow.
10:15 Back to my office, there is a contact from one of the vendors in my mail box. I’ve been waiting for approval so I could sign and fax it back. Approval received hurrah! We are undergoing some restructuring so while we figure out who does what it is taking some extra time for decisions to be made.
10:20 Time to check my email. Some days I get home and can’t figure out what I’ve done all day. Thanks to keeping notes for libday5 I have figured out that most of it is reading and responding to email.
10:30 I look at Twitter. libday5 is going strong. Its cool and sad to see that is had gotten so large I can not keep up with it.
10:40 more email. One of the downsides of being a manager now is there is less about my day I can share on Library Day in the Life.
10:50 I need to return some phone calls, including calling the Treasury department to inquire about my reimbursement. while on hold I go through more emails.
11:20 I start dealing with the issue of the library’s URL. right now it is chattahoocheevalleylibraries.org. Cool cuz that’s our name, bad because it is looooonnnnngg. Especially if you’re typing it in a phone there is a lot of potential for errors. We have agreed we need a shorter option the obvious choice being cvl.org. Unfortunately that belongs to a group of Buddhist who want $10,000 for it. ha! We look at other options.
11:35 Back to email (notice a theme here yet?)
11:45 Visit the Marketing office to help with the website. Until the Digital Branch goes live (September) Marketing is handling the old website, I offer technical support as needed.
12:00 I check Facebook and Twitter. Yes I can see what my friends are doing, I also find news and library related issues from things they post and from organizations I’m a fan of like American Libraries Magazine, American Library Association, ALA OITP, Federal Communications Commission, LJ/SLJ Ebook Summit, Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, Library & Information Technology Association (LITA), Learning Round Table of the American Library Association, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation just to name a few. Same with Twitter, most of the people I follow aren’t tweeting about their breakfast. :-)
12:15 I start looking through my Google Reader folder for the library. I come across a mention of our library in an event notification from a group that is charging admission for the event. This is a violation of our policy. All events during library hours must be free and open to anyone. I send an email to a couple of staff who deal with this sort of thing and spend sometime discussing the problem. Back to the RSS feeds, I respond to some tweets about the library.
1:25 Back to Twitter and email.
1:30 I walk downstairs to our cafe and get a hot dog for lunch to eat at my desk. I don’t do this often, I wish our cafe had healthier and yummier choices. Back at my desk I look at my email, Twitter and Facebook again.
2:15 I look at some usability studies and make some notes.
3:00 Time for a test run of my Tech Talk with Michael Sauers on Wednesday. All goes smoothly and we are ready for the webinar!
3:30 back to emails which takes up the rest of my time until I leave at 5:15.
Usually in the evenings I get on the computer and do some work and I need to be getting ready for my upcoming workshop in Missouri, but I decided I need a night away from the internet so I clean and read a book.
Something new to consider as we consider at 