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21/02/2005
Record keeping
My lib’n can’t find records of a particular job she has done. During her frantic fussings around she discovers that the records haven’t been filed the way she likes. She wants them in the folders in order by the office the work came from first and then in chronological order. Two or three months work altogether. I had them in the folders by month first then office. I don’t care which way she wants it done but of course she hadn’t shown me. I had followed the pattern that was already happening. Turns out my predecessor had done it the wrong way round. Four folders back it’s done the way she likes. She probably didn’t train him either. As a result of this I have spent all morning re-sorting all the records since July 2004. Thankfully it’s a quiet day. As for the records she wants I suspect they are on her desk because she was going to ring the person she did the work for (it was an acquisition) about needing an authorisation for the work (which she had gone ahead and done without waiting for the authorisation….) Thankfully, acquisitions isn't my job in this particular library so that really wasn't me!
Of course it isn't as simple as all that either. The person who wanted the books purchased for her section hadn't kept her records either and so when she was asked for the authorisations she got confused about which books had been ordered, which had been received, sent the authorisation for one we couldn't get because it was out of print (we had got it in on inter-library loans for one of her other staff, the ILL went smoothly, guess who does those) and missed one of the other volumes she had received, and ended up claiming she hadn't ordered it! She had to be shown the material she had brought down with her handwriting on it to get her to agree to send the authorisation and I don't think it's settled yet.
This is a lesson on what not to do with record keeping.
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