28/02/2005
More Computer Updates
The new mouse really does seem to have solved the problem. The lesson from all that? Remember to look for the simple solutions first. In the meantime it's been a whole weekend reloading everything on this computer and all the problems associated with that. Huge downloads. So much time taken up. I should have been typing for my assignment for the Certificate IV in Assessment and Workplace Training, but I have weeks to go on that so I wasn't too worried. Windows Update. My Win98 disc not working. Luckily cleaning it really thoroughly did the trick. I'm thinking I really should invest in Ghost or something. Make life a lot easier. Some of my documents I uploaded to my web space that I get with my internet account and then downloaded again, and some I burnt to a cd when the computer was behaving. I forgot my bookmarks again. I always do. I should also invest in a checklist for when I have to reload everything! Not that I actually had to reload this time, but sometimes I really do. And the conflict I always have when I load my video and sound drivers. I always solve it, but I can never remember how I did it last time. I have to disable the dos emulation parts. It always stuffs up my display and takes me half a day to work it out.
The last thing I had to do was get my email working. I'd click on the icon and get an illegal operation. MSOE.dll. I go through the knowledge base at MS for a solution and read every article that seems relevant. At least I didn't try the most complicated solutions first, no editing of the registry. I found the solution just before I went to bed last night, on the last page that I'd downloaded: this will happen if any of the email boxes are marked read only! And hadn't I burned the email .dbx files onto a cd? And don't and files burned onto a cd, when copied back on the hard drive automatically become read only? And don't I already know that? Of course.
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26/02/2005
News Alerts & Spam Filters
Just as I thought, the spam filter is blocking my Google news alerts. I wonder if the service desk staff will ever talk to me again!! That's a job for Monday.
In the meantime, at home my computer has been playing up, the most interesting effects! I lose control of the mouse, it screams all over the desktop by itself initially, applications open by themselves, floating menus open and close, task bar shifts all over the desktop and resizes. It stops if I let go of the mouse but if I touch the mouse again all these things happen again, and the faster I move the mouse the faster these things go. It isn't safe to click on anything because I might find that the focus has changed to something else and I change some setting! Every now and again it stops and I regain control and if it doesn't start up again I can close everything, put everything back in order and close down the computer. I have to close down the computer when this starts because this thing will keep starting and stopping for the rest of the session.
I've done the anti-virus stuff, the ad-ware procedures, all the computer housework things I could think of. Today I'd had enough, I fdisked the computer, reloaded everything, and the bugger started up again!! I think I've solved it now though - I changed the mouse ... I hadn't considered it before because I just couldn't work out what would go wrong with a mouse! So far so good, it is behaving beautifully now. I hope it doesn't start up again.
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24/02/2005
Library Literature
Unlike every other library I've worked in we have no subscriptions to library journals. I find myself starving for library information. I'm doing RSS at home for a few different things, just personal interests, science news, science fiction, literature, and it occurred to me that I could at least get library news with RSS at work. Not so easy it turns out with a 'standard operating environment' that no one built RSS into. No separate reader and the wrong browser. Can't download anything. I email the service desk to find out if there is an RSS reader approved for use and they actually write back asking if I'd like to be part of a trial for Firefox!! Yes thank you! They haven't got back to me yet.
I thought then I could get Google news alerts. The spam filter blocked the confirmation email. I send another email to the service desk to ask if it was just the filter or if it was policy and could anything be done. They unblocked my confirmation email so that's ok, but afterwards I figured that the filter would probably catch my newsalerts.... I wonder if they will think me a great nuisance if I ask to have my alerts put on a white list?
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23/02/2005
More records
Someone threw out the register….
This dept writes all sorts of technical reports and each is given a report no. and a register is kept. We only have access to the register of the reports since 1999 beause the registers before that were on paper and someone decided to throw them out.
Today someone wants a report from 1998. It isn’t on the catalogue, it isn’t on the national database, and the register is gone. We have no record of receiving them. The person who wants it is in the section that published it in the first place and is now a bit distressed that they can’t be located. They sent the required copies to us – to be kept.
Where are they? Don’t know. Maybe in a corner, in a box, in the basement… we have nasty corners. They drive me crazy and I want to clean them out, but my lib’n doesn’t want me to. It involves cataloguing and for some reason she doesn’t want it done. I’m not sure if it’s because she doesn’t trust me to catalogue properly or if she feels that the cataloguing is her job, even if she doesn’t like it, and she’s just territorial. Impossible to tell. I know she think decisions have to be made by her, and of course it is her job, but she doesn’t make decisions! Some things are obvious and don’t need any extra decisions because they are publications put out by the dept and therefore have to be kept, but she still won’t let me touch them. She’d rather I sit around being bored on the quiet days than let me do the cataloguing.
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22/02/2005
Small Library Syndrome
This library suffers from small library syndrome. Large libraries do have their problems but they are often quite different to the peculiarities of small libraries. The problems here have to do with being vulnerable to reductions in staff and funding, there’s no leeway, any cut is felt very strongly. It is very likely to end up with staff being so disillusioned that they leave. With a high staff turnover, often ending up with completely different staff every few short years, methods of doing the work changes drastically. I know in this library, because it’s so small, there has been the unfortunate tendency to keep information in heads instead of recording it somewhere. Even simple things such as which serials have to be indexed have not been recorded. I’ve done my best to get all those helpful details onto the system so the next person (I am disillusioned, plus I’m a contractor so I can be put off without notice, and so I am looking to move into another job) won’t have to deal with suddenly discovering after weeks of doing the accessioning that there hasn’t been any indexing done and they are actually blamed for it. Saying ‘you didn’t tell me’ does help me, but only irritates the lib’n.
Without experienced long term staff there has been a real mix of cataloguing levels and styles, even to the point of someone getting in there who didn’t actually understand cataloguing at all! It’s all very well to say ‘people make mistakes’ and ‘we don’t need high level cataloguing’ and ‘there have been problems converting from one system to another’ but every word in a title capitalised? The series numbering ending up in the publication field? No authors at all? Records with only a title (maybe they were going to get back to that, um, them, um all of them…..). Subject headings without capitals or every word capitalised. I think my current lib’n understand cataloguing, just hates it, but someone in the past had no idea … and there wasn’t a long termer, experienced person to keep an eye on them.
There are a host of other problems associated with being a small library, and not all small libraries end up like this, but the ones that work usually have long term staff.
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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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20/02/2005
My Local Library
To my complete delight my local library finally has their catalogue online! Blacktown Library Catalogue
They are using Spydus, a catalogue system I'm familiar with from other jobs. It was announced in the local press a couple of days ago and I finally had a play with it today. Very searchable, clean interface, can refine and sort results. I like it! And being hooked on the net and too busy I can figure out what I want before I go in, reserve items and (I haven't tried it yet, not having anything out of loan at the moment) can check my loans record.
At my work we use First and have made the grave mistake of leaving the word 'monograph' in the limit list of the public access interface. Hands up non-library people who understand the word monograph? Yeah, and how many of you are close to library staff or are heavy users of libraries or book collectors or work in bookstores or something similar? As library people we can use lingo amongst ourselves as much as we like, it's very good at clarifying exactly what we mean, but everyone knows by now that it's rude to use lingo from any system on people outside of the system.
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18/02/2005
Lost Libraries
When our space was reduced by about 20% we were feeling like we didn’t know how we could cope, it was the readers space and they are now crowded into a corner, but it turns out that most of our regulars don’t mind sitting closer than they use to although it hasn’t meant more discussion or chatting – they just sit quietly closer. I have noted some people walk in, look around and walk out again, but they aren’t too many. We have an empty desk from our staffing being reduced and one of our bolder clients has taken to using that space. We don’t mind. There’s no computer, it’s just reading space now. Our space being reduced has an upside too as we are paying about 20% less for the space.
Today an email request came in from one of the staff to borrow a loose leaf service from another library. Now I can write that so calmly and there’s no way you can tell the reaction I had, but if you know what loose leaf services are you have probably just had a similar reaction. I rang her to explain that it wasn’t happening, very nicely of course, and asked if she knew what section she needed and maybe I could get it copied. I had to ring another government library and that was a chore in its own right because the departments and sections have all changed name so often in the last few years that if an old name is used no one knows who they are now. I rang a department with a similar name, and they said that the section I wanted was within their department and they had a new name now and their own one person library … the sound in her voice was quite bored with the way the gov is behaving lately. I finally got thru to the section I needed and that entailed a mildly hysterical exchange of stories of lost departments, sections and their libraries. She’d lost a library recently too. Good thing our job actually entails tracking down information, comes in handy when the gov is playing hide and seek. It doesn’t help when the old name is something that’s been in use for generations and is an descriptive name – everyone keeps using it. The new name doesn’t stick and isn’t descriptive so you can’t find it in the directories. In this case it’s even more complicated because the section I was looking for wasn’t in the government directory or on the main department website or in the Interlibrary Resource Sharing Directory. Phoning around was the only thing that worked and even then you hope you can find a long termer who remembers all the connections.
There is a need for an online directory of the old names of sections and departments and the new names for them.
She very kindly faxed over the section from the looseleaf service that was needed, no charge.
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17/02/2005
Library Poverty
We ran out of barcodes. We don’t have enough money to buy new ones.
We are reduced to reusing an old set of barcodes that had never been thrown out (thank goodness)! They had been printed with the title and call no. of the book across the top but it seems a lot of the books had been either weeded or stolen so when the barcodes were printed from information on the catalogue the books weren’t there to barcode! The pile of barcode sheets had been sitting there for years, one of those nasty corners no one wanted to clean out but also, probably because they had cost so much, no one wanted to throw them out. In the intervening years unlabelled barcodes had been bought as needed.
Now to make use of these we have a whole process to follow. Firstly, take a sheet of barcodes, check on the shelves to see if any of the books the barcodes belonged to are actually on the shelf. Sometimes you might find an old volume that hadn’t been bar-coded or the volume with a newer barcode on it. Take those books to the computer, check to see if they are on the catalogue and repair any errors.
Next open the catalogue search module and swipe in every barcode on the sheet. Sometimes you will find the barcode on the matching record for the book but no sign of the book itself. Mark the book missing. Discard that barcode or delete it from the record.
Now you can be assured there won’t be any conflicts with that sheet of barcodes so write across the bottom margin ‘these barcodes safe to use’. To use them, take a pair of scissors and cut the top half of the strip of barcodes away that contains the title and call number. That row of barcodes can now be peeled off and used as needed. As that row is finished cut off the top half of the strip of barcodes on the next row to ready that row for use.
Handy hints or a description of pathetic?
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16/02/2005
Currently
Currently I'm working in a state gov dept library. Libraries within the state gov are generally grim at the moment. A couple of years ago library staff within the public service won a big pay case but it seems the response of the Premier to this has been to close libraries and reduce staff wholesale. Since the beginning of the financial year 5 or 6 libraries have closed outright, including one of the biggest busiest ones. Most others have had to reduce staff and are working with one or two people. One library I know is down from seven staff to two, we are down from four to two and I'm an outside contractor. My manager tried to have my status changed to a temp public servant (better conditions, I'd get sick and recreation leave etc) but it wasn't approved. If I'm an outside contractor I can be put off with a moments notice. It also means they haven't made a decision about this library yet. The rumors were flying thick and fast for a while but it's all slowed down and now it's just a waiting game.
The both of us working here are looking for other jobs, but there's so little going there isn't much hope.
The staffing levels in most state gov libraries are so bad that promotion isn't being done. There just isn't time. We still do the talking-to-individuals type but that is about all we can manage. We can't increase the services we offer because we don't have the resources or the time and a lot of the staff don't even know what we can do at the moment. That is probably a good thing - if we had a lot more people coming in we wouldn't be able to cope with the workload! On the other hand if everyone keeps on thinking the library is just where you go to get books (and most of them don't need books for their day to day work) then they won't use us and then we will close. Catch 22.
To the shame of governments everywhere is this wonderful story I found on another library site yesterday:
Pop.: 1 Plus 5,000 Volumes
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15/02/2005
Intro
I started work in libraries in late 1984 and finished my library technician course in 1985. I'm not going to put very much in the way of identifying information on here because I want to be able to write openly without worrying about backlash. I may not be all that critical but I want to be honest when I want to.
I've worked in a few libraries now. My first was a religious tertiary college for a few weeks where the people were lovely but I had to resist the urge to mess up the 200s. It was the largest section in the library and I'm just an old atheist. My next job was in a state library for 16 years. I've moved around a bit in there and as a result I'm very good at both interlibrary loans and serials to the level of problem solving and projects along with cataloguing and I can put my hand to most other things. I was spoilt in that job, allowed to dress as I pleased and able to move around if I wasn't getting along with others. They were my volatile years and sometimes I wonder how I got away with the things I did! I was very confrontative. Eventually they offered voluntary redundancies so that was the end of that.
I've worked in a major university library and a private uni library, a public library which I found to be exhausting and government department libraries. Having left the state library and had to exist in the real world my work has been really varied and I discovered I'm actually very good at customer service. Who knew? I use to avoid working with the public!
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