Library Technician

Another lovely weekend. Yesterday I checked my local library which is now online and found that the video I've reserved from one of the other branches was available to pick up so that was the main business for yesterday. Got my video and a heap of other books. Knitting, with history of as well as patterns, recipe books, always get recipe books, always try to make at least 2 things out of each before sending them back. And this time art by women artists, mostly Australian. I just like looking at the pretty pictures!

While I was there and waiting for the computer catalogue I looked down and realised the fellow I was waiting on had managed to shut down the catalogue. I figured he was actually trying to see what else he could get into, maybe the internet because the net computers are heavily booked. I leaned down and quietly asked if he'd accidentally closed the catalogue to which he looked incredibly sheepish and said yes. I showed him how to open it up again. People always have to try, they just don't realise you'd have to be an incredibly experienced hacker or something to get to anything except the catalogue.

Another small library syndrome symptom is usually a lack of technology. We have one internet enabled computer for people to use. Our catalogue is really nasty and full of bugs and fragile. It isn't a native marc system. We don't have access to the databases we really need and just have to make do. At least we have the net for our work. And when it comes to keeping track of workflows we are still using paper. I have managed to change one part of the work over to using a spreadsheet to track the work and keep stats but I'm sure this would never have happened in any of the big libraries I worked for. Well maybe... This is complicated by a lib'n who isn't really interested in technology, finds it all too confusing, doesn't want to admit she doesn't know, can't even conceptualise an IT solution instead of paper, not even using basics such as spreadsheets!

In the past I mentioned some problems with small library syndrome such as information being kept in heads instead of recorded on the catalogue and different cataloguing styles often with mistakes. One of the other problems associated with SLS is: weeding decisions being made that don’t really take into account the work of the organisation. Some lib’n comes along and is disapproving of finding a fusty old library and they want to make their mark so they decide to modernise and freshen the library and collection. I’ve just discovered a whole series of reports created in the 1960’s have been discarded that covered the water resources of 30 separate river valleys. The one that has been found and put back in the collection is quite ugly with a cover that is very acidic, sticky tape marks all over the cover and a glued binding that is disintegrating. It’s just that the information doesn’t date. This department is renovating an existing dam somewhere. The information in this report is integral to that work. When it was actually needed the report couldn’t be found and we had to get a copy in from another library. Luckily it was held in another library. A huge amount of the work published by gov depts isn’t held anywhere except in the dept that created it so if that copy goes missing for whatever reason it can be impossible to get the information needed. Especially when the problem is compounded by other problems I’ve touched on before such as bad catalogue records that refer to the report but don’t have an author and depts changing names so often it’s difficult to figure out the current incarnation of a dept as named 40 years ago.

Couple this with records not being removed when items are removed and the holdings not being deleted from the national database…

I think each lib’n starting out in a small library will have one area of the work they don’t like and you can almost track the years each work in a library through the years by the messes left behind.