Ahhh, it's been forever since I did A Day in the Life of a Children's Librarian! Well, it's back and I've got another one coming to you next week.
8:35am - Arrive at library, put my purse away.
8:40am - Start getting room set up for this morning’s storytime. To set up the room, I put out chairs for parents and set up a table for display books. I get all the materials together that I'm going to use - usually all the stuff I plan to use and one or two extra books or rhymes in case we blitz through everything or in case one of the books or activities doesn't grab the kids.
9:15am - Pull some music to use with the storytime, download a song I want to use and burn it to a CD. As much as I try to be prepared well in advance for programs, I almost invariably get some last-minute ideas.
9:45am - With the room all ready for storytime, I sit out at the reference desk and help the kids find their nametags as they come in. Each week that they attend storytime they get a little sticker to put on their nametag.
10:00am - Storytime! This week, we're talking about clouds, which is perfect since it's a cloudy day outside.
10:30am - Done with storytime, sit out at desk for a little to help clean up nametags and answer questions.
10:45am - Take photos of storytime stuff and write up blog post about this week’s storytime. I try to do this right after storytime is over because once I clean everything up, I hate to dig it back out again.
11:30am - Check email.
11:45am - Put storytime stuff back for the next people who will use it. Check calendar and realize I have a meeting at 3pm that I forgot about...
11:55am - Start cleaning off desk, determined to get desk cleaned off before taking a lunch break. I am a piler. I tend to pile up stuff and let it lay there until I can’t stand it anymore and having a cleaning fit.
12:30pm - Desk is (relatively) clean. I can see that the top is brown, everything’s in fairly neat piles, and that’s good enough for me. Now off to lunch!
1:30pm - Back from lunch, chat with staff about the schedule, etc.
1:45pm - Work on handouts for the YALSA YA Lit Symposium.
2:15pm - Make some changes to the department schedule for November.
3:00pm - Meet with members of the city’s Bicentennial Committee to discuss creating a coloring book for Pre-K through 1st graders. One of the ladies on the committee has been tasked with creating something for the littles, so she commissioned a local artist to create a coloring book. We talk about what people and places should be in the coloring book, activities we can include to involve the whole family, and how the coloring books will be distributed.
4:15pm - Finished with the meeting, hang out on desk for a little bit and help one of our homeschoolers find some CDs.
4:30pm - Chat with staff member about workload and projects.
4:50pm - Chat with other staff members about our upcoming Winter Break Lego Day and the start of our monthly Lego Club.
5:15pm - Send off a few last emails... and...
5:30pm - Time to go home!
