Wednesday, September 5, 2007

A Day in the Life of TYL

8:15am Arrive early. Why? Well, if I make a list in the morning of everything that I want to get done at work that day, and I have committed to a pony-tail then I arrive early . Especially if a bus comes right away. Morning is my best time to work so if the pony-tail commitment has been made or -more often- I've simply woken up insanely early I head out to the bus stop. Yes, I know could walk, and sometimes I do. I do too. But not today.

8:15 -9a.m Purchase cup of coffee from EPL's lovely and convient next door neighbor, The Second Cup, and proceed to sip coffee while making another list at work then moving onto email. Eventually I emailed to my boss three 100 word descriptions of great books for kids article upcoming The Edmonton Journal. Books: Kira, Kira by Cynthia Kadohata, Rules by Cynthia Lord, and The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul by Marty Chan.


9-11:00am Desk. Updated the Quick Picks display, put up baby signing time posters in program room, answered a few readers advisory questions, made an appointment to teach a new immigrant how to use our catalogue to place holds tomorrow, replied to request to work a Saturday this month after some confusion with scheduling. Had a couple daycares come in; make way for ducklings on leashes, almost always tangled. Got a phone call about SRC 2008-2009. More customer service requests. Answered several phone calls asking to register for the already booked baby signing time I'm doing Sept. 18th. Started to feel pressure to practice more. A lot more. Especially since several of the registrants are friends and favorite patrons.


11:00 -1:00pm Adjusted signing program to include more movement rhymes. Attempted to practice signs but was interrupted by some emails about the Kids Read webpage which then somehow led to working on writing the text for the media launch I'll be MC-ing. After my mediocore TV appearance yesterday, I want to be sure I am well prepared and don't forget important details and especially the proper order of introductions of attending dignitaries


1-2pm Lunch with Professional Development Day team at a great, albeit slow restaurant near by. It's Morrocan or Turkish. Not sure. But it's good food, and always good fun to have lunch with other librarians around my age. Or not my age.
2pm Respond to memo to call Edmonton Journal to schedule photo shoot of me (Youth Librarian) with books in the children's division this Friday. Rush upstairs for Professional Development Day meeting.

2-4pm Meeting. Our speakers are confirmed now we just have to adjust the time, flow, breaks, food, etc. It's a day for librarians, managers, assistant managers, and more on Dec 15th (?). We wanted to include humour in the workplace, the many hats a librarian wears, team work, communication and different personality types, and 'virtual moments' peppered thoughout the day with our IT staff to introduce all the web 2.0 capabilities. By 4pm all of us were pretty tired and assigned who to contact whom over the next week to ask for bios, equipment needs, session title, etc.

4pm Husband calls. Wants to go on about his day, hard to listen, so we plan a free-for-all dinner to catch-up. I return to writing media launch then our stellar woman designing the Kids Read Website popped in so we could go over some simple adjustments that just couldn't be communicated via email.

5pm Starting to think I should write the 100 word description for the book Uglies by Scott Westerfield for the Edmonton Journal before I leave for the day. Then think I should better look at signing program again to take home final version. Co-worker on break so we end up chatting a bit. I answer an email about family language kits brochures being translated and which languages still need to be translated....Wait. It's after 5:30pm. I need to go home.

5:40pm Walk across the street to City Centre Mall and buy: one brown zip-up sweater, two pairs of cute brown work shoes: one flat, one heeled.

That's a fairly typical day, although I'd say it was on the mellow side since I didn't have a program, a tour, or too many pressing emails.

Don't worry. The seedy underbelly of being a Youth Librarian will come. The panic of children wanting to pull every flannel board piece off the board, the shame of a program gone wrong, the frustrated caregivers, the joy of the keener reader, the scramble to make-up a last minute tour, the communication -sometimes challenging- with staff, the glory of seeing a project through, the quirky things you find yourself saying regularly, and the realization that 'oh my, everyone really does treat me like a youth librarian.' That's right. I am one.

I hope it's not due to a certain, ya know, youth librarian look. Attire, attidude, you know what I'm saying....Don't ever let me wear wacky socks with crocks or birkenstocks. Answer me this: why does everyone love (or wear) crocks? Are they really that comfortable? They look like great big plastic doll shoes. With holes. Am I wrong?

Day ending ritual: a bath. A lavendar bath.

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