A Work in Progress
Today I gave the opening keynote for the Quebec Library Association Annual Conference whose theme was libraries as learning organizations. Here are the slides from the presentation.
Montreal is a beautiful city and the people are very friendly. I’m amazed at how easily everyone transitions from French to English in conversations. We should strive for this level of personal bilingualism in the US.
Friday is a day I normally spend catching up. I try to empty my inbox and make sure any projects from the week that can be completed are wrapped up. I also use Fridays to update training records and look over the schedule for the following week’s classes–send out reminders, rosters, etc. This Friday is no different except that we are expecting snow in Charlotte which is cause for some excitement and a little concern. A few years ago we had a major ice storm and lost power at home for 2-weeks. In fact I distinctly remember going to work to stay warm and seeing people come to the library to charge their laptops and cell phones. The snow begins to fall outside my office around 4pm. I leave around 4:30pm and it takes over an hour to get to my son’s school where he is anxiously awaiting my arrival.
I took random photos throughout the week to capture moments to share with you. For best results after clicking play, click the full screen icon in the bottom right corner, then click Show Info in the upper right corner to view my captions for each photos.
Thanks for spending the week with me, and I look forward to the next Library Day in the Life week!
6:00am
There is no time to hit the snooze button today. I have a class on customer service starting in two hours. I have no idea what traffic might be like, if the room will be set up, or any other number of variables. Normally I would not schedule training to start at 8am but I try to have at least 1-2 sessions a year of this class early in the morning so that our staff who work behind the scenes in the middle of the night delivering books to branches don’t have to adjust their circadian rhythm too much in order to attend. It’s a trainer’s job to put the learners needs first and sometimes that means getting up really early. I’ve even done sessions at 7am.
7:00am
I planned to be out the door before the kids woke up. No such luck there. I spend a few minutes holding my 2-year-old daughter and she screams as I walk out the door, “Mommy don’t go.” Having been through this many times before I’m able to leave with only a small feeling of guilt.
7:30am
I arrive at the library and realize that I only have 30-minutes until start time. It’s a pet peeve of mine to start a class late especially when most of the attendees have also gotten up early to park, walk a few blocks, and be ready to start on time. The room is set up and the door is open for me. Hurray! I don’t have to search for a key. The room was used the night before so I could not check the set up ahead of time. Like always our maintenance staff did a great job and ahead of schedule. I notice that there is not a flip chart stand and flip charting is a crucial part of this session. I run upstairs to borrow one. I also hunt down an AV cart that has a projector and PC. I unplug the PC and hook up my laptop. Better to use the computer I am familiar with. Handouts and roster were printed the day before. I am ready to go!
8:00am
Nearly everyone has arrived on time and we are ready to go. From 8am-noon we have some great discussions about customer service including: who are our competitors, what do libraries do well, what do our competitors do well, what could libraries do better, tying our mission and vision in with customer service, how to say no, body language, tone of voice, words used, how to create an engaging environment, how to handle complaints, who are our customers, what are their needs, role playing, and small group discussions. Four hours seems like a lot, but we need it. This is a great session that requires lots of audience interaction. It’s one of my favorite workshops to facilitate.
12:00pm
Step out with a colleague/friend to pick up lunch. Come back to eat in the office and talk about an upcoming project we are collaborating on.
12:45pm
Back in my office to wrap up scheduling training for 2010. I can’t seem to reach the people I need to talk to get this project done. I have most of the training scheduled and the rest will have to be listed as TBD. I begin inputting the 50+ sessions into PeopleSoft so staff can register for the sessions. It takes a while to enter this many courses and also cross reference various calendars to make sure there are absolutely no mistakes. The worse thing that can happen is training is listed as one day but a room was reserved for a different day or a trainer has it listed as a different day. You don’t want 10 or 20 or 30 people to show up for training and not have a space or trainer available.
2:00pm
I sign in to the George and Joan InfoPeople webinar on collaboration but I have a headache. Download the slides and know that the webinar will be in itunes tomorrow morning. Back to entering courses.
3:00pm
Courses entered now it’s time to put them in a Word document that can be sent out to staff. I use the previous schedule as a template and do a lot of copy and pasting. Then it’s time to double check the Word document against the sessions in PeopleSoft against the sessions on my calendar. The last thing to do it enter the dates again on our Intranet calendar but that will have to wait.
4:00pm
I think about changing some of the wording regarding required training for part-time staff. This takes some thought, writing, and revisions. Another hour gone.
5:00pm
I have to leave on time today. My husband is working till 7pm so I have to pick up both kids. Start driving to my son’s school and call my colleague Paul to discuss the book we are writing together.
5:30pm
Arrive at my son’s school. Greeted with the normal hugs and kisses. Head out to pick my daughter up from daycare.
6:00pm
Pick up my daughter. I only pick her up once a week so she squeals with excitement when she sees me. Talk to her teachers and some of the other parents. My son sees his friends who were here with him last year for preschool. He gives them lots of hugs too.
6:30pm
We are home and headache is worse. Take something for it. Make a snack for the kids and put on a movie. We all sit down together to watch Clifford’s Really Big Movie.
7:30pm
Husband comes home and fixes dinner. Have I mentioned how lucky I am? Spend some more time with the kids until bedtime.
8:00pm
Back to the computer to write up these posts, write up the post for Library Trainer about moving to the new site, catch up on personal email, social networks, and school. I’m taking 6 hours of courses this semester Writing for PR and Pop Culture. I hate the way Blackboard discussion groups are laid out on the screen and wish someone would improve the collaboration within Blackboard. Been waiting for a week for a response from a professor about an assignment that I need special approval for. Can’t call because office hours are limited and conflict with my training schedule at work. Reading tweets by mstephens7 about using Twitter for his classes and wish he were my professor.
12:00am
Everything done. Posts scheduled for 11am tomorrow. Hurray. Time for bed!
As the mom of a Kindergartner, I’ve been reading the speech Obama plans to deliver tomorrow to millions of school children across the nation. My son could not be more excited about hearing the address. He personally voted for Obama, albeit in a preschool election, and to him Obama is his president.
Reading the speech as a mom, I can only be grateful that we have a president who values education.
Reading the speech as a trainer, there is one paragraph that really hit home with me:
And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
Let me repeat that last line:
You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.
This could not be more true, and I think this should be one of our mottos in the training and library world. It’s not enough to just show up for training. Training requires work on the part of both the trainer and the learner.
As trainers it is our responsibility to make this clear to our learners and to help them in whatever ways we can to be successful in their learning. So take the old saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t force him to drink.” Let’s change that to: “You can lead a horse to water, and you can make sure the water is fresh, tastes good, and is delivered so that it can reach all variations of horses.”
During our new employee orientation the following question is asked, “How many of you are librarians?” A handful of people will raise their hands. The rest will squirm in their seats waiting, wondering what’s coming next. “To our customers we are all librarians” is the next thing new staff hear.With that statement you see a smile emerge and tension melt away.
When a customer walks through the door he or she does not care what initials you have behind your name. The customer wants service or information and all staff should be ready to provide it.
This is not meant to devalue or disrespect the MLS. But working in a library is kind of like working in a hospital (yep I’ve done both). When you work in a hospital whether you are an MD, RN, EMT, or CNA everyone is going to ask you for medical advice. In the library everyone is going to ask you for information. The key to both situations is knowing the basics and when to refer to someone else.
As an EMT I can administer and advise you on basic first aid. If you need an opinion about which medication to take for insomnia I’m going to refer you to a doctor or pharmacist.
As a library employee I can help you find the restrooms, help you with the Internet, and show you where the cookbooks are. But if you need to know the best resource for obtaining your great-great-grandfather’s Civil War records I’m going to refer you to a librarian.
All customers of any business or organization have two basic expectations:
Like it or not a library is a business. We have budgets. We have strategic planning. Some of us have our own finance, IT and HR departments.
In a business you need a variety of experts with broad educational backgrounds. I went through a listing of graduate degrees at my university and selected some that could easily fit within the mission and goals of libraries. I hope that you can see how the diversity and wealth of information from all of these fields could benefit a library and libraries in general.
While many library staff do not hold an MLS their contributions are essential to making libraries a success. When I first began working in libraries 9-years-ago I was put off by the terminology used to designate between MLS/non MLS, professional/paraprofessional, librarians/support staff. Coming from the business world I was not accustomed to this segregation. In the business world employees are valued for their unique abilities and contributions to the team. No one ever asked me what my degree was or if I even had one.
Without an MLS, do I love the library any less? Do I work less hard? Do I advocate any less for intellectual freedom? No.
In fact I have always wanted to work in a library. At one point I wanted to be a librarian. But I’ve discovered that my passion is in learning, helping other people learn, and connecting people with technology. With that in mind which would benefit me, the library, and my customers more–a library science degree or an instructional technology or education degree?
I hope that someday soon we do not even make the distinction and have to come up with words do describe MLS/non MLS. I know in my own training curriculum I’ve considered offering more advanced training for librarians and more basic training for other staff. In the end I decided the best way to handle this was to be clear in the program descriptions and objectives who the training is for and what is going to be covered. Staff can decide for themselves which level of training to attend. It’s worked great so far. Free learning for everyone. Isn’t that what libraries are all about?
An update regarding my last post. I have it from good authority that the Emerging Leaders Taskforce is going take another look at their requirements for the ALA Emerging Leaders Program. I hope they will also consider Sarah’s views.
Meredith suggested I formally contact ALA. I plan to.
Paul provided some very encouraging words about working together for change. I just recently renewed my ALA membership and joined the CLENE roundtable. I’m hoping to find a place with that group where I can contribute to ALA.
Jeff again reminded me that quitting ALA is not the answer, and after much thought I agree. As a wise man once said, We must become the change we want to see.”
Content from LoriReed.com by Lori Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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