The World of a Library Girl

Day 3: Library Day in the Life

2009-07-29T20:20:00.003-04:00

Today has been a very busy day. I got in at 1pm and dealt with a number of issues that staff had. Got grabbed by DM to chat about shelving layout. DM was my manager for the past three years so even though he is no longer my manager we still tend to brainstorm together. We were discussing the affect of the biography section moving upstairs, particularly in the hope of finding space for Teens. The Teen collection has had a huge increase in use recently because of changing demographics so the hope is to give ED, the Teen Librarian, more space for her the collection.

At 2pm I met with the new hire from our Petticoat Creek branch to go over all things to do with Children's Services. It was fun. new people ask the best questions because they have a fresh perspective. After break I then put on my Union President hat and went over Union stuff with her. Overall it was a good afternoon.

After supper I was supposed to be on desk. Before I went on desk I popped into see the CEO, Cathy Grant. She is going to be on CP24 radio in the morning to talk about the library's summer services. I wanted to talk to her about summer learning loss and how the reading clubs help to prevent it.

DM covered me on desk while I ran around making sure I had stuff for my Storytime Plus program tomorrow. Storytime Plus is a half hour family storytime plus a craft. I am doing Nursery Rhymes and making a sheep craft. I will have to take a pic of the craft and post it. Thursdays are always crazy here in the summer because we have Babytalk in the morning and then three programs running at the same time in the afternoon. The three programs are designed to cover all the age groups. So tomorrow we have Storytime Plus, Board Games and Super Secret Scrapbooking. We have had up to 130 kids in programs on a Thursday afternoon with this set up so it should be a blast!

Later,

LG

Day 2: Library Day in the Life part 2

2009-07-28T16:29:00.004-04:00

This afternoon has been filled with Summer Reading Club reports. I love listening to the kids talk about the books they have been reading. The little kids are usually just all big eyes and I can only get them to nod yes or no to questions but they seem to enjoy themselves.

The Children's department runs two SRC programs:

Read n' Grow - Designed for Babies, Toddlers and preschoolers together with their families/caregivers. The families do 5 early literacy activities on their Read n' Grow sheets and then come back to show us what they have been doing and we give them a small reward. The activities are based on the Every Child Read to Read program.

TD Summer Reading Club - Always popular with the school age set. This year the theme is Agent 009 and we have made Casefiles for the kids. Each week they fill in a page of their Casefiles book with what they have been reading and then we give them a clue to the mystery of the missing library book along with a small reward.

So that was my afternoon. Tomorrow I am in 1 to 9 so until then.

LG

Day 2: Library Day in the Life

2009-07-28T11:16:00.003-04:00

Did Gazebo this morning. Had a blast! There were 40 kids ranging in ages...3 months to 5 years. I read the following books:

Bark, George by Feiffer
In my backyard by (big book format)
The wide-mouthed frog by Faulkner (pop up)
The Pigeon Wants a Puppy! by Willems
a boy and his bunny by bryan
Five Green and Speckled Frogs by Burris

I did a number of fingerplays, actions rhymes and songs. I now have sticky, sticky bumblegum stuck in my head! The rest of my morning has been spent filling up book displays, helping clients find books and helping staff with programs. It is almost time for lunch! Afternoon will be desk shift.

Later,

LG

Day 1: Library Day in the Life part 3

2009-07-27T17:22:00.003-04:00

This afternoon was spent doing a variety of things. I had lunch with a couple of my co-workers. Then I went though my inbox to find any book donations...my inbox being a shelf under everyone's mail slots. I had a wide assortment of book donations to look through today. There were cruddy sesame street books, sketchy illustrated bible stories, a number of good condition children's novels and a few gems that were in pristine condition that were thus immediately added to the summer reading club prize pile. During my sorting of the donations I had to respond to a number of staff inquires made in person, by phone or through email.

The rest of the afternoon(an hour or so) was spent putting together a storytime for tomorrow morning. We do a Gazebo Storytime Tuesday mornings aimed at families. It is fun because we do it outside in teh gazebo behind the library. I had had a good idea of what I wanted to do but hadn't had a chance to pull it all together. I am doing an animal theme...frogs, dogs, bunnies...a variety really. Shold be fun.

The last 15 mins was spent talking about the programming budget with my manager. Always fun.

Until tomorrow,

LG

Day 1: Library Day in the Life Part 2

2009-07-27T11:55:00.003-04:00

Had 19 babies for Babytalk today! Woohoo! I love to see all the parents and their little ones bouncing to rhymes. I now will have the song Four Hugs a Day stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pInKF0U7Wg

Day 1: Library Day in the Life

2009-07-27T09:15:00.002-04:00

Today is the first day that I start blogging for the 2nd Annual Library Day in Life Project. I will be blogging periodically throughout the day to tell you what I am up to. I guess I will start off with who I am and what I do here at the library.

I have been the Children's Services Librarian for Pickering Public Library for the past 3 years. I moved from Nova Scotia to Pickering for this job and am glad I did as I love working here.

PPL has 5 branches:

The Central Library, this is where I spend most of my time.
Petticoat Creek Branch
Claremont Branch
Greenwood Branch
Whitevale Branch

Central is open 7 days a week, PC 6 and the other three are our northern branches and are open 3 to 4 days a week. I try to get to the branches once a month to do weeding, see staff etc but it is hard with my schedule.

I spend my days buying books for the junior collection, overseeing outreach, organizing programs, doing programs, doing desk shifts, and dealing with various issues.

So that is a run down on who I am and what I do. Hope you enjoy hearing about my daily life here at PPL. Now I am off to do a desk shift from 9 to 1. With Summer Reading Club in full swing I will no doubt have lots of kids in reporting and we have a Babytalk program this morning so I will get to listen to storytime while on desk. (we do all our storytimes out in the open in teh children's section)

LG

Welcome

2009-07-25T10:58:00.000-04:00

I haven't had a blog in a while but I have been inspired to start one so I can take part in the Library Day in the Life. So stay tuned.

LG