My first non public service librarian job has been in a Botanical Library of which my duties have been to develop collections management policies and organize the contents of the library. Previously to me being hired, the Reading Room (as it is called even though there are no chairs to sit on and read anything) has been volunteer run off of a typewriter. Yes, a typewriter. It took me two months of quietly and tactfully trying to convince TPTB to remove it to have it removed. It was hard, but I now have a printer hooked up to my Windows 2000 computer (at least its not ME). The volunteers are in their 80's and 90's and I am a bit concerned whether I can teach them to access documents on the shared drive so that the information can continue to be updated after I'm gone in the spring (contract position). There is no circulation system other then pen and paper (no barcodes on the books, etc) although the monograph collection is catalogued. The collection had never been previously weeded. I took on a big challenging job and I'm loving it!
One of the first things I did was to look up professional support for Botanical librarians and I did find one agency - The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc..
Unfortunately they've been very slow to respond to our requests and frankly, after three months, we still have not had any contact from anyone about membership, even though we have sent them a check. I'm wondering how active they are and how helpful they would really be if they don't even have a responsive basic member services individual.
Over the holidays we've had some water leakage in the roof and some books were damaged (not as much as I imagined driving up there!) and I definitely leave work with my nose all plugged up from the dust I'm wallowing in!
I am taking great enjoyment out of rolling a recycling bin into my library and trashing tons of old serials that are currently available on databases. My biggest challenge (as I'm supposed to weed books) is actually getting my supervisor to agree to some of the books that need weeding. And it's been a learning curve for me learning about the different needs of research scientists versus the 'general public' in terms of books that need to be kept for research purposes. Generally in public libraries you weed the non-fiction after 5-10 years depending on the subject matter. Granted in my Public Library we keep gardening books a little longer since they contain information that doesn't get particularly outdated. A rose is a rose, so they say!
I definitely plan to reflect more on this new opportunity after it is all over. I'm contracted until April. Actually between now and then I'm going to be supper busy with classes and a new internship (in a Justice Library - more after I start on Monday). But I will be very unemployed after that (or at least down to my zero hour library sub job). But I'm going to let the future worry about itself! Follow me on Twitter for more timely updates - I seem to be making a switch to that format as a more informal way of communicating (mostly with myself still, but getting more connected all the time!) TTFN.
One of the first things I did was to look up professional support for Botanical librarians and I did find one agency - The Council on Botanical and Horticultural Libraries, Inc..
Unfortunately they've been very slow to respond to our requests and frankly, after three months, we still have not had any contact from anyone about membership, even though we have sent them a check. I'm wondering how active they are and how helpful they would really be if they don't even have a responsive basic member services individual.Over the holidays we've had some water leakage in the roof and some books were damaged (not as much as I imagined driving up there!) and I definitely leave work with my nose all plugged up from the dust I'm wallowing in!
I am taking great enjoyment out of rolling a recycling bin into my library and trashing tons of old serials that are currently available on databases. My biggest challenge (as I'm supposed to weed books) is actually getting my supervisor to agree to some of the books that need weeding. And it's been a learning curve for me learning about the different needs of research scientists versus the 'general public' in terms of books that need to be kept for research purposes. Generally in public libraries you weed the non-fiction after 5-10 years depending on the subject matter. Granted in my Public Library we keep gardening books a little longer since they contain information that doesn't get particularly outdated. A rose is a rose, so they say!
I definitely plan to reflect more on this new opportunity after it is all over. I'm contracted until April. Actually between now and then I'm going to be supper busy with classes and a new internship (in a Justice Library - more after I start on Monday). But I will be very unemployed after that (or at least down to my zero hour library sub job). But I'm going to let the future worry about itself! Follow me on Twitter for more timely updates - I seem to be making a switch to that format as a more informal way of communicating (mostly with myself still, but getting more connected all the time!) TTFN.
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