Busy Summer

The summer has been very busy.  I learned a lot about supervising students, processing archival collections and creating archival finding aids.   Then fall semester arrived.  It was my first fall semester processing reserve material.  We have had over 600 books and DVDs put on reserve.  It will only take about 25 more books to make us run out of shelf space.  Unfortunately, our electronic reserve system has been labeled cumbersome and it is being underutilized in favor of putting folders of files on a server and having students copy those.

So I'm not a librarian yet.  But I am enjoying my work and I have learned a lot from last semester.  Taking down the reserves this semester has been so much better.  But some of that is because no places material on reserve in the summer.   I am taking an online course on Copyright for Librarians and reading the book "Copyright's Highway, From Gutenberg to the Celestial Jukebox" by Paul Goldstein.  It is the first book about copyright law and history that I have picked up that has not bored me to sleep.  For the summer more time will be spent at the archive.  We will have two student workers over the summer.  With the extra help we should be able to finish processing the collection I am working on at the moment.  Last week I found three illustrated mock ups for children's books.  They were marked unidentified.  After a little research and some ILL requests I identified all three.  That was nice.

I want to be a librarian

OK, I admit I should know that already but the vague goal of find a job that advances my career had two options.  Option one is to become a Business Analyst for a company that does not work with libraries.  This requires making an investment in classes and certification.  Option two also requires an investment in time and networking and but ultimately feels right.  Now to start the networking.  In the meantime, I thought this article about Librarians becoming Accidental Project Managers was really interesting.

Goals

I need to set some goals for my career and the rest of my life. Truth is I don't even have a purpose for this blog. Something to think about.

New Position

So I have a new position. I am no longer in the purgatory of ordering and receiving items with budget limitations causing all actual work to stop. Now I work half time at the Art and Architecture library as the Reserves assistant and half time in Special Collections. Life is more interesting. The Special Collections work is great I'm learning about archival procedures and illustrators. The Reserves work is nice and it is great to be back at the desk and interacting with Instructors and students.

I keep reading blogs and thinking about what to do next for full time employment. I am still torn between librarian and business analyst. I need to practice networking, resume and cover letter writing etc. Somehow I don't think that going camping with my daughter's girl scout troop and planning cub scout den meetings will help.