LibraryTechtonics

For about a year now, people have been asking me if I’ve been looking for full-time work, and if I’d leave my job for a full-time gig. For about a year now, I’ve been telling people that I won’t leave my job for the world, and that I’d work part-time at Reading Public Library for the rest of my life if I could make it so.

As it turns out, my library has definitely shown me some love in return. The director of my library went to the mat for me with the town, and my supervisor in information services as well as just about everyone else I work with there, really have been so very supportive! So it is with much joy and professional glee that I announce that I now have a *benefited* position at RPL, with more hours. The exact number is still up in the air, but I’ll have at *least* 20 hours a week, probably about 25 is my guestimate. I’ll still be able to travel working for the PLA Blog (where my contract has been renewed for another year), and yet have more time for more fabulous projects at RPL.

But wait, there’s more!

I have acquired a volunteer. She’s a sophomore in high school, and she’s delightful. Her job will be to serve as an extra set of hands in my classes for patrons who may need a little extra help keeping up (even when I’m going pretty slow), and she’ll also be able to help with some of the more administrative bits of classwork, like making reminder phone calls and printing handouts. And, well, whatever else she might find interesting. She says she’ll stay as long as she can (as long as she’s not bored), and you can probably imagine working with me is pretty entertaining, so there’s no such thing as bored in my joint. Her first class with me is the AIM chat class I’m teaching next Wednesday.

Good things, like bad things, come in threes, it seems.

One day a few months ago, I had an idea. Not really a unique idea, but still, a good idea. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a team of volunteers who could help patrons with one-on-one technology assistance? Maybe offer a few drop-in nights each month where people can come in, ask questions, work on tutorials with guided help, learn to use a mouse, whatever? Heck, maybe even have one just hanging around, to give us reference librarians a hand at the desk when we’re busy, someone to just help people get around a computer when we have 5 patrons waiting for us (because, you know, that happens in my library)? You know, without cloning myself, and still being able to keep up my class schedule, my tech plan work, staff training, and desk hours.

Apparently, our library did run a program like this a while back called Netguides, which actually got written up in a book (the title of which escapes me), and my boss was totally hip to the idea of resurrecting the program. And, as it turns out, about the same time I mentioned this idea to my supervisor, she told me there was a Boy Scout in Reading with leadership aspirations on a mission to become an Eagle Scout, in need of a project.

He was shopping around the town departments, checking to see who had what for him to do. After a few months of back and forth, I had a phone call with him a few weeks ago, where I was talking up our project (it was between the library and a web project at the fire station). We finally had a meeting with “The Boy Scout,” as I’ve come to refer to him, and it sounds like once he gets approval from his unit leader, he’s all ours, and we can have the Netguides program up and running by summer. My new, more copious hours will definitely come in handy on this one.

While there’s tons more to talk about (our recent staff day field trip was a blast, I’ve attended some really nifty webinars, there are a few issues and ideas floating around on which I’d like to weigh in, and I’m working on some interesting developments for the PLA Blog), I figure this is a good start for now.

And comments on this blog, henceforth, will be turned on.

Tags: Netguides, work