We already gave you a run down on what happens in the morning. Here’s how the rest of the day breaks down.
Noon – 5:00 pm for library staff this is all work, work, work, work, work. Here are some of the things folks are doing:
- We have librarians teaching classes. (Did I mention we teach over 300 classes a year?)
Conservation staff are busy repairing books, setting up exhibits, doing experiments to understand how some types of inks degrade paper, and a lot of other interesting things.- Reserves staff are working on faculty reserve reading lists, scanning articles, checking copyright of reserves material, and so much more.
- Circulation, Interlibrary Loan, and Eisenhower Express staff continue to help scholars check out books and chargers, pay fines, deliver articles and books to faculty and grad student offices, request items from other libraries, find things, and more.
- Systems staff is busy keeping public computers up and running, ensuring access to the Libraries’ catalog and linking software, working on support issues, investigating new technologies, designing web pages, programming things like our new Electronic Theses and Dissertations service, and a ton more.
Our Acquisitions and Cataloging staff are making sure our knowledge bases are up to date, buying materials requested by librarians for use by our scholars, reading license agreements, and ensuring the material we buy is discoverable in the catalog or through FindIt.- The Facilities and Support Services staff are reshelving books, checking group study rooms to either clean them or restock materials, coordinating with outside service vendors who themselves provide important services like painting, laying new carpeting, cleaning furniture, and delivering materials.
- The Digital Research and Curation Center and Data Management Services groups are exploring new ways to curate and manage large scale data.
- Our Financial Unit is paying bills and monitoring our accounts.
- The Human Resources staff is keeping all the Libraries staff motivated and engaged.
Our Development team is out raising funds to keep us going.- Events staff through our Entrepreneurial Library Program is busy scheduling events – like weddings – at our George Peabody Library or Evergreen Museum and Library.
And there’s much more, but writing about it all is making me tired!
Around 5:00 many staff slowly start leaving the building to end their day. However, we have a some staff who stay later so that we can keep helping you.
Finally, in the wee hours of the morning before the break of day there is still stuff happening. During this time systems are still humming in the background. This is when systems are upgraded. A lot is also happening with our integrated library system (ILS): Calculations on overdue notices are processed, indexes are updated, data integrity is checked, and backups are created. We get nightly records from JHED to update patron records. Systems are being backed up on tape. Servers are updated. Most of this happens automatically, on a scheduled basis, but every once and a while Systems staff is here at 3:00 am making sure things are going as planned.
This brings us back to 5:30 am when the whole cycle starts again.
So every day, there are 150+ libraries and museum staff working hard to help our scholars have the best experience possible whether they are in the BLC, MSEL, George Peabody Library, Hut, Homewood House, Evergreen Museum and Library or anywhere we touch your lives.