So, the holidays are over and the New Year has begun. It’s back to the grind, or, rather, the grind picks up again after the interruptions.
It’s only the 7th of January and already libraries are receiving information about spring conferences, award nominations, board nominations and, of course, the dreaded annual survey that all public libraries are required to complete each year. It’s a daunting task, collecting all those statistics for the survey, but libraries are statistic-driven entities and library workers are used to collecting the information. If it can be counted, libraries count it, gathering numbers of checkouts, renewals, patron visits, memberships, acquisitions, program attendance, reference questions (asked and answered), ILL’s (lent and borrowed), computer use, database use, funding… You name it and it’s likely that a librarian somewhere is recording a tally of it.
Complicated spread sheets haunt the hard drives in virtually every library in the province and dedicated staff members dutifully input data daily in preparation of filling out the lengthy and detailed survey form. Without a completed survey, libraries do not receive the provincial funding that they rely on to be able to keep counting those stats.
Add to this summer student applications, the even more dreaded Statement of Financial Information (SOFI), conferences, programming and AGMs that all take place during the winter and spring months and you can see how the first part of the year is a whirlwind of activity with strict deadlines and no latitude for slacking off. Plus it’s weeding time again, time to go through the collection and work on cleaning it up and out. (The staff is going to love me!) And it’s that time of year to update the membership list.
This is the stuff of librarianship that gives my job the awesomeness that gets me out of bed every morning with a smile on my face and enthusiasm in my heart. Sure I stress about it, fuss and worry and fret like a mother hen with too many chicks to fit under her wings. But when each of these things are completed, wrapped up and filed accordingly, the sense of satisfaction melts away the anxiousness for a few glorious moments and gives my mind a bit of a rest before the next deadline looms and the frenzy begins anew.
Working in a library is a perfect blend of routine and creativity. There are always problems to solve, decisions to make, patrons to satisfy, programs to organize, books to buy, books to withdraw, reports to write, reports to submit, meeting to attend, projects to plan and myriad other tasks to perform. Library work has its own continuum where tasks rise, fade and blend in a constant stream. Like the seasons, it’s cyclical. There’s the daily, the weekly, the monthly, the seasonal and the annual. And there’s the unexpected. A grant opportunity pops up out of nowhere and that special something the library’s been needing (wanting) for years if suddenly at hand. Or a generous donation from an unexpected source arrives and some piece of much needed equipment is realized. Or the server crashes and the IT guy isn’t available for a week. Or someone breaks in and steals the cash from the front desk income. It’s never a dull moment.
Anyway, a fresh cycle has begun, and ended and is continuing here at HPL. And I, for one, am excited about all the great stuff that is coming our way in 2011. For example – mark your calendars now! – Val Hiliker, a ventriloquist from Calgary, will be here to entertain the community on June 10th. We are partnering with Houston Link to Learning to bring Val here for Family Night. There will be other great events, too, so watch for our monthly calendar/newsletters so you won’t miss out on any of the fun.
Happy New Year!
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