What does she do all day?

Perhaps I'm grasping at straws topic-wise, but I thought I'd blog about my job today.
I’m sure you have that burning question: What does a Emma spend her day doing? WELL lucky you… I'm going to answer it.
Sorry Penny. I guess this one will be dreadfully boring for you since you too are a Liaison Librarian!

Firstly I LOVE my job. It's varied enough to be interesting but never too stressful or exhausting. Or perhaps I've just forgotten how busy the beginning of the year gets because it's November and I'm taking it easy...
There is also the added bonus of having the creche in the same building and I can go down for hugs instead of afternoon tea (much better calorie-wise)

Firstly to clear up some confusion, Academic libraries all seem to have different names for the same type of job. Liaison/reference/subject... librarian I believe are all much of a muchness. I guess most of us are happy with our positions, I’ve heard it can be hard to get Subject librarian jobs because once we’re in we NEVER LEAVE.

Here’s a basic way to look at my job by breaking it down to three main components:
Collection Development (choosing books/journals)
Information Literacy (showing students how to find journals and books by teaching classes, creating guides, setting up appointments and sitting at the help desk)
Chatting with Lecturers about the above two things.


By November one should have spent their entire budget and usually there are no more classes to teach. So again you ask... What do I do all day? (besides update my blog lol)
To be able to manage the workload at the beginning of the academic year I like to use quieter times to prepare lists of books that I should purchase next year. At the beginning of each semester we have Orientation and plenty of classes to keep us busy AND at the same time we are also given our new budgets. It’s always great to have a nice rather long list of books to pick from easily and order to help churn through the budget.


I've also had fun touching up my libguide and offering assistance to other librarians working on theirs. I’m still finding the freedom of being able to update things myself pretty cool. I also like bestowing suggestions on those who are just starting their guides. The latest was offering the picture for the early_childhood LibGuide… (yep I did get permission from the teacher and parent of the kid facing the camera)


There is always desk shifts on the reference desk (again VERY quiet this time of year... so quiet I'm ACTUALLY writing this whilst sitting at the desk.) Conferences, forums and meetings.

So I guess I do do work at work.. Awesome!