Tuesday in the Archives

Week in the Life, day 2

Here are today's antics. Enjoy! (And pardon my tense-switching.)

6:25am - Alarm goes off. Ignore until 6:45, then get up. Dress for work and pack clothes for workout, eat some oatmeal, and head out the door about 7:20. It's very foggy today.

8:00-8:30 - Arrive at work. Find parking spot. Put lunch (egg salad sandwiches-to-be) in fridge. Haul self and stuff to third floor. Open department and boot computer (this happens in stages). Turn on space heater. Check voice mail - one message from yesterday afternoon that I missed. Good - I can delete that one. Check email - about 15 new messages, but that includes ads and spam notifications. Respond to one message; print out newsletter draft for assistant to check. Scroll through Chronicle of Higher Ed email; nothing I want to click through today. Quick romp through Twitter and FriendFeed.

8:30-9:00 - Make lunch plans for tomorrow. IM friend. Email former student who created newsletter draft to thank him. Proofread document for colleague. Delete canceled meeting from online calendars. Boot up iTunes. Chat with building steward about recycling program in library.

9:00-9:30 - Let researcher and student assistant from other department in. Show student where books go that she is delivering. Continue proofreading. Take document downstairs.

9:30-10:30 - Chat with reference staff about various topics. Pop ibuprofen for sinus headache. IM another friend. Look up address to send a book order. Pack box of books.

10:30-11:00 - Check email. Forward scholarship info to my student assistants in case they have an interest. Take box of books to mailroom; pick up mail. Only one envelope at present - travel forms my dean has approved. Yay! Back to Special Collections - researcher has a question. Look up book for her; no luck. Phone call - does library have a laptop that can be used in a presentation for the Faculty-Staff Christian Fellowship today? I have no idea; please call our administrative assistant.

11:00-11:30 - Show man from facilities where our recycling bins are. Find other resources for researcher, who squeals with glee. Chat with her about her dissertation topic and all the good stuff she's finding here. Chug away on my first liter of water for the day. Print weekly meeting minutes for filing. Photocopy check for book sale. Realize it's time for a deposit. Prepare deposit slip and envelope for admin. asst. Finish that first bottle of water at last!

11:30-12:00 - Took deposit to admin. asst. Chatted with her for a few minutes. Checked catalog for a book I've never read but need to (To Kill a Mockingbird, never read it or seen the movie). Our copy is out. Checked shelves anyway for something I thought might be another copy, but it was just a study guide. Back to Special Collections. Watch a video recommended by a friend before heading downstairs for lunch.

12:00-1:00 - Lunch and weekly meeting of Faculty-Staff Christian Fellowship. Terrific presentation today by one of our professors on his trip to Senegal last summer with a group of students.

1:00-2:00 - Back to Special Collections. Greet student assistants and find projects for them. Chat with assistant. Receive box in the mail - hooray! It's the roller-brush for my vacuum cleaner at home! Find agenda for Thursday's Homecoming Committee meeting and put it in my calendar. Look over Cooperative Baptist Fellowship newsletter from mail. Check email. Find a project (and boxes) for third student assistant. Find project for 84-year-old. Finish reading CBF newsletter and put it on giveaway table. Proofread Georgia Baptist Historical Society newsletter that will be mailed soon. Respond to offsite patron who wants images from yearbooks (photocopies or scans?).

2:00-2:30 - Talk to student assistant about filing; mark some documents for her to put away. Receive final changes for GBHS newsletter; make changes in Publisher. Email former student who worked on this issue; sent him corrected file. Email assistants my upcoming travel dates. Help student who comes in to Special Collections but doesn't really need us; she needs to know how to find books using LC call numbers. Give her a quick lesson in the stacks; find two books with her. Email her a "cheat sheet" for finding things in LC.

2:30-3:00 - (Could today be any more exciting? I can't believe you're still reading!) Finally open yesterday's mail. Turn iTunes back on; it's been off since I went to lunch. Erg - want to shake off-site researcher who wants waaaaaay too much stuff from us. Refreshing Twitter/FriendFeed and catching up.

3:00-4:00 - File some paperwork that has been on my desk. Clean up pile of stuff to left of computer monitor. Make notes based on notes I want to recycle. Look up Robert Oppenheimer's death date. Create new to-do list. Answer reference question. Recycle pieces of paper I no longer need. Check bank balance in moment of terror (after finding dues renewal notice). Handle phone call about our hours for the rest of the week.

4:00-4:30 - Help student assistant look for double-sided tape (find some in closet). Continue cleaning up pile on desk. Find Access report I have no memory of printing last September. Keep it? Toss it? Hmmm. (Put it with the items it was related to in compact shelving.) Oh, good - mystery items. Did I answer these? Should I answer these? (Oh, dear. The autosave feature in Blogger isn't happy. I have 30 minutes to go here, but I'm going to try to post before I lose this.)