A Day in the Life (English Faculty Library)

Posted on 1 March 2022 by lays — No Comments ↓

Monday 21st February 2022

When I first started working in public libraries in the beginning of 2021, a fellow Library Assistant told me that “library work is all about managing constant interruptions”. She was, unsurprisingly, correct. What I didn’t realise upon hearing this, however, is how delightful some of these interruptions would turn out to be. Here’s just one example of a somewhat bitty but utterly delightful day at the English Faculty Library.

8:40AM – Morning Routines

There are a few things that I try to get out of the way first thing in the morning – they’re small jobs, usually a little piecemeal or done in a different order each day for various reasons:

Opening up the library: I’m usually first to arrive, so I start by opening up the library for the day. This means checking that we have enough paper in the printers, opening windows, switching on lights, unlocking the computer room, and making sure that reader PCs are turned on. Usually someone else will arrive and help me out (thank goodness!).
BSF collection: When I sit down at my desk, my first task is to dig out the lapse list from the EFL email account. This list tells me which books I need to pull from the Self Collect shelves in the reading room to return to the BSF. Once I’m done with this, I collect any BSF books that have been self-returned, and then start scanning everything through and packing them into boxes. Usually we’re moving somewhere between 1-3 large blue boxes, so it’s easy for me to take these to the collection area by myself on a trolley.
Daily admin: After this, I’ll quickly flip through my emails and start actioning items into my task list on Outlook by their priority, check my teams messages, and respond to things that can be dealt with quickly. There’s a very little to deal with today, which makes planning my time much easier!
Handle anything left on my desk: There are some jobs around the library that are designated trainee tasks, and these will often be left on my desk or in the visible vicinity. This might be something like post, a missing book form, or a claimed return that needs chasing. Today, it’s in-house periodicals! Most periodical subscriptions are available online, but the EFL still holds a small number of print editions in-house – when these are used by readers, they’re passed to me so that I can track their usage on a spreadsheet before they’re reshelved.

9AM – New Periodicals

One of the tasks left on my desk which takes a little more time is a small stack of newly arrived periodicals. These need to first be registered on our periodicals spreadsheet, then checked in on Aleph, then physically processed with stamps, stickers, and tattle tape. Once complete, I’ll pop anything that I can out onto our New Periodicals Display (and move older editions off the display and onto the general shelves).

9:30AM – New Books

Another designated trainee task is the processing of new books for the EFL. I try to wait until I have a stack of about 6 new books before I start processing them, as they’re easiest to do in batches. Today, lo and behold, I have a perfect 6 awaiting my attention on my trolley! Our Library Assistant in Charge of Collections has already set them up on Aleph and given them barcodes, so I start by physically processing them with stickers, stamps, and book plates. There’s more to be done with them yet – but first, I have some other urgent business to attend to!

10AM – Trainee Twitter Meeting

Yep – you heard it here first, folks! The current trainee cohort is in the process of setting up our very own Oxford Libraries Trainees twitter account! A small trainee twitter team has been having meetings around once a week for a while now to solidify our ideas, plan our content strategies, and prepare for our launch date. It’s a project I’m really excited to be a part of. It’s a brilliant opportunity to participate in shaping what the traineeship will look like in future and to improve outreach to the next generation of librarians.

11AM – Tea Break

The meeting wraps up around 11AM, and I’m in need of a tea break. Once a week I let myself head upstairs to the Missing Bean Café for a proper coffee and a doughnut, but most days I stay in the EFL. We have a good kettle and an abundance of communal snack foods in our break area – today I opt for breakfast tea and a mini chocolate chip muffin. Small delights, eh?

11:20AM – Back to New Books

With most of my morning duties out of the way, I’m free to get back to prepping our new books. Next up they need tattle taping and then covering. Covering can take anywhere between a few minutes and the best part of an hour, depending on what needs doing. Hardbacks need nothing done to them. Hardbacks with paper sleeves need a plastic cover put over the paper sleeve. Paperbacks are the most time-consuming, requiring the application of sticky-black plastic across the entire cover – watch out for bubbles below the surface!

There is a brief caveat of an interruption during my new book processing – at 11:30, I need to do my daily reader count. This is a very high-tech and sophisticated operation, during which I walk around the entire library and try to count the number of readers using the space (arguably, with varying degrees of success). It grants me a few awkward looks from confused readers, but it’s nice to take a stroll around the library and bid a good morning to Mr Tolkien’s bust as I pass.

12 Noon – Lunch

No free lunches for Bodleian staff, sadly, but I have leftovers to keep me going. In the warmer months, I like to take the lengthy (2 minute) stroll to the Holywell Cemetery – a graveyard turned nature reserve with some lovely shady benches that are just perfect for sitting and reading. Sadly, I recorded my day on the 21st of February – when we’re under a yellow weather warning for wind – so I hide in the office and read at my desk instead. Today’s choice is The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon.

1PM – Desk Duty

After lunch, it’s my turn on the enquires desk, where I’m kept company by Bill, our rubber duck. Despite the fact that the EFL is a loaning library, we have no (functional) self-service machines, so all books have to be checked in and out of the library manually. Readers may also come to us with all kinds of queries, but most common are “can you help me find this book?”, “how do I use the printers?” and “can I please use the TP room?” (I’ll explain this later). Interacting with readers is for the most part a delightful experience, and it’s lovely getting to know familiar faces and trying to make a good first impression on the new ones.

It’s very rare that I’m overrun with enquiries, so I can usually spend a little time doing computer-based tasks while on the desk. Today, I’m working on a New Books blog. I write these once a month, selecting 5 books that we’ve acquired in the last month and writing a little bit about each of them. It helps me to keep abreast of our collections and it’s fun picking out the most intriguing titles. Sometimes I’m even able to do them to a theme (like this one for Black History Month!) though this is heavily dependent on the relevance of recently acquired items to current events.

3PM – BSF Delivery

Our daily BSF Delivery is usually made somewhere between 2PM-3PM, so once I’ve been relieved of the enquiries desk, I take the lift down to collect it. Today’s delivery is 2 boxes, made up of a mix of Self-Collect items, new books, returns from ARACU (the Accessible Resources Acquisition and Creation Unit), and reservations for the issue desk (some low-use loanable EFL items are kept at the BSF, and can be ordered for borrowing). I start by sorting everything into piles, then quickly pass the new acquisitions to our Library Assistant in Charge of Collections.

Next I process the BSF books: I check them in on Aleph, add a green slip, and load them onto a trolley in order of their collection code. Once these are all sorted, they can be taken out to the reading room and added to the Self-Collect shelf. I usually give the shelf a little tidy at this point, as it can get quite messy with all the readers who use it. After this, I process the holds on the reservations, return all the ARACU books – and then take a big deep breath and decide it’s time for a tea break.

3:30PM – Tea Break

Another cup of tea! I try to resist taking another snack from the staff room. Sometimes I’m more successful than others…

3:50 – Once More, New Books

I told you this was all about managing interruptions! The final stages are simple, add shelf marks to the spines, put label protectors over them so they don’t fall off, then sensitize the books. Then I can add the books to the EFL’s LibraryThing account. This allows anyone to see a list of what the EFL is acquiring. It’s a helpful addition to SOLO, as it allows you to see all the newer books in one place. We can also customise the listings through tags; if the reader were interested in, say, modernism, they could find a list of over 200 books on the subject.

Last but not least, the books can be marked as ‘New Books Display’ on Aleph/SOLO, then artfully arranged on our New Books Display – handily located right next to our door!

4:15 – TP Room

There is one more interruption in the midst of this new book processing (I did tell you I’d come back to explain this later!). A colleague comes in and says that a reader needs to be taken down to the TP Room.

TP Room stands for Turville-Petre Room (it’s also known as the Icelandic Room). It’s named after Gabriel Turville-Petre, once a Professor of Ancient Icelandic Literature and Antiquities at Oxford, who donated his private library to the English Faculty Library upon his death. The TP Room itself doesn’t house his collection, but instead holds our Icelandic materials, classic sagas, Norse mythologies, and modern periodicals on the same themes. The same name applying to a separate room and collection is, admittedly, sometimes a cause for confusion…

The TP Room is not actually housed within the library itself. To access it, readers have to collect a TP Card from the enquiries desk and head downstairs into the midst of the English Faculty itself. It’s a small space, but utterly delightful. Caged bookcases line every wall, and the room is decorated with photographs of Gabriel Turville-Petre, as well as antique card catalogues and pieces of volcanic rock. It is in almost constant use throughout the week. As staff, our job is simply to head down when requested, unlock the room, and open the cages so that readers can access the books.

4:30 – Reading Room Checks

I have one final task I need to complete for today, and that’s to run a report on the reading room. This is a simple procedure done through Aleph, which produces a list of all the BSF Self-Collect books currently loaned out to our reading room. During term time, this report typically ends up about 10 pages long. I print this out, dig out a clipboard, and head into the reading room to check that everything is where it’s supposed to be. If anything is amiss, I make a note of it on my list.

Usually, a reader is simply using the book at the time I make the check, so I perform secondary and tertiary checks on other days and times. However, it’s not uncommon for readers to muddle up their books and accidentally take home BSF books (which are meant to stay in the library at all times). If this ends up being the case, I send off some emails to the readers and get everything squared away.

5:00 – Homeward Bound

With my work done for the day I wash up my mug, straighten everything on my desk, and dig out my bus pass. My fellow trainee from Teddy Hall was very correct to say that Oxford is a city with so much to do. I’ll often stay to meet a friend for dinner, see a show at the New Theatre or the Playhouse, or meet other trainees for food or drinks – but tonight I’m actually headed out of the city. I have a very important D&D game to get to on Monday nights.

A Day in the Life (New College Library)

Posted on 22 February 2022 by bennettj — No Comments ↓

The day-to-day life of a graduate library trainee can be really varied, especially in college libraries, and my role at New College Library is no exception. I’ve written about a typical day containing all my usual tasks, but, in reality, what my days look like depends so much on whether the students are on vacation, whether we have an exhibition approaching, or what point in the term we’re at. During vacations, I am freer to work on projects that might otherwise be more disruptive for readers, such as stock checking or re-spacing shelves, or might take me away from my desk in the library office to consult a manuscript in our Special Collections Reading Room, or help to film a video for our Curators’ Choice series.

Although New College Library doesn’t have an information desk, our library office is very open and right next to the library entrance hall so it’s easy for readers to come and ask questions. This is the room where I spend most of my time and the first place I go when I arrive in the morning…

09:00 My day starts with a brief look at my emails and email calendar to see if there’s anything happening that day that I should know about. The thing to look out for is whether we have any readers coming in to look at special collections, as this requires a bit of preparation. Then I log on to the college intranet to book my (free!) lunch.

09:15 Then it’s time to retrieve the Click and Collect requests from the library shelves. This was an initiative started in the pandemic when library use was more restricted, but it remains popular, so we’ve decided to keep it going. Every morning I pick up a selection of requested books, and leave them, labelled, on a trolley in the entrance hall for readers to collect.

Some of the special collections stored in the bell tower

10:00 After these initial morning tasks, I have more flexibility to structure my own day. At this point in the morning, I might take a trip to the bell tower in college, to pick up some manuscripts or early printed books. Readers come in to consult items from our special collections at least once or twice a week and one of my jobs is to collect items from the bell tower so that they can temporarily be stored in our Special Collections Reading Room. When this room is being used, there is always a member of library staff present to help with enquiries and keep an eye on the rare books. If I’m doing this, I can do stationary and laptop-based tasks as well, like checking reading lists against our collections, or writing blog posts like this one!

Our current exhibition, displaying items from New College Library’s Mann Collection.

10:30 If there’s no one looking at special collections, I’ll spend the rest of my morning getting on with work in the library office. Being based here means I’m often needed to respond to readers’ questions, but, when I’m not doing that, I work on creating posts for our social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) plan for displays or exhibitions, or write some exhibition captions.

13:00 It’s lunch time! After I’ve eaten there’s often time to go into town to run a few errands, but, once the weather warms up, I’m looking forward to being able to enjoy the sunshine in the gardens at college.

14:00 Sometimes, generally in the afternoons, we host private viewings of the best parts of our special collections, either for societies or as part of a course module. These are really fun to set up as we get an in-depth look at so many great manuscripts all at once, and it’s a highlight of my job to then be able to share them with such enthusiastic readers.

Highlights of the most recent book delivery include a first edition of Evelyn Waugh’s Love Among the Ruins, and texts on a range of subjects, from *The Faerie Queene* to Gandhi.

If we have no out of the ordinary events happening in the afternoon, I can devote my attention to the post and unpacking all the new books, which have usually arrived by this time of day. The size of delivery can hugely vary: the most I’ve dealt with at once has been about 40 books, but normally it’s between five and ten books. The journey of a book from parcel to library shelf (also known as ‘processing’) is one in which I’ve invested many hours, but, in a nutshell, I unpack the books, write an accession card for them, catalogue them (if I can), stamp, tag, label, and cover them, and they’re ready to go!

16:30 Once I’ve finished book processing, there’s usually a bit of time to tidy up any unfinished tasks from the morning and clear any expired Click and Collect requests from the trolley, until it’s time to go home at 17:00.

A Day in the Life (St Edmund ‘Teddy’ Hall Library)

Posted on 14 February 2022 by barrh — No Comments ↓

The stone Norman church of Teddy Hall Library, with snowdrops in the graveyard in front. — Snow drops outside St Edmund Hall Library

As a College Library trainee my days can vary a lot. During term time our Library is always busy, with students coming in and out all day (literally – we are open 24/7) to study, to find and borrow books, and to make use of our other Library services – such as our wide selection of borrowable board games!

As I’m writing this it is fourth week – almost half way through term! This is a pretty typical term time day, though with more chocolate than is normal…

9am – Sorting, Shelving, Socials

I start by scanning my own and the shared Library email inboxes for anything which needs urgent attention. I’m part of a team of three here at Teddy Hall (me – Heather, Emma – Assistant Librarian, and James – Librarian); we all share responsibility for monitoring the Library inbox and responding to queries which come in there. I then process the returns which come in overnight. In the middle of term there are rarely huge piles of books: I’d guess around 20 each morning.

Next I turn to our Click and Collect requests. The Library started offering this during 2020 to support students who were in isolation but needed to access books from the Library. Students submit a request either via email or SOLO (the University’s book-finding-website – literally, Search Oxford Libraries Online), and we find the book and deliver it either to their pigeon hole or directly to their room. Then it’s time for some shelving! I actually find shelving books a nice way to start the day: there is something very grounding about sorting everything into its rightful place. Shelving also gives me a chance to have a walk around the Library and do some general tidying – I’ll also check there is paper in the printer, free period products in the bathroom, pens in the pen pot, and staples in the stapler.

My final morning task is to check the Library social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. I’ll check whether we have any planned content to go out today, or which I need to prepare for later in the week.

10am – Blind Date with a Book

On Monday this week (7 Feb 2022) we launched Blind Date with a Book – Teddy Hall students, staff and Fellows request a book, telling us a little bit about what they like to read, and we set them up with something we think they’ll love. To celebrate Valentine’s Day and LGBTQIA+ History Month, we are selecting books with themes of gender, sexuality, and romance. Blind Date is always extremely popular, and on Monday alone we had 15 requests! This morning Emma, James and I shared ideas for what to give people who had requested books from poetry, to fantasy fiction, to a humorous and fun-to-read non-fiction. This is a really fun part of the day, and I inevitably end up with a list of books I want to read!

We wrap the books, affix a Valentine’s chocolate to the cover, and pop them in pigeon holes to await their dates…

11am – Desk Duty

I enjoy sitting at the Issue Desk, as I can help students with any queries they may have. Sometimes this can feel a bit like detective work! For example, today a student came to the desk with two items on her reading list which she and her classmates were struggling to find. The only information provided was an author name, a date, and a mysterious acronym… After some SOLO-searching, some googling and some guess work I found both articles – one of which we had in a physical book in the library. If you’re interested, the acronyms were the names of the journals in which the articles were published! Students are always really grateful for any help you can give, and so even when I feel stumped, I remember that any progress I can make in searching something out is time saved for them, and that is a good thing.

12.30pm – Lunch

You may have heard it before, but it’s worth reading again: college library jobs mean a free college lunch. These are consistently yummy, and because we all eat together, lunch in college is a really great way to chat to the rest of the Library team and also to other college staff. Today this chat covered the important topics of planetariums, dodgy ideas for fusion food, and Cadbury World.

1.30pm – Books, Books, Books

By lunchtime we’ve usually had some new books delivered, which I’ll collect from Porter’s Lodge and process. As these are often student requests, I will then almost immediately take the books back to the Lodge to put them in student pigeon holes!

Blackwell’s Book Shop – photo: juliasbookcase.com/blog/blackwellsoxford

2pm – Book Shopping (yes, seriously)

One of the best parts of my job is going to Blackwell’s for books. We are so lucky to have Blackwell’s as a resource and it is just a short walk from Teddy Hall, so when we can, we buy our books directly from there. This also means we can turn any requests around as quickly as possible! Today, as well as picking up a student request I am keeping my eyes open for anything which might be a great Blind Date book! I do find a personal favourite lock down read of mine: Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. As it’s a LGBTQIA+ love story, a Teddy Hall Blind Date requester should be expecting this in their pigeon hole soon!

3pm – Ticking off Tasks

This afternoon I’m sat up in my office, working on some ongoing tasks. This week I’ve got three balls which I am juggling. First, I’m preparing a book display and blog post celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science by showcasing the work of our own college Fellows.

Second, I am working through a donation of books we received over Christmas vacation – over 2,500 of them! When they arrived, we spread the books out over the thankfully-student-free desks and then organised them roughly into subjects, before putting what we could onto available shelves. The rest were boxed up and are currently living at the very top of the Teddy Hall Library tower…! We have started making lists of the books in the donation, and will decide what we want to keep and what we will offer to other libraries. If it’s a quiet day during term I might spend some time on this, but mostly this will get picked up properly again at Easter.

Third, I am planning my own Trainee project. As part of the Traineeship, we all work on an individual project which we then present about at the end of the year. My project is all about making the Library more sustainable… I’m really looking forward to working on this – so watch this space!

5pm – “Home” Time

One of the best things about living in Oxford is just how much there is to do in the city – and I love to take full advantage of that! From catching up with the other Trainees for a drink, to attending a seminar about medieval culture (I did a Masters in Medieval English Literature!), to meeting friends for dinner, or playing in orchestra (optional seminars and orchestra?! Yes – I am a bit of a nerd), Oxford is a great place to be. And there is loads to do which won’t break the bank! Today, though, it’s straight home for a hot chocolate and to continue reading Ali Smith’s wonderful book ‘Spring’.

A Day in the Life (History Faculty Library)

Posted on 7 February 2022 by maine — No Comments ↓

Whilst I am the trainee at the History Faculty Library, our team has merged with the Old Bod team, so we all work on a shared rota across both sites. This is a day in the life of the HFL but look out for a day in the life at the Old Bod for a taste of what else I get up to!

A view of the Radcliffe Camera — An unusually quiet Radcliffe Square

8:40am – Opening up

I arrive at the Radcliffe Camera, lock up my bike, pop my mask on and make my way to our staff area in the Lower Camera. Normally we open at 9am so this gives us 20 minutes to open up the Reading Rooms. Today I start up the computers and printers in the Lower Camera and open all the windows before heading down to open the Gladstone Link. I’ll make a start on any reshelving; it gets pretty busy during term!

9am – Lapse list

My first job today is the lapse list, any books on our self-collect shelves that have reached their due date have to be collected and returned to the BSF. I print off the list and find them all before scanning them out on the system and boxing them up ready for the van later. Then I fit in a coffee break sitting in one of the recesses around the outside of the camera.

6 blue crates piled up inside with a hi-vis jacket next to the Radcliffe Camera side door — All boxed up ready for the BSF van!

10:30am – Reception desk

I take the second slot of the day on reception. It’s third week so there’s a constant flow of people coming in and out. I deal with any questions or problems including a student whose reader card is not working, returning some lost property and redirecting tourists to the Bodleian Library ticket office. The desk is quieter during vacation so then I get on with other jobs such as checking reading lists.

12am – Scanning

I hand over at reception and since I’m not scheduled for anything specific, now is the time to get on with background tasks. I decide to spend the hour scanning pages or chapters from books that readers have requested and emailing them out. We have a BookEye for scanning but since someone else is using it I head for the PCAS (Print, Copy and Scan) machine.

1pm – Lunch!

I love exploring Oxford and normally wander somewhere for lunch, my favourite spots on sunny days are University Park or Christchurch Meadows!

A picture of an open book with a stamp and tattle tape in front of a computer — New HFL books being made shelf ready

2pm – Book delivery and processing

The van from the BSF arrives and the Camera team help unload new boxes full of material requested by readers. One team member scans the books in whilst two head over with the van to the Old Bod. I collect a few new books that need processing and set to work stamping them, inserting tattle tape, covering them and updating their status on the system before popping them out on the new book display. Time for a quick tea break before my next desk shift!

3.30pm – Circulation desk

This time I’m on the circulation desk and am kept busy issuing, renewing and placing hold requests for readers. Returned books need fetching from the drop boxes and I keep an eye out for any books coming back that might need repairing. Readers come with different questions: asking about WiFi, printing, to reset their password, how to locate their self-collect or open shelf books. Time flies by and before I know it the evening staff have appeared, so I hand over the desk then get ready to head home!

A Day in the Life (Sainsbury Library)

Posted on 31 January 2022 by keastf — No Comments ↓

Although our traineeships are based at the Bodleian Law Library, we also get to spend a day each per week at the Sainsbury Library, part of the Saïd Business School. Since it’s been a couple of years since the Sainsbury team had a trainee of their own, we thought this would be a good opportunity to share what business library life is looking like these days.

9.00

Jess: I turn on my computer and leave it slowly loading in order to do some shelving to start the day. I clear my emails, reading updates on SBS, flagging any ORLO reviews for my time at the Law Library, and making sure I’m up to date with all new info on Slack.

We’ve run out of archive boxes (for now…)

Josie: My Sainsbury day is a Thursday, so while I’m waiting for my computer to wake up enough to catch up on emails and Slack messages, I check my desk for any sticky notes bearing updates on ongoing projects or unfinished bits and pieces from earlier in the week. Sometimes there’s a bit of book processing to do – this is always a bit of a novelty for me, since I’m not very involved with that side of things at Law.

9.30

Jess: I’m on desk for the morning shift today. In between answering reader enquiries, I get to work on the Sainsbury Library’s benchmarking spreadsheet. We search other university library holdings for a long list of business databases, which lets the SBS see if it has a competitive number of databases for its students and to identify any gaps our holdings might have. Today I’m starting a new column and working my way through LSE’s catalogue.

Josie: Once I’m up to date on everything, I check in with one of my colleagues to see if there’s anything in particular they’d like me to do today. Quite often, this just means working on the Futures Library- crates of books, papers, and assorted Stuff from the collections of significant figures in scenario planning. Formerly based at the Egrove Park campus, it is now being transferred to offsite storage, so one of my jobs has been boxing up the non-monograph collections. This is always a bit of a mystery dip – it turns out “non-monograph” can mean anything from journal issues and presentation notes to projector slides, diaries, and pretty much anything else that can be put on a shelf. Rather than cataloguing each individual item, we fill numbered archive boxes according to a master spreadsheet, keeping track of which items end up in which box, and then create an ALEPH record for each completed box. I quickly discovered that the boxes fill up much faster than the BSF vans will collect them – the office has been in an increasingly precarious state since mid-November.

11.00

Jess: Break time! I head into the office for a bit of reading time, before returning to the desk at about twenty past. On today’s menu: Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Josie: At some point the person on desk will take their break, so I’ll step out and cover for them. This is a good opportunity to sign into the desk computer, getting all the slow loading out of the way ahead of my afternoon desk shift, before going back to the morning’s tasks.

12.00

Jess: I’m also keeping an eye on the library inbox for the second half of my desk shift. Whilst more complex enquiries still have me poking my head into the office to ask someone for help, I’m getting the hang of doing database account requests. There’s also a new project in tow to make sure each of the data tags in our books are up-to-date. I gather up a trolley of books, removing old tags as gently as possible, and reprogramming new ones.

Josie: I take my lunch break at twelve, so I can be ready to take over on desk at one. I’m pretty sure that the SBS building was entirely designed for networking – I could find a new spot to sit and eat my lunch every week for the rest of the year.

1.00

Jess: Time for lunch! When the weather allows, I love wandering to the amphitheatre-like seating in one of the SBS’s quads and enjoying my lunch there. I crack open my book to read for the rest of my break.

Josie: I settle down at the enquiry desk for the rest of the day. I keep an eye on the library email inbox, responding to those I can and forwarding others on to better-informed colleagues. The library itself is usually pretty quiet, but I’m getting familiar enough with the usual questions about printing, toilet locations, and (occasionally) finding a book. I have yet to be asked about the Bloomberg terminals and their alarmingly colour-coded keyboards, and I’m hoping it stays that way – although help is always only a frantic Slack message away.

2.00

Jess: The Sainsbury Library Annexe is currently closed to readers as material from the SBS’s Egrove Park library is relocated across the Bodleian. Today, I’m looking at print journals! At the SBS, we keep print journals for a limited amount of time before they are withdrawn from the library collection to keep current issues on the shelves. Issues are distributed to fill gaps in other library holdings or taken out of the Bodleian’s collection entirely. My first task is to make individual piles of each of the 14 journals for checking with over 300 individual issues. There are several large crates for the Futures Library project – which Josie has told you about above – so I feel like I’m dodging my way around a jungle gym as I fire up a philosophy podcast on my headphones.

Josie: The Sainsbury is a lending library, which means I occasionally get to do a bit of circulation – another novelty! However, students prefer to use the self-checkout machine beside the desk, so circulation enquiries mostly tend to be of the “something isn’t working” variety- it’s usually the RFID tags (see Jess’s explanation above). Another quirk of the SBS is that some courses run intermittently throughout the year, and these students will often only be in Oxford for a few days at a time. It’s a little jarring to go from the strictly reference-only Law Library to lending several books to a reader who then tells you they’re about to fly back to Chicago for the next month!

3.00

Jess: Nine large bags, two boxes, two-and-a-half podcast episodes, and one exceptionally well-hidden box later, I have all my journal issues sorted. I start with The Economist, as it’s teetering dangerously, beginning to sort issues for checking. I have a spreadsheet that tells me the earliest and latest issues I should have, alongside a list of ones marked as missing. Each journal is out of order, so I work on putting each pile into publication order and noting any missing issues as I go.

Josie: When I’m not dealing with readers, I work on one of my LibGuide assignments. At the start of the year, Jess and I were each given a set of LibGuides to work on- checking links, updating the date range on pre-set searches, and finding new resources to add. Before Christmas I was working on adding recent reports to a guide on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals; now I’m looking at a guide on South America, part of a series on “Doing Business” around the world.

3.20

Jess: I retreat to the office for my final Dostoyevsky fix of the day, accompanied by some dried pineapple for a sugar boost to my afternoon.

Josie: If we’re expecting a delivery of Bod books from the offsite storage facility, I’ll head down to the secret cupboard in the car park to drop off any returns, retrieve the new delivery, and process them back at the desk. Unlike most Bodleian libraries, readers need a separate SBS card in order to get into the building, so I double-check the requestors’ permissions on ALEPH in case there might be any issues with that – people do occasionally click the wrong library in the drop-down menu. Around this time, I’ll also take my break from desk, popping down to the cafeteria to take advantage of the daily free tea or coffee we’re allowed as SBS staff.

3.40

Jess: Back into the Annexe I go! Whilst I’m continuing with serials today, there’s another ongoing project to withdraw from the library’s collection any book that hasn’t been borrowed for 10 years or more, starting with the stack (as regularly borrowed titles on reading lists are kept on the ground floor). I check each book to ensure it has the matching shelfmark and barcode, usually taking three large stacks down to the office. Opening up our library cataloguing system, known as ALEPH, as well as using Oxford’s online catalogue SOLO, I make sure each book is held somewhere else in the central Bodleian libraries where it’s available to all students (sorry colleges). If it’s the only copy, I place it on a new pile to go back up to the stack. If not, weed away!
First, we delete the item record – this is a record that is specific to a particular book, versus all books with the same title, author, etc. The next step is to delete the holding record, if the library has no other copies of that particular book at that location – for example, in the SBS, there are separate holding records so the catalogue will tell a reader if a book is in the stack, the annexe, or the main reading room! Each of these books goes through a special secret process to stop it from beeping at the gate, and then gets a nice red ‘WITHDRAWN’ stamp on the inside. They’re then boxed up (with a very fun roller of packing tape) and go on to a second-hand book provider so they can be read and loved.

Josie: At some point I’ll try to have a quick chat with Hal, the Business Librarian – I have some questions about the guide I’m currently working on, and I also want to talk about potential topics for building my own LibGuide from scratch. Current options include banking, financial technology, or another piece for the “Doing Business” series – all a bit daunting, considering I had very little idea of what a business degree involved before starting here. However, I’m finding that the LibGuides, along with all the other day-to-day library tasks, are providing ample introduction, and things are finally beginning to make sense.

5.00

Jess: Home time! I’ll often quickly nab a book I’ve spotted the previous week to enjoy over the weekend.

Josie: The library follows the same opening hours as the main SBS building, so there’s not much in the way of opening/closing routines. Since it’ll be a week before I’m back, I make a note of any LibGuide progress for my future self, say goodbye on Slack, and then hand over the desk to the person taking the evening duty.

A Day in the Life (St John’s Library)

Posted on 25 January 2022 by mooreg — No Comments ↓

Here’s a typical term-time day as the Trainee at St John’s, involving posters, returns, acquisitions, processing, and maintaining the Library’s daily Twitter updates. A day in the life here varies based on whether it’s term-time or the vacation. Over the holidays, we have very few readers, so I work on jobs which involve spending longer away from the desk, such as updating the Special Collections inventories, or minor book moves on the reading room shelves.

Working as part of a small team, the Trainee is based on the library enquiry desk. Rather than moving between shifts on different stations, I work on various tasks from my desk, and answer the occasional reader query as and when they arise!

Without further ado, join me for a day in the life of the St John’s Trainee…

9am: Get settled

It’s a three-part process:

It’s always quiet when I first arrive. I’ll check my email, the Library inbox, and the shared calendar. The contractors are still finishing up the new building, so often we’ll have an electrician or decorator scheduled to sort one specific issue.
Next, I empty the returns box and check items back in using Aleph, the library management system. Books can be borrowed for a whole term/break, so big rushes are fairly infrequent.
Most importantly: make a coffee!

9:30am: Twitter

After emails, my next desk-based check is our Special Collections Twitter. Sometimes there will be a popular hashtag or event, so I like to check our feed for inspiration.

This term, my tweet days are Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I’m working on a Tweet from scratch, I’ll find the shelf mark of the item I need, locate it in the basement store, and then take some photos. Then I’ll come back to my desk to draft the optimum 280 characters.

10:30am: check on the Law Library

It is somewhat a mystery to me why this should be the case, but if a College Library has a separate area for one subject, it’s usually law. The St John’s Law Library is on the nearby Kendrew Quad site, whilst the main Library is on the original site. It’s too small to have it’s own staff, so one of us heads over to take any acquistions or work through any shelving left by the students.

Room for one more? The noticeboard awaiting a new poster

11am: sandwich collection!

One of the perks of working in a College is absolutely the lunch: I can either pick-up a pack-up at 11am, or go for a hot meal when the canteen opens at noon. Walking through the historic quads on the way to the kitchen servery naturally involves nattering with the other hungry Library staff members too.

11:15am: updating the posters

Given the changing Covid-19 regulations in College, I’ll regularly update our signage about mask guidance. There are also endless other posters to make, be it a withdrawn book giveaway, or a reminder about KeepCups next to the new hot drink machine.

12pm: lunchtime

When it isn’t raining, I enjoy eating lunch in the College gardens. Like many of the trainees, I’m conveniently located to pick up groceries or go for a walk at lunchtime.

1pm: re-classification work

Peel, stick, stamp, peel, stick, stamp, moisten, stick…

Like many other Oxford libraries, St John’s has it’s own classification system. This has both positives and negatives! Recently, I noticed that part of the Theology section was in an unclear order, so I proposed to the Librarian that we rearrange this into a chronological order. Although we only reordered or renamed about ten headings within Theology, this meant that around 150 books had to be reassessed, and potentially reclassified. I am working through these about 25 titles at a time, updating the classifications on Aleph, relabelling, and then re-shelving the books.

3pm: collect the post and process acquisitions

St John’s seems to be quite late on the postie’s route, so I usually wait until the afternoon to swing by the Porters’ Lodge and collect the day’s deliveries. At the moment, we tend to receive between 4 and 8 new books a day, which I will process and classify. We are never short of books to process as we are working on a donation given to the Library by a former fellow!

5pm: Homeward bound

If I’ve finished my book, I like to end the day by checking out the recent literary fiction shelf, and choose a new title to borrow for my own reading. I tidy up my desk in order to pass the space over to the Student Library Assistant on duty that evening.

A Day in the Life (Social Science Library)

Posted on 17 January 2022 by Lucy Davies — No Comments ↓

A Day in the Life at the SSL

9:00 – I switch on my computer, load up the main enquiries email box and begin filtering through queries from readers. These commonly include researchers struggling to access a database, students who can’t return to the UK but have a pile of books due at the SSL, and suggestions for resources to add to our collections. I really enjoy being able to make a difference to someone’s research by helping them find a resource they’ve been struggling to access. Additionally, the main inbox is where the room booking requests from our Google Form are delivered, so I filter through these and add them to the calendar.

9:15 – I begin opening up the library with a colleague, switching the self-issue machine and printers on, and deleting any expired hold requests. Once we’ve wheeled in the out of hours book returns box, we open up the doors and begin to let readers in.

A photo of the entrance to the social science library. There are large glass automatic doors which are open. — The entrance of the SSL inside the Manor Road building

9:30 – The library is now open, and I take the first desk shift of the day. This involves assisting readers with their questions, lending and returning books, and answering the phone. When I first started this job, I was nervous to be on the desk on my own as the thought that the readers could ask me anything felt intimidating. However, working with the students and academics has become one of my favourite parts of the job, and I know I can always ask a colleague for advice if the question is a bit rogue. When the desk is quiet, I work on a project which involves making sure any online resources for Social Science courses (eBooks, podcasts, YouTube videos) are marked clearly as viewable online on the reading list, and that the links to these work.

10:30 – I take a break! Sometimes I take a trip to The Missing Bean Café in the St Cross Building next door to catch up with a fellow trainee and reward ourselves with a doughnut.

10:50 – For the rest of the morning, I’m processing new books. This involves some physical processing: sticking in a slip about returning books, stamping it with an SSL stamp, covering it with sticky back plastic, and inserting “tattle tapes”, which are thin magnets that stick in between the pages of our books to trigger the exit gates unless desensitised when loaned to the reader. After this, I process the book on Aleph, our library management system, which involves creating a holding and adding the shelf mark, reading list codes, and marking the book as loanable or a library use only copy. Once this is complete, the information will display on the user’s end – SOLO – so that they can search for and find the book.

A new book - Quantitative Social Science: An Introduction to Strata by Imai and Bougher - is pictured, along with two stamps, an info slip and a tattle tape — A newly arrived book along with some physical processing supplies

12:30 – It’s lunchtime! Time to take a walk to the University Parks around the corner for some fresh air and a break away from the library.

1:30 – Another desk shift! I continue responding to the enquiries in the SSL’s email box. I also log a reader onto our Bloomberg terminal. This is a high demand PC that has access to current and historical financial data on currencies and the stock market. To keep the data secure we don’t give out the password for it, which is why we have to assist researchers in accessing the terminal. I also make sure to organise the post that has been delivered to us, sifting through new physical copies of journals and letters for the librarians before popping them in their pigeonholes. I finish up by scanning in and popping onto the shelves the newly arrived Bodleian stack requests that readers order from the storage facility to be accessed in the reading rooms.

An image of the closed stack shelves. Books are pictured with slips coming out of the top denoting who has requested them. — Our closed stack shelves – looking rather empty here as this photo was taken before all the students returned

2:30 – I take some time to create a blog post advertising upcoming Bodleian iSkills sessions which are relevant to researchers and students in the Social Sciences. These usually cover topics such as Open Access, referencing, or finding appropriate research materials. Once this is written up, I schedule the post along with a Tweet and Facebook post so the sessions reach as wide an audience as possible. I then fetch some books requested by the Accessible Resources Unit who take our print copies of books and transform them into electronic text, Braille, audio and tactile diagrams for users with disabilities. I make sure to select a clean copy as sadly there is often lots of highlighting or written notes which can make the process difficult! However, the turnaround for this process can be really quick, which always impresses me and is great news for the students that require them.

3:30 – Time for another break! Snacking gets me through the day.

4:30 – After taking 5 minutes to water the plants, I update the new books display with brand new legal deposit books, research books and print outs of some new eBook covers too. This helps keep the library looking fresh and up to date whilst also allowing our readers to access the new releases in their field quickly. It’s also an opportunity to be a bit creative and directly contribute something to the readers’ experience at the library.

The New Books Display from November 2021, featuring research books, eBooks and legal deposit copies, as well as the subject librarian’s book of the month.

5:30 – Time to go home! No need to lock up as the SSL is open until 10pm on weeknights, so after handing over to my evening colleagues, my day is done.

Library Provision During a Pandemic: A Day in the Life at Christ Church (Michaelmas 2020)

Posted on 12 January 2021 by lawc — No Comments ↓

8am: Arrive at the library and wash my hands! Since we are a lending library (unlike the Law Library and Old Bodleian), I come in an hour before we open so I can shelve the previous day’s returns and start gathering Click and Collect requests before the students arrive. This is because our bookshelves are in close proximity to the study desks, and it becomes much more difficult to navigate around students for books while maintaining a 2m distance once it starts filling up.

The previous night’s library clerk will hopefully have arranged the books on our returns trolley in sequential order so I just have to run them back in through the self-issue machine. This is the first substantial adjustment we’ve had to introduce because of the virus – instead of returning books themselves, readers must leave their loans with us to be quarantined overnight before I return them the following morning. I then separate the returns according to their location (e.g. East or West Library, Upper Library or the Orangery). At this point, I usually log into the library inbox, open the Aleph report for Click and Collect requests, organise the shelfmarks to my liking and then print them out so that I can collect students’ requests and re-shelve returns simultaneously.

While moving around the library to shelve, I’ll also complete any outstanding tasks as I encounter them, for instance replacing the daily track and trace form, checking that the Upper Library is unlocked and de-alarmed for student arrivals at 9, and removing any student belongings that have been left overnight.

9-10.30: Once I’ve fetched the day’s first batch of Click and Collect requests, I spend the morning at the enquiry desk. Students start filing in from 9 and I answer any questions they may have while issuing out their requests and notifying each reader via email that their loans are ready for collection – a lengthy process, and one that is unique to pandemic times. I also remove any uncollected requests from previous days (we retain books for 24 hours only) and make a note of repeat offenders so I can see if they need another nudge, or extra assistance with getting books – occasionally these have not been collected because the student in question is self-isolating.

Then I’ll work through our inbox and answer emails, making note of quarantine deliveries and chapter scan requests. Our wonderful senior library assistant and the colleague I work with most closely, Georgie, will also check in with me to see what our plan for the day is, and leave book post with me to unwrap and print invoices for the new arrivals.

10.30-11: Coffee break!

11-12: Back on the enquiry desk, I spend this time processing and issuing out new books that have been recommended for purchase by students. We are fortunate to have a generous book budget so there is always a huge pile of books in various stages of processing that need covering, adding to Aleph and so forth.

Students can also request books they need by simply coming to the enquiry desk and asking, so I usually spend some time fetching and loaning out books on demand. This feels more personal than the Click and Collect service and sometimes leads to interesting conversations about students’ research. I believe that I have gotten to know our students more quickly and comprehensively this year than I otherwise would have since I’m now (perhaps to their chagrin) an intermediary figure between them and their reading.

If it is a quiet morning, I also do a little work on our reclassification project. We are moving towards Library of Congress, however a significant amount of our collections are still classified via our Roman numerals in-house system. I’ll grab 20 or so books from the Classics section (currently IX), switch them over to LoC on Aleph, print new shelfmark labels and shift them over to their new home in the PA’s in the West library.

12-1: Lunch! The librarians at colleges get free lunch and I take full advantage of this. We are big fans of the bread rolls.

1-2: More enquiry desk, more processing, more emails.

2-3.15: Georgie takes over the desk, so I am free to complete my tasks outside the library building. Throughout Michaelmas, my afternoons were dedicated to following through on delivering books to self-isolating students – mostly within college grounds, although I have also cycled to an accommodation site in Cowley for a book delivery. I’ll also swing by the lodge for more parcels, boxes and post, and fetch the more obscure books (usually requested by fellows) from our off-site locations.

3.15-4: The second Click and Collect report arrives, so I do another round of fetching and issuing books. Georgie and I might brainstorm a tweet for the library account, I’ll spend several minutes lamenting that we don’t have library cats like St. Hugh’s (the cornerstone of any truly decent social media presence), and finish my work day at 4pm.

A Day in the Life: Ella and Naomi in the Law Library

Posted on 20 November 2020 by Ella — No Comments ↓

Hello! We have now been in our roles for over two months and thought it would be a good time to share what a typical working day might look like for us both. Aside from daily desk duties and the Wednesday afternoon training sessions that are a brilliant feature of the graduate trainee scheme, we largely have the freedom to structure our days as we please. While no two days are typically identical, this ‘A Day in the Life’ timetable offers a flavour of how we organise our time…

A door leading to the Information Resources office — The mysterious IR office…

08:40

Naomi: Arrive at the library, put things away in locker and walk up to the Information Resources (IR) office where my desk is.

Ella: Arrive at the library, make a cup of tea, get myself sorted and head upstairs to log in.

08:45-08:55

N: Sign into Microsoft Teams, check emails, write a to-do list for the day.

E: Log in to the computer, sign in on Teams and check emails for anything urgent. I’ll also check for Law Bod 4 Students (LB4S) requests at this point – LB4S is an online site available for law students with extra resources, and they can submit requests for material that they can’t find online to be added to it. If any requests have been submitted, I make a note to deal with the request later that morning.

08:55-09:20

N: Shelving books left on the trolleys throughout the library overnight and opening windows.

E: Whizz round the library opening windows (very important at present – helps ventilate, which limits the spread of coronavirus) and shelving books from the day before.

09:20-11:00

N: Morning desk duty. The library opens to readers at 09:30. Sitting at the Enquiry Desk involves signing in readers who have booked seats through the online Space Finder system, answering readers’ enquiries (e.g. explaining where certain books are located, lending power banks, giving directions to other parts of the St. Cross building), and working on other tasks that can be done at a computer, such as building ORLO reading lists (or writing this blog post!).

GIF of Ella demonstrating the mobile shelving unit — Using the mobile shelving

E: I carry on dealing with LB4S requests, double-checking SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) and ORLO (Oxford Reading Lists Online) to see if the material is available online and they’ve just not spotted it. If it isn’t, I email our Research Support Librarian, who has to go through various copyright checks to see if we can make the material available on LB4S. (She also sometimes finds resources I’ve not been able to, as she has more experience dealing with tricky legal databases!)

I’ll also do a bit of scanning for Scan and Deliver, the Bodleian scanning service. I’ll then edit them and send them through to readers.

11:00-11:30

N: Quick socially-distanced tea break in the staff room with Ella… potentially a trip to buy a coffee. Then a brief session stamping Official Papers.

E: Tea Break! An essential part of the morning. Naomi and I occasionally visit The Missing Bean Café in the building (great coffee, friendly barista, sweet treats always look delicious too) but mostly have tea and a socially-distanced natter about our mornings (Bake Off is also a popular topic of discussion – I have strong views about this year’s hosting choices). Then I’ll do some book processing – stamping and tattling if Naomi wants help, or shelving serials. I might also spend some time stamping Official Papers (OP) and attempt to shelve some OP documents (a daunting task as shelf marks can be exceptionally complex). This will usually take me through until lunch.

Rows of shelving which are part of the Official Papers collection — The Official Papers collection

11:30-13:00

N: Book processing tasks such as counting, stamping, labelling and updating spreadsheets to record deliveries of purchased and legal deposit books. We are currently making headway with processing the many books which could not be delivered during the first lockdown, seeing as the Law Library was closed.

13:00-14:00

N: Lunch break. Ella and I eat together in the staff room and then go for a walk around the beautiful University Parks – we love how close they are to the library.

E: You’ll find Naomi and me in the staff room at lunchtime. Sadly, we don’t get a free lunch – the trainees at the college libraries do, and from what I’ve heard the food is delicious, and there’s usually dessert. Although our kitchen boasts a hot water tap, two microwaves and numerous coffee machines, so…

14:00-15:00

N: Time to scan some book chapters and journals for the Scan and Deliver service. After scanning them to a memory stick, I edit the PDFs at my desk and email them to readers.

E: This hour might be spent carrying on with the tasks above, digitising a resource for ORLO, updating an ORLO list or doing some of the other tasks that pop up on an irregular basis. I also help out with the LRMSP (Legal Research and Mooting Skills Programme) which is a module to help undergrads get to grips with finding legal resources and using them in a moot ¹. In the past couple of months it has involved looking over some students’ submissions and figuring out strategies for moving parts of the course online, and we’re currently preparing for online moots, which I might get to help clerk at.

15:00-15:30

Naomi stands at a PCAS machine scanning a book — Doing some scanning

N: I shelve some new serials. These can often be a little trickier to find and shelve correctly than books.

E: Desk duty until 17:00. Naomi has described the main tasks we do while at the enquiry desk. In the background, I’ll be updating the Spanish and Latin American Law LibGuides – online guides to the Bodleian Law Library’s resources.

15:30-16.55

N: Another tea break! Afterwards, I unpack some book deliveries in the post room and fill a trolley to take back to the office. The rest of the afternoon is spent making a start with processing them.

16:55-17:05

N: Tidy things away, say goodbye on Teams, close any open windows in the office, and go down to the staff room.

E: Time to pack up and head home!

1. Moot = a ‘court competition [which] simulates a court hearing (usually an appeal against a final decision), in which participants analyse a problem, research the relevant law, prepare written submissions, and present oral argument’ according to the Oxford Law Faculty.

Emma Gregory, Sainsbury Library

Posted on 11 October 2018 by Emma — No Comments ↓

Hi there! I’m Emma and I am the new trainee at the Sainsbury Library at the Saïd Business School.The Business School was opened in 2002, so the building and the library is one of the newest in Oxford. The Business School has two locations; Egrove Park and Park End, where I currently work.

The Business School offers a variety of courses in business, such as the MBA (Master of Business Administration), Law and Finance, Major Programme Management, and MFE (Master in Financial Economics), to name a few. The library is split into two levels; the upper floor for silent study, and the lower floor (where the main library desk is) for a mixture of quiet study areas and group work spaces.

The library offers many textbooks on all areas of business, as well as several journals and a daily Financial Times. We also have a large number of databases that students can access to research different companies and their financial and economic data. The newer members of staff, myself included, are currently undergoing training on these databases so that we can help students with their enquiries and research.

Some of the books we offer at the library

My days are really mixed and no two are the same! Here’s a quick overview of what I did yesterday:

8.45am – Arrive at work. Today, it’s my turn to set up the front desk for the day. I turn on the computer and the lights, check the photocopiers, re-shelve books that have been returned, and make sure the library is ready for our users.

9am – The day is split into two for the desk duty; the morning and afternoon shift. I usually work one of these a day. I’m working the morning shift today which is 9am to 1pm. The enquiry desk can be challenging at times, as I don’t always know the answers to the questions asked of me, but help is at hand! My colleagues are really patient and helpful, and I’m learning a lot from their answers and training. This morning I had enquiries about how to use the printing system, where to find particular books, and which databases were best to look at for researching different aspects of a certain company. We’ve recently finished welcoming this year’s under- and postgraduate students, so the library is pretty busy now.

1pm – Lunch time. The Saïd Business School has amazing facilities, lots of different options for lunch, and the students are well cared for by all the staff here. I have a free coffee every day too! Yum!

The Cafe offers a wide variety of snacks, and we also have a restaurant that provides hot and cold meals.

2pm – This afternoon, I received a new copy of the Economist and two other journals. As part of my role, it is my responsibility to prepare and process the journals so that they are ‘shelf – ready’. This involves registering the journals, attaching a bar code and preparing security labels for them. I then process the older copies and store them upstairs.

The Economist, one of our weekly journals.

3pm – The Saïd Business School is going through some re-branding so I’m working my way through changing the signs around the library. This week I’m working on changing the labels on the journal holders upstairs. I’m also going through them and making sure they’re all in the correct order.

Part of the re-branding involves me checking the journal labels upstairs.

4.30pm – Throughout the day I make sure all the books are correctly re-shelved and the library is looking tidy and suitable for our users.

5pm – Home time (already!). The days here zoom by for me. I feel like I blink and it’s the end of the day!

I love working here at the Sainsbury Library. It’s really modern with lots of green spaces available for both staff and students. When the weather permits, I like to sit outside for lunch and my breaks.

One of the courtyards around the Business School

I’m learning a lot about search techniques and understanding all the different databases that we have so that I can help the students the best way I can. The days are incredibly varied and I am encouraged and helped by my colleagues everyday. Everyone here has so much knowledge that they’re willing to pass on – I’m well looked after! I’m looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year has in store for me!

A Day In The Life