A Day in the Life at the SSL

Posted on 5 February 2015 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

As I have now settled into the Social Science Library, I thought it would be nice to write a ‘Day in the Life’ like previous cohorts have done to give a bit of insight into what being a Trainee can involve!

As there are two of us in the Social Science Library, we share the workload by focusing on different tasks each week. This week I’m concentrating on Technical Services tasks.

9.00 – I arrive at the library and meet with a member of the SOLO User Group. SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online) is the Oxford University catalogue. Another trainee and I were given the opportunity to join the user group, but during the first meeting a lot of things went over my head! It’s interesting to get some background about the group (and understand the acronyms!) and I also get some useful information about distance learning options for library school.

10.00 – Time for my shift on the Issue Desk. As Trainees we are on the desk for several hours each day. You never really know what you’re going to be asked but I have just about got to grips with some of the more common queries which tend to be regarding issuing book, stack requests (more about them later) and problems with printing. Today I also change a printer cartridge and don’t get ink all over myself which I consider a small triumph.

11.00 – Tea break. Today is the Reader Services Librarian’s last day, so everyone gathers for cake (it was delicious!).

Libraries are run on cake

11.25 – Time to start on my Technical Services tasks. The main part of this being book processing. This involves doing some basic work on Aleph like adding shelfmarks. Followed by adding stamps, security tattle tape and labels. The library receives books that are shelf ready, books from legal deposit and books that we have bought online, and each needs a slightly different amount of processing (definitely no stamps in the legal deposit books!).

Physical Book processing – stamps and plates

13.00 – Lunch. Today I’m reading The Humans by Matt Haig which I would thoroughly recommend.

14.00 – More book processing.

14.30 – Back on the Issue Desk. Around this time, we normally receive our afternoon delivery of stack requests from the Bodleian Storage Facility in Swindon. I check them in to our library and add them to our stack request shelf. Luckily there is only one box today but sometimes we can get loads.

15.00 – Every week in term time we have a Reader Services meeting. This is quite useful for knowing about any new procedures or any other issues that have come up on the desk. Today we’re told about how some inter-library loans can now be taken out of the library and the procedure involved.

15.30 – Journal survey time. The SSL is currently surveying all the print journal stock to see if there is anything we can move out to the BSF or remove to make more space. As our current holdings are incorrect, I am surveying what is actually on the shelves and making a note of what volumes of each journal we have and how many metres of shelving it takes up. It is interesting to see how the design of some of the periodicals have changed over the years when we have volumes from several decades. I spot some volumes today from the 1880s that carry right on through until 2013.

16.30 – Another aspect of the Trainee Technical Services tasks is book repairs. We assess books that are in need of repair to see whether they should be replaced, sent to conservation, a commercial bindery or repaired in-house. Today I repair a couple of books that have a page loose and put them under a very high-tech weight (i.e. a brick) to dry.

Book repairs

17.00 – Just enough time for some more book processing. Some of the books I have been labelling need covering, which means an opportunity to channel my inner Blue Peter presenter to wrestle with what is effectively sticky back plastic and hope I don’t get any air bubbles!

17.30 – Time to go! As its the Reader Services librarian’s last day, we are off to the pub for her leaving drinks.

Rebecca Wray, Social Science Library

Posted on 15 December 2014 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

Hello my name is Rebecca and I’m one of the new trainees at the Social Science Library (SSL). This is only my third week on the job as I joined the scheme a bit later than everyone else because sadly, another trainee had to leave the scheme. I’m from Bath originally and I graduated from Oxford Brookes University in Psychology in June. Before starting at the SSL I had been working in the Oxford Brookes libraries as a Communication Intern.

The Bodleian Social Science Library

You could say that choosing librarianship has a genetic factor in my case. My Mum is a Librarian and her parents met at library school in Birmingham. But I didn’t seriously consider the career until the realisation at university that I had become the go-to person in my circle of friends for finding obscure journal articles and referencing questions. Through various jobs at university I’d always liked helping people so working in libraries seemed like a good choice (much to the delight/horror of my Mum!).

My first two weeks in the SSL have been quite intense, with lots of training to catch up on. The SSL is a very busy library that offers a lot of services to readers so most of the training so far has been getting me set up to work on the issue desk. Thankfully as its the vacation period at the moment my first few stints have been fairly gentle!

Other than working on the Issue Desk myself and the other lovely SSL trainee Ceri deal with other Reader Services (front of house) type tasks like answering emails, dealing with books that have been returned to the wrong library, looking after the library’s social media accounts and hunting down missing books. After Christmas I’ll be trained on the Technical Services side of things, like repairing and processing books.

Last week we also had the added challenge of putting Christmas decorations up in and around the library. The garland mysteriously got quite a lot of attention on Twitter!

The (slightly wonky) SSL Christmas garland

So far it’s been a little bit overwhelming as there are lots of new things to learn but I’m really enjoying it. I am looking forward to things getting more familiar though, so I don’t have to bombard Ceri with so many questions!

My year as a Graduate Trainee at the Bodleian Social Science Library: Trainee Projects!

Posted on 25 June 2014 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

I first published this post on the old Graduate Trainee Blog (sorry about that!), so I am re-publishing it here in its proper home.

Being a trainee at the Bodleian Social Science Library has been a really interesting and rewarding experience. I’ve learnt a lot and have been involved with some really enjoyable projects, two of which I would like to talk to you about now.

Twitter at the SSL

Like most people before they start a new job I wanted to find out as much as possible about the place I would be spending the next year before I actually started. Luckily the SSL has a very good website with lots of information on it, but as a semi-frequent ‘tweeter’ I noticed the lack of SSL presence on the social media website, Twitter. In a sense, though, this was a good thing, as it meant that when I started my trainee year I knew exactly what my first project would be!

After agreeing that I would go ahead and create a Twitter account for the Library with the Reader Services Librarian, I consulted with one of my colleagues, the Senior Library Assistant (Research Support), who had already been thinking about how Twitter might be set up for the SSL. She directed me towards several books on the subject and suggested a few useful people to follow. Thankfully I was quite used to how Twitter works and it didn’t take me too long before I was ready to get started.

After looking at lots of different Twitter profiles and how other libraries had set themselves up on the website, we decided to go for a simple approach and chose SSL colours (grey and purple) for the profile’s background. The profile has since been updated to the new style which does not show the colours quite as they were originally, but the famous SSL purple can still be seen here and there!

The SSL’s Twitter profile

After some research and deliberation, I took the advice I found in some of the books I had read about Twitter; I created a macrocosm of 10 tweets that would act as a good example of what the SSL’s Twitter feed would be like. These 10 tweets were comprised of factual information and slightly more light-hearted and interesting things to prevent the feed from becoming too boring. These more light-hearted posts would always be related to the Social Sciences, Libraries, or Higher Education, to keep it relevant to our readers. It was only after this had been done that we started to think about who we would follow and how we would interact with others.

We decided that, as one of the Bodleian Libraries, it would be appropriate to follow the other libraries who were on Twitter. We also decided to follow the University Colleges and departments that seemed relevant to us, and then a few external Tweeters like the LSE Impact Blog (@LSEImpactBlog) and the British Library (@britishlibrary). This all helps to keep us up to date with things that might affect us, and also provides us with new material to retweet for our followers.

Recently it has also been my job to write a comprehensive set of instructions in a Staff Manual entry for using Twitter at the SSL. As it turns out, writing instructions can be quite a length process. It has been very useful though, as by going through everything in detail I have been able to spot some ways that current processes can be improved, leading to a more effective service for our readers.

So far Twitter seems to be working well. It helps to ensure all of the information we need our readers to know is getting out where they can see it, and it provides a good method for readers to get in contact with us if they have any concerns. Of course, this can work both ways too…

Existential Crisis — I must admit I felt a little bad about this one…

SSL <3 Your Books Project

In addition to dealing with the Library’s social media output, trainees at the Social Science Library are responsible for assessing and repairing damaged books under the guidance of the Acquisitions Senior Library Assistant. As part of trying to improve the general care of our collection we decided to launch the ‘SSL <3 Your Books Project’ (also known as the ‘SSL Love Your Books Project’). This project hoped to tackle collection care at the level of readers, by encouraging them to take steps to look after the books that they borrowed from us.

While many of us worked on different aspects of the project, I was responsible for creating a small selection of bookmarks that would be handed out to readers during the week that we promoted the project. After taking various factors into consideration (like what we would like the bookmarks to look like, what message we were trying to get across, and whether we could afford to print them using a commercial maker) we decided to use a simple and colourful design on sturdy white paper-card. We decided to advertise the project on one side of each bookmark, and on the reverse each would advertise a different part of the Technical Services team at the SSL.

Here is a picture of the finished product, along with the project’s logo:-

In addition to this I was also responsible for writing and publishing the Blog post that would go live on the SSL’s blog, and drafting the information that would go on the SSL’s website (even where the information would be displayed and how a user might navigate towards it!). Though this took some time, I hope you’ll agree that they explain everything you might want to know about the project. These pages can all be found at http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ssl/2014/03/03/ssl-love-books-project/, http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ssl/services/caring-for-the-collection and http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ssl/services/caring-for-the-collection/ssl-love-books-project.

I feel like I’ve done rather a lot during my trainee year, and I very much hope that next year’s trainees all get to experience as much as I have. This will be the last post from me as I leave next week to take up a permanent role at one of the Colleges… Wish me luck!

Luke Jackson-Ross – Graduate Trainee – Bodleian Social Science Library

Anja Badock, Social Science Library

Posted on 23 September 2013 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

Hello, my name is Anja and I am one of the two trainees at the Social Science Library (SSL). I graduated three years ago from the University of Sheffield with a BA in History. Since then I have been working as a Learning Support Assistant in a couple of secondary schools. It was a hugely rewarding job which showed me that I really enjoy (and am quite good at) helping people in an educational setting. I was eager to challenge myself further and learn something new which is why I applied to the University of Oxford for this traineeship. I didn’t expect to be invited for an interview let alone be offered a job, yet here I am. So, if there is anyone out there considering whether it would be worth your while applying next year, my advice would be to just go for it.

As you will have noticed from the picture, the SSL is certainly not one of the most traditional of libraries at the the University of Oxford. The lack of the history, however, is made up for by the sheer amount of great experience I am being offered (as well as the stupendously friendly staff). In just the few weeks that I have been working at the SSL I have learnt so much already. Luke (my fellow trainee) and I were given quite an extensive training programme in our first week and a half. At first for me this seemed like a vast mountain of information all of which I would never be able to remember. However, thankfully, it wasn’t quite as overwhelming as it first seemed. This is a relief since in a few weeks we will be inundated with new undergraduates who will look to me for guidance (poor souls). I am looking forward to the time when many of the tasks I am only just getting to grips with seem second nature. As the SSL is quite a large and busy subject library, we trainees have the chance to experience many different aspects of library work here. From supporting readers at the desk to all of the work that gets done behind the scenes, Luke and I get a taste of all of it which should give us a really firm foundation for the future.

It has been a nerve-wracking experience moving away from my family and friends in Leicestershire, but the transition has been made really easy by the fact that Oxford is such a lovely city and I have met so many friendly and interesting people. I wish all of my fellow trainees a wonderful, enriching year and I look forward to getting to know you all better.

Library Trainee Day in the Life – Day 1

Posted on 28 January 2013 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

It’s a short life being a trainee, only 6 months in to our jobs and already a lot of them are being advertised for the next group of trainees to take over in September. With this in mind we thought it might be a good idea for the current trainees to blog an average day for where we work. There is a great deal of diversity for the trainees as each work place comes with different roles and different sets of challenges, from large subject specialist libraries, to college libraries, to the university archive – no day is the same for each of us. Hopefully the posts over the next two weeks will give you an idea of the kind of work we do, as well as pointing out the similarities and differences in each work place.

08:30 – 9:00 Opening up

As the SSL is quite a big library I don’t have to open up every day but today is my day to be in at 8.30 to make sure we can open the doors at 8.45, and there is already a group of students waiting for us to open when I arrive. Reader and issue desk computers are switched on, discussion rooms unlocked, printer paper topped up, and holds that have not been collected by users before they expire are reshelved. At 9am we bring in the returns box which is kept outside the library doors over night and return all the books from there.

09:00 – 9:30 Email queries

There are usually a lot of email queries to answer first thing in the morning so it takes me half an hour to get everything in the inbox answered. With two trainees in the SSL both doing the same job we manage to keep on top of things quite well even at busy times, so the email account is checked frequently throughout the day as well. The emails we get range from people telling us why they haven’t been able to return books, to researchers asking about access to databases or how to locate a rare report. Some of what we get (such as requests about purchasing items or inter library loans) can be forwarded on to the most appropriate person in the library, but if it is something we can answer for them (with a bit of research ourselves) then we always try to. We also take care of booking out our discussion rooms which are heavily used during term time. This can take some time to do as we also update the website so people can check themselves when the rooms are available, today there is only one room booking so I can move on to the next task quickly once that is done.

09:30 – 10:00 Book repair assessments

As a heavily used lending library we do get a lot of books returned that are in various states of needing repair, a lot of times it is simply a badly bound book that has fallen apart just by being opened. This morning I spend half an hour assessing the books that may need repair as the pile is getting ever larger. I first make sure the book is showing as “in repair” on the catalogue so that readers know it is out of circulation. There are then a series of checks such as if the book is on a reading list, if it is heavily in demand, if it can be repaired or needs to be sent for rebinding, how much it would cost to replace. We seem to have quite a lot of books that cannot be repaired so I prioritise which ones are on reading lists as they will have to be sent to the bindery first. Later this week we will box up the books to be sent off and arrange for them to be collected.

10:00 – 10:45 Team meeting

Once a week in term time we have a reader services team meeting. This is a great chance for us to get together and discuss any issues we may need to know about. It is also a good opportunity for staff to be reminded about things which may come up on the desk. This is useful because there are a lot of new people on the team so it’s good to hear about things we may not have encountered before. This week we’re being reminded about the change from vacation rules about storing people’s books behind the desk for them, and about our core text collection.

10:45 – 11:05 Time for a tea break.

11:05 – 11:25 Email queries

I check the email account again and notice a few long queries from readers who had returned books over the weekend but were still on their account. I have a look for the books which I find and let them know I’ve removed it from their account. Sometimes we have to email them back to say we can’t find the book and a few days later they let us know they accidentally returned it to another library, which his very easy to do in Oxford given how many libraries there are.

11:25 – 12:00 Book Processing

Now it’s time to do some book processing. We get a lot of new books in from the Bodleian which we will keep at the SSL so these need shelfmarks putting on and need alarms putting in them, but we also get a lot of books we have purchased which are shelf ready. With both types I have to check the shelfmark is correct then input data on to our system so that the book appears correctly in the catalogue. As soon as that is done the books can be put out to be shelved or placed on the ‘New Books’ display if they’re interesting looking.

12:00 – 12:30 Issue Desk

My first stint of the day on the issue desk is just before lunch. Every staff member in the SSL takes turns on the issue desk so we’re normally only on for an hour at a time, half an hour at very busy times. Today is especially busy. With term just starting there are a lot of books returning so I’m on my feet constantly returning and issuing books. I deal with a few issues from readers about how to set up printing accounts and how to use the binding machine. At the SSL we have information sheets for pretty much anything so after a quick explanation most people are happy to go away with a leaflet and work on it themselves. Although sometimes things (ie computers) don’t work the way they’re supposed to so it can take a bit longer to help someone get access.

12:30 – 1:30 Lunch time

1:30 – 2:30 Issue Desk

I’m straight back on the issue desk after lunch and it’s still very busy in the library. I have a reader who has brought a friend along from an Italian university and they would like access to study in the library for the day. I issue them with a day pass which we can give for up to three days, any more I tell them, and you’ll have to go to Bodleian admissions to get a card. I spent probably 5 minutes unjamming a stapler that has decided to eat some staples and not give them back, the reader I’m doing this for seems very amused when I get out some tweezers to release the blockage – I have clearly done this before. The afternoon delivery arrives from the Book Storage Facility in Swindon so I spend half an hour scanning in the stack requests readers have ordered. Today there are 5 boxes of books so it takes a while as I also have to keep issuing/returning/helping with enquiries at the desk. I think the longest it has taken us to receive in one box of stack requests is an hour due to how busy the desk is.

2:30 – 3:30 Shelving

With 1000s of books being returned after the Christmas vacation the reshelving trolleys are overflowing so we try to reshelve as often as we can at the beginning of term. We have to make sure that all reference books are reshelved within 24 hours and other items within 48, so far this year I think we’ve succeeded!

3:30 – 3:50 Afternoon break

I grab a cup of tea for my afternoon break but end up spending it checking the email account and answering some queries about late returns. A few readers have left books at home over the vacation so they can’t yet return them. I make sure the books are renewed to give them a bit more time to return them and I also put a note on their account to say they’ve been in touch as we always try to help people who let us know if they’re having problems returning books

3:50 – 4:30 Missing book search

When a reader reports to us at the desk that they can’t find a book a form is filled out with the details and it is the trainees job to search for the books. This is one of my most favourite and least favourite parts of the job, usually depending on if I can find the book. It is very satisfying to be able to help someone who urgently needs an item that has been missing for a while. It’s also very frustrating when you can’t find it, we just have to hope it’s here somewhere and will turn up so we search every few days for missing books. I also spend this time looking for some books that people have told us they returned but are still on their account. We search for these books quite a few times in case they are definitely here but in the wrong place. Today I find one missing book but the reader who wanted it hasn’t left their details so I can’t tell them it’s been found, I put it back in the correct place and hope they find it later.

4:30 – 5:00 Wrapping up the day

There are lots of other things that the SSL trainees do but this is not the kind of job where you have the same duties every day so I take a look at a list of things I need to do to see if there is anything else for today. There are a few books from the Radcliffe Science Library which have been returned here by mistake so I contact the reader and ask them to come and pick the books up. I realise I haven’t dealt with any incoming post today so Sara must have done it all earlier, I quickly check to see if there is anything delivered this afternoon and there are a few bits of post for staff which I pop in their post trays. I note down that today I haven’t done anything from my list of low use books to be removed from circulation, or books to change the status from reference only to normal loan, there are also more books to be processed and we need to start processing the books going to the bindery, these are all on my list for tomorrow.

Trainee project showcase – From QEH to LoC: reclassifying pamphlets in the SSL

Posted on 15 July 2011 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

For our trainee project we have been reclassifying the pamphlets in the SSL from an in-house classification scheme to Library of Congress. The pamphlets came over from the International Development Centre at Queen Elizabeth House in 2005 and cover a huge range of topics including constitutional and conference publications, political and economic reports. Some of these pamphlets are actually the only copies held in Oxford and often date back to the 1940’s and 50’s, so altogether they make a really interesting, almost archival collection.

Why was the reclassification needed? We are still using the shelf marks from QEH, whereas the rest of the SSL uses Library of Congress, which is familiar to our readers and they can already navigate it. Also, the boxes were messy, with unequal amounts in them, and were underused. We hope that reclassifying the section will improve their use and accessibility.

After a brief explanation of Library of Congress classification the presentation then shows the steps we go through in order to assign each pamphlet with a new shelfmark. This involves looking at the item’s MARC record to find the subject heading which can then be used to find a relevant shelfmark on Classificationweb. The final part of the shelfmark is then constructed using information taken from the MARC record such as the author’s name and the publication date. Once a new shelfmark has been found we then update the holdings so that the new shelfmark appears on the catalogue. By processing the reclassified pamphlets in the same way and keeping them all in one section we hope that they will be easy for staff and readers to find.

The project has been going really well, and we are making steady progress. We won’t finish the whole section, but we will be passing it on to another member of staff. It has been an enjoyable project, especially getting to read the pamphlets! It’s also been a fantastic opportunity to learn assigning original classification, which is a really useful skill that not everyone has the chance to learn, especially as a graduate trainee.

From QEH to LoC – Lauren & Ruth from Oxford Trainees

View more presentations from Oxford Trainees

British Library Study Day: Engaging through the Online World

Posted on 24 February 2011 by ahernm — No Comments ↓

On Thursday 17^th February, we attended a study day at the British Library, along with other Bodleian staff in the social science division and representatives from LSE and the British Library. The objective was to discuss prospects and problems for social science librarians and researchers regarding engaging through the online world.

After a nice cup of tea, but sadly no biscuits, Jude England, Head of Social Sciences, gave an introduction to the day and recent developments in the BL. This included their fittingly named ‘2020 Vision’, which will see, among many others, mass participation, crowd sourcing, and supporting research for economic and social benefit.

This introduction was then followed by a talk from guest speaker Karen Phillips, the Editorial Director from Sage Publications. She began by giving a brief outline of the picture of research around the world today, highlighting a growth of investment, a changing geographical and disciplinary spread as well as a move towards new models of publishing as technology changes, including open access and multi-media websites. To illustrate these, she offered the examples of SAGE Open and SAGE Research Methods Online. Overall her talk provided a unique insight into the relationship between publishers and libraries, at times inspiring almost heated debate. It was certainly interesting to see a publisher fend off a room full of librarians!

A little later than scheduled, presentations showcasing Online Developments at the British Library began with Linda Arnold-Stratford, Lead for Management and Business Studies, introducing the new Management and Business Studies Portal, which offers remote access to the BL’s business collections.

Following this, Gill Ridgley, Lead for Sport, Sociology and Cultural Studies, gave an overview of the new site Sport and Society: examining the Summer Olympics and Paralympics through the lens of Social Science. This site, divided into subject, showcases the BL’s collections on sport and Olympics. It includes contributions from academics, publishers, archivists, politicians and BL colleagues. The site also offers links and gateways to a range of related resources.

Next Luke McKernan, Lead for Moving Image, presented Video Server, part of the current Growing Knowledge exhibition. The moving image collection works with outside providers to create a comprehensive collection of news programmes, recorded selectively across 18 channels. These video clips are searchable by subtitle text, making television as searchable as a newspaper. Video Server will become a reading room service from September 2011, though unfortunately will not be made available for remote access due to copyright issues.

To round off the BL’s presentations of their online developments, Jonnie Robinson, Lead for Sociolinguistics and Education, gave an introduction to the popular BL exhibition Evolving English: one language, many voices. Including archival sound recordings, for example of accents and dialects or children’s playground games, this page is the most visited on the BL website, with 15,000 visits or plays per month, and figures suggest Evolving English will be the most visited BL exhibition ever. The exhibition demonstrates the social, cultural and historical influences on the English language through a collection of material, such as slang dictionaries and medieval manuscripts, as well as copious sound recordings. You can even leave your own recording at one of the ‘voice banks’, either by reading a chosen passage from Mr Tickle, or a list of six words. The website also offers the chance to ‘map your voice’, and listen to those who have already contributed. For both of us, this was definitely the highlight of the day.

After lunch, Matthew Shaw, Lead Curator of North American History, reflected on the Growing Knowledge exhibition, which showcases a variety of innovative research tools. The public are invited to try out these 25 different tools, with the most popular including Mendeley, the UK Web Archive, and joVE.

The day rounded off with a workshop session, discussing prospects and problems for researchers and librarians in an online world, as well as collaborative ideas for the coalition in the future. Although this was a rather terrifying experience, it was really interesting to hear discussion on such important topics in the information profession from people who have experienced these issues first hand.

As an optional extra, we were then given a tour of the Evolving English exhibition, a lovely way to round off the day despite having to make a dash for the train. We definitely recommend a visit!

Ruth and Lauren

Library Day in the Life – Bodleian Social Science Library

Posted on 26 January 2011 by ahernm — 2 Comments ↓

I had intended to blog about a week for the Library day in the Life project but failed to note down anything past Tuesday morning. In any case, I think Monday was quite an accurate representation of an average term-time day as a Graduate Trainee at the Social Science Library.

Monday 24th January, 2011

8.40 – I arrived early, my usual start time is 9am, to open up. As there are three of us opening up, it gets done pretty quickly. I log onto the issue desk PCs, but as they take a while to get going, I open up the different rooms, large and small discussion rooms, IT training room, and the lesser used media room. I also switch on the Sunray computers, which are open access straight to the online catalogue and internet, and make sure the photocopiers are full of paper.

9.00 – I check my post tray, which has a room booking slip from the evening staff, which they didn’t have time to complete. As it’s a booking for this afternoon, I turn on my computer and can check the library emails first.

9.10 – I open up Microsoft Outlook and have a quick scan of my own emails… I’ve been offered an interview for UCL! And there’s no one in the workroom to tell (Lauren doesn’t get in til 9.45)! I open up the main library email account. Mostly it’s emails that can be moved straight into a folder, or simply forwarded on, but there are also a few cancellations for the Graduate Search Clinics. This can be quite frustrating, as we had a lot of trouble with more bookings than spaces. There are also two messages about reader’s accounts that are blocked due to invoiced books that were actually returned. I clear up their accounts and explain the mistake and apologise.

9.30 – I do the room booking from my post tray and a couple of others from the emails and print out the posters.

9.45 – Lauren arrives and checks the printer for invoices. There aren’t any today, so I clear my desk a little. I have accumulated a pile of books for the beginnings of our trainee project. We will be creating an online guide to good academic writing, using LibGuide software. I add the details of these books to our growing bibliography and put them out on the shelving trolleys behind the issue desk. Meanwhile, Lauren has started on the claimed returns. The SSL is a very busy lending library, and as such it’s often easy to miss a book here or there when scanning in. It is the trainee’s job to search for these twice, email the reader to check at home and any other libraries they use, and then make the book missing if it isn’t found.

10.00 – We send out a Graduate Search Clinic reminder email and invoice a reader who knows book is lost before the automated invoice is sent out. For this I check the price on Dawsons, add an administrative hold and a message block on the reader’s account, and send the letter to their college address.

10.20 – We set to work on our other project. This will be reclassifying the pamphlets into Library of Congress, and we need to write a poster to let readers know. While I’m doing this, I’m handed a phone message from the desk voicemail, and vaguely remember the person and why they were calling. It was an academic who has been in and out of the country recently, whose books have reached invoicing point. He had been confused about the process and wanted them renewed, so I had asked the Reader Services Librarian if we could make an exception.

11 – Tea break. There are chocolate muffins and banana cake.

11.20 – I have a look at the academic’s account and read through our previous correspondence to familiarise before I phone him back. I hate phoning people, so I try to write down the steps of what I will say! I also have a brief look through the minutes from last week’s Reader Services meeting, which I missed due to some training.

12-12.30 – I’m on desk duty, and as it’s a quiet moment, I phone the academic, and once I’ve hung up, I put together a formal email with breakdown of account, which he requested since it was a confused situation.

12.30 – Lunch.

1.30-2.30 – I’m on the desk again for an hour. It’s mostly PCAS problems, deciphering what people actually want; “I’m looking for [title said really fast]. It’s here”. It turns out a lecturer had asked the library to keep some of his own books behind desk for his students to consult, but it can get confusing as we have offprints, core course (3hr loans), reservations, and stack requests behind the desk.

2.45 – The stack requests arrive from the Bodleian. We get two deliveries a day, but the trainees only have to process the afternoon delivery. We have a 3pm deadline, but they have been late getting to the library recently. We have to check the items are right, scan them on OLIS, and we are still putting in red ‘This book cannot be removed from the library’ slips when students start asking for them. A wrong item has also been sent to us; part of the shelf mark 220 is mistaken for 200 (this happens fairly often). I help on the desk a little, as it gets busy on the hour when students come out from lectures and answer some PCAS queries (I turn it off and on again).

3.30 – I check the emails yet again! I also look up the phone number for H Floor of the Bodleian to get the right book sent.

4.00 – tea break

4.30 – I phone the stacks to send the correct book and email the reader to let them know it’s delayed but on its way. Then it’s onto some shelving. The SSL has a standard of re-shelving books within two days and confined (reference only) books and journals within one day, which means before shelving we need to check what’s next on the list and tick it off when we’re done. I shelve until the end of the day, and then it’s time to pile on my layers and fetching high-vis vest, and cycle home.

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