Monday morning....
I must be one of the luckiest people .....a beautiful sunny morning, a frost so hard it looks like snow. And I have, yes have to drive for half an hour through the glorious Dorset countryside to get to my Monday morning task - to deliver some training to a small group of librarians, tailored to fit the hour before the library opens.
Despite dawdling as much as I dare (most of the cars on the nearly deserted roads are also going to work) I arrive early, and so spend some time taking in the delights of Sainsburys. Supermarkets are a bit of a novelty, living out in the sticks!
The library is light, bright and recently refurbished. I wish I could take a picture on my phone for you to see - but I spent several phone calls at dead of night (no queues) the the nice people near Manchester at Vodafone - Hallo Young Dave, Old Dave and Martin! - and now I can email from my mobile, but unaccountably can't send images by email any more! Swings and roundabouts, eh? Anyway.....I have to wait to give another librarian a lift back to base, and his laptop won't log off the system.
So I am whiling away the time by writing this at the People's Network free computers. Did you know about this wonderful service from all Britain's libraries? Did you also know that you can have an online enquiry chat session with a live librarian at any time, day or night, called Enquire? Even from your bed if you use a laptop! Though you will get an American librarian most of the night of course, as its a partnership.
Oh he's ready now! So off for another trip through the sunny golden countryside, back to my desk with its view of trees and hills.
posted by Val @ 10:45 am
3 Comments:
So, Val, what kind of training do you do? Database and/or internet searching? Do you train across various library sectors (academic, public, corporate)?
I'd love training other librarians. It would be an interesting contrast to training university staff and students. As I work with the humanities, training staff and students in those disciplines can be trying as they are often not very computer literate. However, they make up for it by being, well, humanities people - I can identify with that!
I work for Dorset Library Service - that's public libraries, 34 branch libraries across a rural county.
Training is only a part of my job, and my recent task was to ensure that all library staff out there knew what is on our staff intranet, and the best way to access it. So I went out and about using the Monday morning training slot that most of our libraries have. An hour each Monday before the library opens! Good eh?
But more informally people come to me for anything to do with the internet or computers - that's the informal aspect of training!
We had government money for training library staff in internet searching and general computer applications. It was part of the aim to cascade this knowledge and make e-citizens of the UK population! But that has all dried up now.
Val, that sounds like a great job. If I were not so close to retirement (1-2 years?) I'd like to get into that type of thing. I love troubleshooting problems. One library fantasy I have is being able to wander around the uni library, decked out in some magic costume, and being on call for various queries. The library is thinking about starting something like that (no costumes though!), but I think I'll be retired before it gets off the ground.
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