Update

Been a bit lazy this week, I haven't written anything on my blog. So I am going to write an update of my week- just so I don't get out of the habit of writing.

During the week I had a few one to one mop up inductions with new students who missed their group induction- I tried to keep them brief. By this time of year it is so hard to keep on rolling them out- it actually becomes exhausting. The group inductions were done over 3 days, and I they ended up totalling 18 separate inductions.

Updated my Line manager on what has happened in the last 4 weeks in the library. Always a decent meeting- I usually leave the meeting, feeling more motivated and that I want to run back to my department and start dishing out work. Doesn't always happen sometimes I return to my department full of energy and just start absorbing myself in my tasks.

Last week was also my self imposed deadline for getting back to LMS providers. However I have missed it by a few days, for one reason I wanted to get someone else in my department to read over them...in case I had missed something. Plus I was on leave on Friday. In preparation for this I need to allocate all the students a p-type depending on their course, as we have nearly 2000 students this is going to be tough.

With course validation process starting, I need to provide information on what support the library has offered students in these courses- journal holdings, online databases, number of books purchased and amount of money spent on these courses. In addition to this I have been handed a large number of previous students dissertations. The library keeps the best ones each year...so I have been working out which ones I need to keep, digitalise and catalogue.

Writing a policy for the college's interlibrary loans- need to present this at academic board in November. Done roughly half the work but I need to write it for a different audience- senior management team.

Read a couple of articles on libraries, more public libraries- so interesting back ground reading, but nothing worth writing about.

Plus I have redesigned our store cupboard..need to get a few bits of furniture next week.

Fellowship- no real progress has been made. I have signed up to a professional CV writing session, which should help me, as at the moment my CV is ok... but not great. I think it is lacking the detail of what I do. But I work in a company where "we are only ever one member of staff deep" this means that I end up being a jack of all trades.

Friday I was on holiday, which was great..I did a 5 miles walk, caught up on some TV and managed to get my sons play room sorted.

Next week is already looking busy- Monday alone, I have a lunch meeting with pre-degree staff about what I can offer there students in the research week. Plus our book sale starts on Monday. Tuesday and Thursday are looking like there might be some time to work on the LMS situation. Friday I am teaching Havard Referencing to A level students.

Inductions 2015 Day one.

Today was the first day of the 2015 inductions. After having throat problems during the summer, resulting in two throat operations, I was pretty concerned with having to start this year's inductions, having to talk for hours on end is going to be tough. But day one is done, only 8 days left.

Day one, 5 inductions over the course of the day, which I did 4 of them. This year I was asked to create a simply Harvard referencing guide for students on day one. To me this felt a little harsh...welcome to the college, now lets learn Harvard referencing. My work sheet was aimed at 16 year old, and was a simple fill in the blanks form

But the sessions went pretty well. The first, as a little ropey, I missed some information out and my usually well organised speech was a little jumbled. By the second group  I was feeling more relaxed and started to enjoy the experience. I will reflect on this for my fellowship.

Having a new cohort of student in the college does give the place a buzz, but it takes some time to get the students to learn our rules. Firstly I had to explain to a student why they should not be smoking on college ground- clearly ignoring the large sites requesting people do not smoke on the site. Or having to explain to loved up students that the library is a place for learning, reading and researching not kissing.

Though I have to say the funniest part of the day was over hearing a conversation in the girl's toilets.
Girl one: do you know how to spell gangster?
Girl two: g-a-n-s-t-e-r
Girl one: (typing in to her phone)- no that's not right... it's GANG- STER
Girl two: oh you want the right spelling.

Generally I was quite confused about this, but it did make me laugh.