Moving On

After a summer of interviews, interviews, and more interviews, I have accepted a position at a public library in Virginia.

I'm having mixed feelings about this. I don't feel nearly as good about this move as I did when we moved to Montana. But we all know how that worked out, so maybe this is good thing. When I flew down to Virginia a week and a half ago, the staff were all very excited and kept telling me how much they wanted me to come and work for them. And I really want to go work with them, but I'm not sure how well I'm going to fit in. They may be expecting a programing, social media guru, and I'm not that. Yes, I've done my fair share of programing and I know how to use social media, but those aren't my best areas of librarianship, and I'm not sure how much of lit and RA skills I'll be able to use there.

So, expectations.

Yes, I believe I'm having some expectation anxiety here. I didn't have much of those for the Glasgow job because, 1) I hadn't met the staff beforehand; and 2) I was going to be the head honcho. I could use all of my skills in whatever way I saw fit.

After word reached the Glasgow library staff that I was moving, one of the assistants told me that the Board was considering asking me back. I don't know if that happened at the last public board meeting or in a private meeting, but it's come as a shock. A part of me wants to stay here. A part of me really wants to run this library. I know I could do good here.

I also know I couldn't work with the current board. About two weeks ago, one of them appeared at story time with her grand-kids. She hung out afterwards and tried to talk to me. This is the first time any of the board members have attempted this, outside of board meetings and the polite "Hellos" they've given me in the grocery store. I'm afraid I didn't let her say much. You know how scary quiet people can get when they finally loose it and explode? Yep, that was me. Its possible she wanted to talk to me about coming back, but if it was, she choose the worst way to start a conversation with me. Maybe if she hadn't started off by asking about my job hunt, I wouldn't have become an angry Fluttershy.

But, the board hasn't tried to contact me since, so if were reconsidering me, they haven't been very vocal about it. Its not like they don't have my phone number and email. There are other ways to reach me besides hanging out at story time.

So the mixed feelings probably aren't going to go away until the uhaul is packed, the car is loaded and we pull out of this little, middle of nowhere town.

Blindsided in Glasgow

And here I thought things were going so well.

We've been very busy in the Johnston household. First, we moved from Japan to Boise, ID. Mark had several interviews lined up and he aced them all. So we were going to stay in Boise. Then he found out he couldn't start right away, like they told him he could. Because of his international background, it was going to take a month to complete his background check. But that was okay, because he had another job offer in Utah. So we moved to Utah and stayed in my parents rental in Roy. He had to wait to pass his CDL before he could start training, but that was okay. Training wouldn't start until the end of April anyway which gave him time to study.

Meanwhile, I had been contact with a little library in the middle of nowhere Montana that was looking for a new director. A gentleman from their local workforce services department had found my information somewhere and invited me to apply. He said the board was interested in giving me an interview and they were figuring out how that interview was going to take place. I didn't want to drive all the way out there without some sort of compensation. Gas is expensive, and if I was going to travel to an interview without a firm offer, then there were better options then this place. But, they decided to try a Skype interview. Unfortunately, none of them knew how to work Skype. The first twenty minutes or so of my interview was my instructing them in how to connect with someone though Skype. They hadn't bothered to try to research that before the interview, and none of them had an account set up. Thank goodness one of the board member's spouses had a Facebook account (You can now Skype through Facebook. Its kind of neat.) or the interview probably wouldn't have taken place at all.

I thought the interview went well, but not fabulous. To my surprise, the next day they called and offered me the job. I accepted. That was on a Wednesday. The next Tuesday we drove off to the middle of nowhere Montana.

Flying into Boise to arriving in Glasgow, MT took 18 days. Things were falling into place. We didn't have a place to live yet, but we had several leads and another board member was kind enough to put us in her basement while we waited. It didn't take long. Housing is very rare here. There's an oil boom happening in North Dakota, and Glasgow is close enough to get spill over from that. Plus the railroad has been hiring, so there's a large influx of new families and not enough housing to go around. I think if someone were to build an apartment complex, it would do very well. So were extremely blessed to find the rental that we did as quickly as we did. We moved in on April 25th, only a week after we arrived.

I had started work on April 19th. I wasn't suppose to start until we found housing. But with nothing to do but wait on that, I decided I may as well be working; earning some money and learning about the library's systems and the community. I got no formal training. One board member gave me a tour of the library. The previous director volunteered a couple of hours to give me an overview on some of the administrative procedures. My total training time with other people had been less then 8 hours, barely a full day. The previous director had been very sweet in letting me call her whenever I have had questions. The staff have been marvelous in showing me how things have been done. But most of the systems were a matter of trail and error. At the same time I'm making lists of contacts, finding out the current status of several different projects and grants, getting my name put on all the library accounts, sending out press releases on current library programs, brainstorming new programs, deciphering the budget, creating staff schedules, reading book reviews, ordering new materials, researching prices for new library furniture, and creating new incident procedures. I'm learning how the current procedures work so I can figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed to be patron friendly and/or efficient.

As of May 3rd, 5:30 PM MST, we are jobless again. And I don't know why. That night was my first board meeting. I had meet all of the board during my interview of course. Since I started work they had all dropped in to say "hi" and "welcome" but not much else. The first thing they said to me was "You're not really what we were looking for. You're not what we expected so we're offering you a severance package. We think its very generous. You'll be given two weeks pay. Do you have any personal items in the office? No. Then we'll have your keys. Bye." I tried asking what is was I've done to make them come to that conclusion. They won't tell me. Only that I don't match their vision. They're sorry for the miscommunication. More like no communication. How am I suppose to work on their vision when they won't tell me what it is?

The longest conversation I had with any of them was on a car ride back from a library federation meeting in Wolf Point. I had gotten a ride out with another director from Malta. (I was a stop along her way, and when I accepted her offer, I didn't know who, if any, of the board member were going.) Since I arrived I had been warned to beware of a couple of the board members. That they seems like nice people, but they were very hard to work with. This particular board member had struck me as being kind a bully, and I'm wary of bullies. So I was that thrilled to be riding with her, but I did want to get to know her and what she wanted for the library. Our conversation was not very enlightening. She had a few ideas of what she wanted. Booktalks to all the book clubs in town, visits to the schools and unincorporated towns in the county, which I was all for. But she didn't know how many book clubs there actually were in town or how to reach any of them, other then her own. Nor did know how many towns there were in the county. So I put that on my list of things to research. I'm afraid I wasn't very forthcoming with my own ideas because a lot of them were, and still are, half formed. I had only been on the job for a week and was still feeling overwhelmed with everything I had to learn. It didn't help that we had just come from a federation meeting where I had learned even more was required of me. I don't know if that car ride was my undoing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was.

And the terrible thing is that I keep thinking of things to make the library better. Other views on our situation: Something Rotten in the Town of Glasgow Fired Librarian's Tenure a Short Story

Pigeonholed

In my last job I was an Adult Services Librarian in a large library systems. I worked in the central library where cross-training and mixing of departments was not done. The people at the circulation desk never watched the reference desk, the children's librarians never ventured off of their floor, and the only time the adult reference librarians visited another department, it was probably to borrow their color printer. And that's just between the public service departments. Interaction between them and technical services was even more problematic, unless you were a II or a department head. I believe there were over 100 people working at the central when I was there, and although I could recognize a great many of them, I couldn't name them all. Many I only knew through email and never saw face to face too.

I worked in one of the smaller branches for a few months as well, and it was nothing like central. Everyone knew each other, by face and name, and helping out in each others departments was a lot easier because there was only one or two people in each group. Having the adult reference librarian "in charge" happened more often as well because they were next in line in the hierarchy. So when the manager had to leave, it was usually the adult reference librarian who ran the library until the manager came back.

So all I did was Adult Reference. I did programs, worked on committees, created staff genre training classes, and had a few other non-public related duties; but, the majority of my time was assisting adults on the reference desk, or over the telephone, or by email. Now that I am looking for another job, it seems like that experience isn't enough. A lot of jobs I'm seeing want supervisory experience. Have I been in charge of other people? Yes. Many times. Was it in an official capacity? No, because that's what the volunteer services department was for, or the reference manager, or whoever had the "I'm in charge" phone that day. The same goes with working with vendors and budgets. Another department handled that. I was just a librarian.

Whoops!

Life at library land has been interesting for the past 5 months or so. We've been doing a cross training of sorts between smaller branch libraries and the main downtown library. Basically, once a week we trade places. One person from the main library trades places with a branch library. Of course we don't do this all on the same day. There's a group of 5 of us that trade a different day, each day of the week. I've been given Tuesdays.

For quite some time my branch partner and I have been unable to switch, either due to after work activities, during work activities, vacations, voting, or what have you. This week there was no email or notices saying not to go, so I went off to the branch this morning instead of downtown. Everyone was surprised to see me, but I chalked that up to not being there for many weeks.

Imagine my surprise when my partner walked in 5 minutes later.

Yep. She had forgotten.

And when I made it back to downtown, I discovered that the desk scheduler had forgotten too, because it was my name on the schedule and not hers.

Book Suggestions

As part of my work duties, I get to review the titles that our patrons request that we buy. I really enjoy this part of my work because it means I get read reviews and buy books. A lot of what gets suggested are the blockbuster bestseller authors whose next book won't be out for three months, but they have to have it now anyway. Those request I just toss because our vendor sends those to us automatically. No request needed.

There's been a lot of requests for out of print romance titles, in large print. I've been getting the same three or four titles over and over again, all by the same author. I may have inadvertently encouraged this person to submit titles by actually buying one of his/her requests. Sometimes I wish I could contact patrons like this to tell them to "Give it up!" Their beloved romance author is no longer writing and no one wants to print their books anymore. Its time to start hunting the used book stores and Amazon because the library is never going to get it.

Of course, if I ever did run into the person requesting these titles, I'd never have to courage to tell them that.

Internet is Evil

People who are used to doing the same thing every day have a hard time noticing when something chances. This morning at work, our Internet management system went down. It was having trouble all weekend and it turns out that there's something wrong with the hard drive, so our IT department had to take it away. We find all this out a few minutes before we open, so we have some time to get ready for manual sign up. We print out our sign up sheets and post all our "Please sign up at the desk" and "No printing today" signs.

The first rush of people are easy to catch because they come in sign file, so I just stood by the first Internet computer and took names. After that, things were not so easy.

We are suppose to have 15 minute express Internet computers, but with the name taking, that gets too hard to keep track; so, when the system is down, all computers are equal. Getting people to come and sign up when they're used to just sitting down and taking one is next to impossible, no matter how many signs you have up.

About a half hour after opening, I spot someone on a computer who did not sign up. I take my clip board and pencil and walk over to him to get his name.

Me: Excuse me, can I get your name? Our sign up system is down so we're taking names to keep track of computer time today.

Guy: (checking his gmail) Oh, is that why I didn't have to enter my library card?

Me: Yes.

Guy: You should really put up a sign about that.

Me:(pointing to the two signs on either sign of the monitor) We have. So if I could just get your name so you can continue using the computer.

Guy: (closing his gmail) That's okay. I'm done.

Luckily, this conversation didn't repeat itself often, but I did have to nab people from the express area several times to explain what was happening.

An email went out to all reference staff about the manual sign up. This is standard procedure for computer meltdowns. Of course when my relief comes, she doesn't know anything about it and immediately starts telling some poor visitor about 15 minutes express computers. Which don't exist today. Which she passed on her way to the desk, with all the signs.

Poetry depression

At my library I run a poetry open mic night. I started it in 2007 and it went really well for a long time. We didn't have oodles of people, but we had a good variety every month. This past year has been really rough though, with only 2 or 3 people coming in. And tonight we had no one, not even our one faithful regular who has come every month for the past year and a half.

There could be several reasons for this. The economy may be playing a factor here. People are more concerned about their jobs then about the arts. The library is also undergoing repairs, so there's scaffolding outside and occasional banging, which could be keeping people away. Also, we're downtown. For some reason people do not like to travel downtown unless they absolutely have to, or they're a tourist. But we're out of the way for tourist too because we're not right in the middle of the tourist attractions. *sigh*

I don't know what to do. I don't know whether I should just give it up or try to change something. I hear of poetry programs in other libraries that are really successful and I wonder what their secret is. What are they doing to get people into their programs? What sort of incentive would you need to go to participate in a library open mic?

Self-check out as a Family Affair

At the library we have self-check out machines so people don't have to wait in line to check out their books. They can do it themselves. Today a family gathered around the machine with their library cards and books. The mother scanned the card. The youngest put a book on the scanner. When it scanned, the oldest picked up the book and gave it to their dad. After all their books were checked out, the middle child took the receipt. So everyone got to do something.