Spring Semester, Week 4

Call it academic amnesia, but I always forget how exhausting this part of the semester is until it arrives. The first couple of weeks I'm full of energy and offering out my services like crazy, and then week 4 hits and I remember that there's only one of me. Someday I'll figure out how to balance my library evangelism with a recognition of my own limitations. But right now I'm still trying so desperately to get the students and faculty to actually use the resources that when someone asks me for something it's really hard to say no.

So I'm right in the middle of making the rounds of the art history and communications classes and giving customized presentations on library resources for their first assignments. Most of them are repeats from previous semesters, and at least I'm just doing guest appearances this time and not subbing for the classes like I did in the fall. The one I have tomorrow is new, though, so I have to pull something together between the time I arrive tomorrow and the time class actually begins. I started working on it today, but then I had a literary magazine staff meeting, and then a former coworker/aspiring librarian came in to shadow me for the afternoon, and then the whole day was over before I knew it.

The job shadow thing was fun, but I hope I wasn't too negative. It's hard to stop once I get going about not having a budget or being able to buy useful resources. Someday my big mouth is going to get me in trouble with the powers that be. She asked some good questions and made a few suggestions (she doesn't have the degree, but she's worked in libraries longer than I have) that were right on target but that also made me reflect on my giant to-do list of things I want to attempt or accomplish to improve the library.

I wish there were a few more of me. I'm getting pretty adept at exploiting the functions of the library copy machine to fulfill ridiculous student requests; maybe I can figure out a way to make a few copies of myself.