
By the Book Exchange, which I oversee.
This is part of a series of posts offering a behind-the-scenes look at library work. A day in the life of the library team!
Name: Madeleine “Maddy” Langham.
Job Title: Learning Resources Assistant (Library Apprentice from Feb 2012-Feb 2014)
Age: Now that would be telling 😉
Interests and little known facts: Reading (well, that’s a given really!), can be heard broadcasting to a long-suffering public on Hinckley Hospital Radio station Castle Mead Radio. I once drove a Duck Boat in America (passengers and water wildlife were all left unscathed!).
Favourite Authors: Daphne DuMaurier, Ian Rankin, Danielle Steel, Laurie R. King, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Ellis Peters, J.K Rowling, Philip Pullman, Lee Child, Richard Yates, Karen Rose, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King.
I joined the team in February 2012 as the department’s first ever Apprentice. I’m mostly based at the Nuneaton campus but also work at the Hinckley site once a week. My regular duties include: assisting learners, shelving and tidying stock, preparing new stock to go on the shelves, promoting Library stock and events via our blog page, creating slideshows for our plasma display screen and running the Library book exchange.
Tuesday 14th January 2014
I began the day by working on the helpdesk between 8.30-10.30am. Helping our learners is one of my favourite parts of the job. You often get some really interesting enquiries and I always get a feeling of satisfaction knowing I’ve helped (or at least tried to help) someone. As usual alot of iPads and laptops were borrowed by staff and students, and a few people renewed their loans over the phone. There were also lots of people coming in to borrow, renew and return loans at the helpdesk.
I asked a technician to come down and see us when we discovered one of the computer login screens was flipped upside down. (don’t ask!) He managed to fix it for us. I helped a group of students change their computer passwords. Due to high PC use in the Library at that time, we had to use the touchscreen PCs which are quite slow, but we got there in the end and after apologising for the wait, I showed them how they could book PCs in advance or on the same day.
After a break, I headed down to the shelves with other team members to check that the books/DVDs etc were tidy and in the correct spine number order. This can be quite a time consuming process as many items are just discarded on shelves and are nowhere near where they should be.
I then spent some time working on a project I’ve recently been given, going through our e-book catalogue records and updating information about accessing e-books off campus. I’ve got 300 pages of records to work through so that’ll keep me out of mischief for a while!
After lunch I worked through more of the e-book records and then repaired some books and a DVD. I was then back out on the helpdesk between 3.15-5.00pm. I issued, returned and renewed more loans for learners and booked laptops for a member of staff. Our newest team member Paul started in the afternoon so I made sure I said hello and welcomed him to the team. I added some new slides to our plasma screen display about our latest e-books before finishing for the day at 5.00pm, handing over to Zaheda and Paul for the evening shift.
The Nuneaton campus Library is open Mon-Thurs 8.30am-8.00pm & Friday 8.30am-4.30pm so next time you’re in come and say hello, I’m always happy to help. Look forward to seeing you soon 🙂
The third post in this series will be published next week, and will be written by Learning Resources Assistant Zaheda Dadabhai.