A Day In the Life of a Children's Librarian

As I've said before, there really is no such thing as a "typical" day as a children's librarian; every day is different. One day is mostly researching and planning programs, another day may be mostly meetings, another may be a combination of customer service and collection development, and another may be a little bit of a whole bunch of different things. The only thing they have in common is that I rarely get everything done on my to-do list due to things taking longer than expected, or all the unexpected things that inevitably pop-up and require my attention, and pretty much every day has at least some time spent on programming-related tasks.

Since we were recently required to conduct a time-audit, I have an almost exact, down to the minute, accounting of how I spent my time over a 6-week period, so I'll be able to give a very detailed report of this "typical" Wednesday in November:

• 9:00a - clocked-in, and immediately went to work staging a photo of the toy dinosaurs getting into mischief as part of "Dinovember" (45 minutes)
• 9:45a - checked email (10 min)
• 9:55a - completed policy acknowledgement form (required of all staff anytime a policy is introduced, or changed) and turned in (5 min)
• 10:00a - Worked on book order for patron requests and upcoming programs (25 min)
• 10:25a - Going over storytime planning, resources, and early literacy skills with staff member who will be taking over preschool storytime in Jan (50 min)
• 11:15a - Browsed catalogs with co-worker, looking at furniture and items for proposed dramatic play center (30 min)
• 11:45a - Stopped to answer questions from staff member (15 min)
• 12:00p - Met with teen librarian regarding programming in general, and specifically about a new program launching in 2 weeks that we are collaborating on, and another new program we have been asked to develop (1hr 15 min)
• 1:15p - Lunch (unpaid, 1 hr)
• 2:15p - Walked through children's department to check on things, realized we were out of scavenger hunt sheets, and printed more (15 min)
• 2:30p - Edited staged dinosaur photos from earlier, created a social media post drafts with dino photos and results of kids' vote for favorite dinosaur character from previous day, emailed marketing specialist to let him know they need to be published, and followed up in person (1 hr)
• 3:30p - Kidbrarian appointment (gave kid tour, helped them select books for a display and design a sign for it; 1 hr 15 min)
• 4:45p - Pulled books for monthly book bin to drop off at daycare during outreach visit the next day (40 min)
• 5:30p - Clock out & go home.

This was one of those days I did a little bit of everything: program planning, program prep and set up, program execution, program admin & marketing, outreach prep, collection development, training & supervision of staff, and miscellaneous admin, though just over half of my time was spent on programming in some form or fashion.

I did end up working half an hour over, because I just couldn't quite get everything done in our normal 7-hour workday, and pulling books for the outreach visit had to be done before the next morning. One thing the time audit has helped me realize is that (1) I need to carve out time for the things other than programming, and (2) I need to plan my time and plan ahead a little better, but more on that in another post. 

You also might notice I did not take any paid breaks on this day. Some days I am just too busy, other days I don't feel I need one, but if I do take them when I feel I need one. This is usually on days when I've been on my feet for an extended time, doing more physical or stressful work, or have very busy, hectic programs. Many times I give myself a break just by doing something different, like covering the children's service desk for a while, changing out a display or something, or just taking a quick lap through the library checking in with staff and patrons. If I need a snack, I usually eat it at my desk while working, and I don't count the literal 2 minutes it takes to go to the restroom to pee and wash my hands (yes, I timed it) as an official break.