Just an average guy trying to make sense of his life in the library and beyond.....
I completed interviews for the lab associate position today. After discussing it over with my committee, I've come to the decision on who to hire. Now it's a matter of doing reference checks (which I've never done before) and writing a recommendation to my respective supervisors.
This has got to be the coolest July day I've ever seen in Kansas. The temperature is only 60 degrees and there's a nice consistent rain shower outside. I was planning to scrape some of the old stain off of my back deck and consider the start of restaining the deck on Sunday. But it's too wet. I'll have to find something else to do today.
I just got off the phone with my sister. For the interest of privacy, I won't go into detail but to say that she and her husband are wanting to make some changes in their lives. I wish them luck for every decision they must make.
I went to see the Will Smith movie I, Robot this past week. Notice that I did not say the "Isaac Asimov movie I, Robot." This movie is ho-hum. It only borrows the three principles from a Asimov short story. Everything else is Will Smith mugging for the camera. The movie is directed by Alex Proyas, the director of the perfect Sci-Fi movie "Dark City." This movie is not Proyas' best effort.
We will start interviews for the computer lab associate position on Tuesday, July 20. By we, I mean an interview committee that I created last week. The committee is comprised of my supervisor, a member from Adult Services, and a member from the Audio Visual department and, of course, yours truly. Thus far, we have three candidates lined up for interviews. I hope to arrange for more candidate interviews later on this week.
I had a rough day teaching Microsoft word today. I keep on reminding myself that seniors have more difficulty handling the mouse than any other population. I had four seniors today who had difficulty. I'll review my class schedules and consider the posibility of creating a basic computer skills class so that this group of people can learn at their own pace.
I finished my first staff schedule for the month of August. Thanks to the cooperation of other departments, I was able to get all time slots filled.
With my increased responsibility with the computer lab, I voluntarily gave up some of my collection development responsibility. I spent about an hour and a half on Tuesday, July 13 showing an audio-visual staff member the ropes on how to order books on tape and CD and also introduced him to our Audio leasing program/ bestseller audio book club.
I had dinner tonight with a friend from college and his family. We went to Jose Peppers in the Northland and got caught up with each other's lives. He and his wife are expecting child number three. The first two children are bubbly, smart, and full of energy and smiles.
I have been enjoying my HDTV for about three and half months now. However, I'm kind of down in the dumps that ESPN considers profitability more important that providing access to their HDTV channel. I called my cable company and asked why they did not provide ESPN-HD. They said the sports channel charged an extremely high fee for access and not even my cable company could provide access.
The first week with my new accountabilities has gone okay, I guess. Right now, the biggest problem is finding a new computer lab associate and the job applications pile is thin. I will have to adjust accordingly when I write August's lab schedule on Friday. Fortunately, we have a lot of versatile, talented people in our public library who may be able to help in the lab.
I have been having difficulty sleeping this past week (probably due to my jitters and excitement over my new promotion). As such, I have been trying things to induce sleepiness. One night, I went online at about 3AM and had a chat with a friend who now lives in London, England with her husband. Her job assignment with the Federal government is ending and they are figuring out what to do next. I believe he's a couple years away from retiring from the US navy.
A fellow librarian and I were talking about the fact that the Northland Barnes and Noble moved their operations to the new Zona Rosa shopping center. We were disappointed that BN pulled up roots next to a AMC movie theatre to make the move to ZR. It had been a routine to grab a movie and then, afterwards, go over to BN to browse through books and get a mocha at their coffee bar. We'll have to contend with traffic now in order to get over to the new BN.
