After Christmas excess and placement report

Well Christmas is over for another year and I have eaten way too much yummy food.

Being in Yamba we took advantage of the beautiful fresh and very cheap seafood. Prawns were only $10 a kilo. How good was that?

Today I was supposed to have an infusion of the new drug that I am on for my rheumatoid arthritis but the nurse had not collected the drug from the chemist and when she went to pick it up this morning discovered that the chemist was shut because it is a public holiday....well duh! I thought she would have picked it up before Christmas. Oh well that's the country for you.

Because I thought I would be hooked up to the drug all morning I decided to stay home while the rest of the family went to the beach. Turned out to be good choice as even though it has stopped raining it is incredibly windy outside and not very pleasant.

I thought I would put my time to good use and get started on my placement report.

The first thing I did was listened to James' podcast about what to include. Thankfully I have managed to get most of the information that I need so I can get started on it. The only thing that is doing my head in now is having to look up all of the references that James will inevitably require in order to pass this assessment. A very interesting thing to do in the country where there is not a great internet service.

5th day of placement- half way there!

Well today was an interesting day.
The morning was extremely busy with lots of people racing in to get their last minute books for the Christmas break.
The library closes from tonight until January 4 so people were borrowing heaps of books to read because the weather forecast for Christmas is RAIN RAIN RAIN.

After a civilised break for lunch across the road at the bowling club we came back to a very quiet afternoon where we only had about 6 people in all afternoon.
Although it was frustrating to be so quiet it was great because we were able to sit down and go through the questions that I need to answer for my placement report.

It was quite nice to finish on such a relaxed note.
Half way through the placement. Only 5 days to go!!!!!!!
Sure wish I was being paid for this!

Merry Christmas to everyone.

Day 4 of placement

Well here I am in a different library.
I am working at Maclean library today because Yamba library is closed on a Thursday.
It is a very different library.
The building is older and is a bit of a rabbit warren.
The borrowers are similar but there are more local kids using the computers than in Yamba.
The public library is such a meeting place for lots of local people and everyone is known by their name and the story that goes with them.
Just loving it.
Not looking forward to my report though!!!!

Day 2 of placement

Well today is day 2 of my placement.
At the moment it is really quiet so I am taking this opportunity to update the blog.
I can not believe the number of books that people borrow.
Most of the clients are retired people this week, but after Christmas I have been told that it will mostly be tourists.
We have been reserving books for people, returning books and shelving books.
I love seeing all of the new magazines and books that are available.
A local library is so much more interesting than a school library even though my school library holds more books than this library.
A major difference is that the books are all really clean and not dusty like at school so I don't feel like washing my hands every 5 minutes.
Lunch in 15 minutes. How cool is that? you get 1 1/2hours for lunch with NO playground duty.
Think I love the life of a public librarian.

First day of placement

I began work at Yamba library today.
It was fabulous.
Yamba is a single person library and Jenny is the beautiful lady who runs it. She was so patient with me and so very friendly to everyone who walked through the door.
When I chose this library for my 10day placement I thought that it would be really quiet and relaxing.
Well after day 1 I have learned that this is not the case at all.
We did not stop all day and the amount of shelving was unbelievable.
I did manage to grab a copy of Danielle Steele's latest book to read as well as a biography that I have wanted to read about a lady working in Antarctica. I hope I don't find any other books I want to read because I don't think that I will have enough time while I am here.
Looking at what I have to put in my report I am beginning to panic a little bit because I don't know where I am going to find all of the information I need and journals etc to back it up. Oh well that should keep me busy over the holidays.

Before leaving home on Saturday I submitted my ETL503 assignment about selecting resources for a school library.
I am quite happy with the finished product except for the fact that I am not sure if I have put enough references into it. I guess I will find out when the marks come back.
Oh well, nothing I can do about it now I guess.
Looking ahead I need to begin work on my collection management policy.............that should be interesting.

I guess the last 2 weeks in January are going to be extremely busy for me as I try to finish 3 major assignments for my 2 subjects. Maybe I should get started while I am away..........That could be a good excuse to avoid washing up on Christmas Day I think!!!