The Changers Library Part One: A day in the life ExFiles FOLIO Course

Introduction to Changers Library Welcome to the Changers Library. The Changers Library is based in a large hospital. The Changers Library has 5 staff members. There is a librarian, 2 assistant librarians and 2 library assistants.

Part 1: A day in the life

Charlotte Chief Charlotte Chief is the head librarian at Changers Library. She has been in this post for 6 years and is responsible for managing all aspects of the library and staff. This can be quite a challenge at times and Charlotte finds herself “wearing many hats” during her working day.

A “typical” day for Charlotte

am Policy Management The first thing that Charlotte does is check her . She has received an , sent on behalf of the hospital trust Chief Executive, regarding the organisation’s Corporate Plan. There is going to be a consultation process to develop the plan and representatives from each department in the trust are being invited to a meeting to discuss this. Charlotte feels that this would be a worthwhile meeting to attend. As a manager it is important to be aware of any wider-organisational policies and procedures. She checks her availability and responds to the to confirm that she will be attending the meeting.

am Finance Management At the end of each month, Charlotte collates a budget report which is submitted to the Chief Executive’s office. She spends half an hour doing this. Charlotte finds that the morning is a good time for this task as there are usually less interruptions. This is one of those jobs that is difficult to achieve if you have to keep stopping and starting.

am Marketing & Promotion Charlotte does a presentation to the new intake of nursing students all about the library and the services available to them.

am Project Management Recently, the library conducted a user survey. Charlotte has employed a temporary project worker to collate the questionnaire data and transcribe the recordings of the focus groups. Charlotte has a meeting with the project worker to discuss progress and deal with any issues.

am Delegation Charlotte has received an for a request for a literature search from one of the consultants at the hospital. Although the topic looks interesting, Charlotte resists the temptation to do the search herself as the assistant librarians are more than capable of carrying out this type of work. Charlotte forwards the to both assistant librarians to ask for a volunteer.

11.45am-12noon Collection Management One of the assistant librarians is currently undergoing the CILIP Chartership process. Charlotte has asked the assistant librarian to identify some books that would help him towards writing his submission. Charlotte reviews the list and confirms that the assistant librarian can go ahead and order these books.

12noon-1pm Recruitment One of the assistant librarians (Tina Transfer) is currently on secondment one day a week. Charlotte has been liaising with the nearby University Information Studies department in order to employ a student one day a week on a temporary basis to help out. Charlotte grabs a quick bite to eat and takes the opportunity to have a first look through the applications.

pm Induction One of the other hospital libraries in the trust has recently employed a new assistant librarian. As part of the induction process, Charlotte has agreed to let the recently recruited assistant librarian spend an afternoon at the Changers Library. Charlotte meets with the new assistant librarian to welcome her and let her know what is planned for the afternoon.

pm Personnel Management It has been brought to Charlotte’s attention that one of the library assistants has been increasingly late for work and generally seems quite despondent and reluctant to get involved in tasks. Charlotte has arranged a meeting with the library assistant to try and ascertain if there are any problems/issues the member of staff has that can be solved to help with the situation.

pm Conflict Resolution The library has had a difficult user be aggressive and insulting to members of library staff on several occasions recently. The user is a medical student and Charlotte has decided to write a letter of complaint to the user’s head of department. Charlotte has asked all the library staff involved to individually write a statement of what has happened and is reviewing these to inform her letter.

pm Decision Making Recently, a number of library users have complained about the slowness of a couple of PCs in the library. There is funds in the IT budget to purchase one new public PC. Charlotte asked one of the assistant librarians to carry out an audit of all the library PCs. Charlotte is now reviewing the audit to decide which machine should be replaced.

pm Change Management The nearby University has informed Charlotte that as of the next academic year, several courses in the schools of medicine and nursing are increasing their student uptake. This is likely to impact on the Changers Library and several of the staff have voiced concerns over how the service will cope with the increased demands. Charlotte s all the library staff to say that this will be discussed at the next team meeting in the first instance. She states that all concerns will be addressed and together the team will come up with a plan of action.

pm Forward Planning After a busy day, Charlotte spends the last half hour writing a “to do list” for tomorrow!

End of Part 1