Today on Behind the Spine Label:
It's a place where decisions are made and instantly regretted.
Jacob's desk.
[End stupid parody]
If you walk by my desk at the library (and see me hard at work), it'll probably look pretty messy. Random papers are strewn about the desk and floor, and there are piles of books, post-its, and envelopes everywhere.
I just completed a (semi) major cleanup of my desk and shelf section today, and they're looking pretty good. So what's left? Well....
One of our phone handsets has a semi-permanent home on the back left (from my perspective) corner of my desk. It's as far away from me as it can be without leaving my desk. As the most junior full-time staff member, I get stuck with the phone quite often for a few reasons.
First, Sharon doesn't want it, so she only takes it when she needs it or is feeling very generous. Second, our circulation clerk Rebekah is only here for four hours each day, and her schedule overlaps the time I need the phone (to call people about books that have come in, overdues, etc.) Third, my desk is the closest (regularly-inhabited) staff desk to Michele's office and the back room. So it's become second nature for everyone to drop the phone off on my desk on their way by regardless of where the phone was to begin with.
Underneath the phone is a pad of paper. Right now I've got a scribbled list of notes on it about authorized Library of Congress subject headings. I could put the list into a notepad file, but I have to switch between three different windows when updating subject headings as it is. Adding a fourth would just slow things down even more. If you take a quick look at the pad, you'll see that I switch between handwriting and printing at random. (Well, maybe it's not random, but I haven't been able to identify a pattern, and I'm the one doing it!)
Next to that is my monitor, with some papers on its base. One stack is some ILL request forms for a particular patron. He has asked me to request the books around August 25th so that (hopefully) their arrival will coincide with his schedule. I have a strategically placed post-it note on the front ILL request form to cover the patron's name so that I'm in compliance with FOIPA (the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act).
The other paper on my monitor is a post-it note reminding me that I need to make a folder in the vertical file for 338.40971187. Michele has asked me to make a folder for the tourist trade in Tumbler Ridge. I believe (I looked it up a while back and can't remember off the top of my head) that that number corresponds to Tourism-Canada-BC-Northern BC-Peace River region. [I did check. It refers to Northeastern BC, and names cities and towns that are mostly from the Peace River region]
Beyond my monitor and speakers is where I keep the pens I've received for various things. I've got one from a LawMatters training session, a few promotional ones from a company that tries to sell them to the library, and one from the Credit Union's grand reopening. I keep these pens separate because they aren't the cheap $0.39 pens the library purchases. What do I use on a daily basis? A cheap $0.39 papermate pen with the cap on the end (they feel unbalanced otherwise). I use black ink because blue ink looks too friendly on overdue notices.
Moving on I've got two containers of quick-ties (thin ones used for sealing cloth mailing envelopes), the empty plastic ring from a roll of tape (which is handy if I feel the need to keep my hands busy), a few CDs from when Kristen was here (3 blank, 4 used), a pile of rubber bands (some libraries use them to hold books together in shipment but I generally don't), and a few blank ILL forms.
My water bottle (Dasani, refilled with TR tap water) is also sitting on my desk right now, as is one of the library's books that a co-worker put in an ILL request for (but clearly didn't check the catalogue first).
I've got a storage container on the upper level of my desk that holds a few handy things (date stamp, highlighters, staple remover) alongside some shipping label slips. There's a nearly empty post-it note tower (it was much cheaper to buy one and hand out post-it notes to everyone as necessary than to buy individual packs for everyone), a paperclip holder (filled *only* with standard paperclips. no oversized, plastic-coated, novelty coloured, or ridged), a box of tissue, a stack of message and note pads, and a stapler that looks like it's army surplus from the 70s.
I've got a couple of souvenirs (given to me by co-workers) on my side shelf, along with a printer used almost exclusively for printing spine labels and envelopes for overdue notices, a roll of removeable tape (used underneath temporary barcodes) and a few DVDs I need to catalogue. The shelf also holds two binders -- a thin one for patron bills that couldn't be mailed and a thick one that holds my copy of AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) -- which are covered in a stack of books that I need to ask other staff members (mostly Sharon and Michele) about.
The lower shelves hold our office supply catalogues (one from Corporate Express for standard office supplies, one from Brodart for library supplies) and all the things I need for ILLs (temporary barcodes, folders to hold request forms, a scale, etc.)
Finally, the floor around my desk is pretty much always a mess. I keep spare padded envelopes for ILLs (cloth and paper) to the right of my chair (because it's much handier than keeping them in the back room), and spare mail bags next to them. I usually have a pile of papers to the left of my chair that will all end up in the recycling bin. It's generally easier to keep an ongoing pile that I remove once a day than it is to walk over to the bin with every little piece of paper.
So that's the official tour of my desk. I'm afraid on-site offical tours will generally not be given during library hours.
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