Sunday, June 14, 2009

Annual Goals

I meant to post today and couldn't think of anything post-worthy until now, when I have about 5 minutes before I need to start herding patrons out of the building (ok, I only actually herd when it's ALREADY closing time and they are doing "one more thing" on their computers).

My post-worthy thought: I had to complete an annual report (this sounds very official, but the actual drafting of the report felt much less official, since I don't have to provide statistics or fill out a specific form), and as part of that, had to set goals for the next year. Here they are (mostly verbatim, although I changed them from a narrative paragraph--admittedly not a very good one--to a numbered list, because I think lists are more readable on blogs):
  1. Increase program offerings during evening hours, by planning, marketing, and implementing at least three open workshops each semester, including introduction to such tools as databases, RefWorks, and InterLibrary Loan.
  2. Continue learning LibraryH3lp and assist with the possible implementation of this service at {My} Library.
  3. Find additional ways to work with psychology faculty; thus far, I have found offering services that are helpful to history faculty quite easy but learning what the psychology faculty needs to be more of a challenge.
  4. Continue keeping up with trends in academic librarianship through both reading and trying out new technologies.
I will also use this opportunity to list some of the steps I see arising for the next stage of getting virtual reference here:
  1. Give other staff members accounts and get them to start chatting, just to get used to the feel of chat conversation.
  2. Receive training for, and begin working with, NC Knows chat service (this is at the request of our supervisor, who wants us to have this training before we strike out on our own--actually a pretty good idea since few of us have really done chat reference before. My own chat reference experience involves 1 reference class--thanks, Pam and Tommy!--and conversations with myself when testing LibraryH3lp).
  3. Have as many test conversations as possible to figure out "bugs" in our use of LibraryH3lp.
Admittedly, these steps are not very nice and concrete, so it will take some creativity on my part. Any ideas for getting regular chats going? Any ideas for other goals I should pursue in the next fiscal/academic year?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Does your library offer any introductory classes for freshman on how to use the library in their college career? That was a very useful class my first semester of college, plus the added benefit of getting to know several of the reference librarians right from the start, so I always knew someone I personally could go to with questions. I think ours was a once a week thing over the course of the first half of the semester and we may have received a credit for it. Since you work with the history and psych departments, maybe that's a lecture/seminar you could work out with them?

Libby said...

Well, we give tours to freshman, and I think most intro English classes come in--our instructional librarian would like to get something included in the "U. College" program for freshman. It's a work in progress!