The Rookie Manager: I Have No Idea What I’m Doing (But I’m Trying to Get Better)

By far the hardest thing to adjust to in my new job has been being a supervisor instead of just being my own department. This far surpasses the Bronx vs. New Canaan, giant system vs. small town library, and even full-time vs. part-time differences in what I do on a day-to-day basis and how I feel about my job.

Before starting with NYPL, this was the entirety of my supervisory experience:

• A semester-long stint as the supervisor of the student staff of the front office for the residence hall where I lived in college
• Leading Teen Advisory Board groups at my last job
• A year-long term as chair of Amazing Audiobooks
• About a year and a half of managing The Hub
• I also read and loved and really took to heart From Good to Great, although as inspiring as that book is and as helpful as it was at my last job when I was creating a vision/strategic plan for my department, it’s more about leadership and less about supervisory/management work

It’s not a lot, but this is one of those “How are you supposed to get experience when you have to have experience already to get hired?” kinds of situations that I think a lot of job-seekers find themselves in. I’m grateful to NYPL for seeing potential in me and offering me this job, and I’m determined to live up to the idea that I can do this, and do it well.

But right now, I am definitely in the stage where I have a lot to learn, and I’m trying to learn quickly. (more…)

6 Comments March 13, 2013

Ghost Hunting @ My Library

I’m still settling in at my new job, so I thought I’d get back to blogging by writing about some of the things I wish I’d written about while I was learning and growing in my previous position. Since the post I did on the Minecraft competition we held still gets me a lot of questions about how to do the same, I thought I’d write about another unusual, successful-by-some-metrics program.

Like all libraries, my last library had regulars. A particular group of regulars formed my core audience when I started to spin up programs: they were the ones who’d come to drop-in gaming and movie screenings regularly, so when I decided it was time to form a TAB, they were the first ones I went to, and they were my most faithful attendees.

As they got older and our teen services offerings grew, their use of the library changed (once they started driving, they did a lot less just hanging out!), but they were still the kids I knew best and the kids I could count on to come to things.

But it wasn’t just me counting on them, I was encouraged to discover. One day, one of these girls came to me and said that she and her friends had formed a paranormal investigation team, and while they had the equipment they needed and had done some investigations, they were having trouble getting access to other locations because grownups weren’t really interested in a bunch of teens running around on their property after dark. They wanted to know if they could incorporate as a library club so I could help them talk to the adults at those places.

(more…)

Leave a Comment February 7, 2013

Brief Thoughts: Leaving One Job and Starting Another

On Saturday I had my last day at the first professional position I had post-library school (first and only teen services librarian at the New Canaan Library in New Canaan, Connecticut), and today I had orientation and training for my new job (working at NYPL in the Bronx Library Center as the supervising librarian for teen services). It’s a big step in my career, but it’s been bittersweet taking this position because over the not-quite-two-and-a-half-years that I worked in New Canaan, I’ve grown very attached to the town, to the library, and especially to the kids. I didn’t stay as long as I’d intended, but I’m really proud of what I built during my time there, especially since I was a department of one building teen services from the ground up, and super-especially because I did all of that on 19-28 hours a week (I got more hours over time).

Transitions always make me contemplative, and I’m not only thinking about what I did and didn’t accomplish in New Canaan and what my new job will be like and how I’ll grow and change as a librarian and as a person — I’m also thinking about how disappointed I am that I was always too busy to write about my experiences building teen services as they were happening. (more…)

4 Comments January 14, 2013

YALSA blog: NaNoWriMo @ my library

We’re halfway through November (already?!), which means we’re also halfway through National Novel Writing Month. My library’s never done any NaNoWriMo programs before (we do have a memoir writing group, though), so when one of my teen patrons asked this year if we were doing anything, I decided we’d give it a try!

Our NaNoWriMo support has been a collaboration between me and the adult services department and I’m happy with how things have gone so far. We have a pretty cool Municipal Liaison who’s willing to work with us, so on the first Saturday of the month, we hosted a meet-up for participants and the head of reference and I talked about library resources one might use to research a novel and resources for teen writers specifically. Exactly half of the people at the meet-in were teens, and it went well!

This Saturday we’re hosting a write-in (five hours of NaNoWriMo participants cranking out words), which is mostly just going to be us providing space. We’ve also created book displays about writing that’ll be up for the entire month. If you want to read a bit more about our NaNoWriMo support, I’ve written a post about it for the YALSAblog.

How is your library supporting NaNoWriMo this year?

Leave a Comment November 14, 2011

YALSA blog: Trading spaces: visiting each other’s libraries

I wrote about my visit to Chicopee Public Library when I went last month, but this month for the YALSA blog, Erin and I reflected on both of our visits and talked about the importance (especially as YA librarians) of having a professional network and of finding inspiration for new ideas.

3 Comments August 16, 2011

Library Day in the Life Project, Round 7: Day 5

I’m participating in the Library Day in the Life Project (now in its seventh round) this week. To quote the project wiki, “the Library Day in the Life Project is a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.”

Today was another scattered day. It’s hard to really sit down and work on a big project when you’re only there for a couple of hours at a time and have eighty things to do. This week was also strange: I only worked thirteen hours (plus my Chicopee visit), so a lot of what I normally do in a week got left out. (more…)

Leave a Comment July 29, 2011

Library Day in the Life Project, Round 7: Day 3

I’m participating in the Library Day in the Life Project (now in its seventh round) this week. To quote the project wiki, “the Library Day in the Life Project is a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.”

Today was a slightly scattered day at work. I also remain baffled by huge swings in turnout for my programs this summer. But I get to hang out with enthusiastic teen readers! (more…)

Leave a Comment July 27, 2011

Library Day in the Life Project, Round 7: Day 2

I’m participating in the Library Day in the Life Project (now in its seventh round) this week. To quote the project wiki, “the Library Day in the Life Project is a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.”

Today I did some non-work library stuff and then had my first day back at work after two days off. I also got some really good news today! (more…)

Leave a Comment July 26, 2011

Library Day in the Life Project, Round 7: Day 1

I’m participating in the Library Day in the Life Project (now in its seventh round) this week. To quote the project wiki, “the Library Day in the Life Project is a semi-annual event coordinated by Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day. Twice a year librarians, library staff and library students from all over the globe share a day (or week) in their life through blog posts, photos, video and Twitter updates.”

Since I worked on Saturday, I had today off, so I’m going to talk about what I did on Saturday and the librarian-ish things I did today. (more…)

Leave a Comment July 25, 2011

I open at the close: reflections on Harry Potter

Last week my library did a Harry Potter movie marathon to get our patrons ready for the final film. It gave me some time to reflect on the books, the movies, and the cultural phenomenon that is Harry Potter, which all culminated in me feeling very conflicted as I drove to the midnight showing of the final movie. I almost didn’t want to go, as if in some way not seeing the final movie would mean it wasn’t all over. But I did go (with one of our children’s librarians and her husband), and I laughed and cried a lot and then after we went our separate ways, I sat in my car waiting for the traffic to thin out and then drove home along completely empty roads feeling thoughtful and sad and full of feelings I don’t have words for.

I’m certainly not a superfan–I have made no costume, have attended no cons, have written no fanfic–but I can’t deny that Harry Potter has been a part of my life, first as just a reader and viewer and now as a librarian. So, inspired by the bloggers at the Hub as they bid farewell to Harry, here are musings on my personal journey with Harry Potter and a few thoughts on the impact the series has had. (more…)

2 Comments July 19, 2011