02 June, 2010

Chipping at the edges

As I have mentioned before, the school I am currently for has a rather neglected library. It has been under funded and under staffed for a while now. So I am here to, among other things, get the place up to scratch.

But, I do find sometimes that my mind gets me into some sort of state of inaction. I look at al the 30 year old books on environmental issues and the books on terrorism which discuss the possible ways we could deal with the IRA (and don't mention Islam at all) and think, right first I have to weed. But then I look at the bent shelves and think, no first some general tidying. However at that point I look at our new (but odd shaped) tables and think, no I need to find a way to reconfigure the space, but no point doing that until I move some shelving to create space. Though, moving would be easier if I bought wheels for the shelves. That said, I should probably buy some new uprights because some of our shelving is too tall for our middle school students. But is there any point doing that before the builders come in and knock out a couple of walls because then I would be in a better situation to realign things...

There is more to it than that, but you get the idea. I am looking at so much work that I get confused. I do need to do another big weed (so far I am only up to the 600s) but the part time TL they had last year didn't spend all of the budget so there is a lot of buying I need to do and I don't want to leave that too long.

My point? Do I have one?
It is that no matter how much I do on any given day, I still leave feeling like I have hardly scratched the surface of what needs to be done.

Despite that, the Principal brought some people over (who they were or where they were from I didn't find out) but they came to talk to me about building type things. Which walls I want knocked down, where I want my circ desk moved to, where I want new walls built, which of the bizarre nooks and crannies in this stupidly inappropriate building could be filled in to create new bits of building (and to make the library less hexagonal).

So, I know that I am being supported in my plans to make this library not just pretty, but usable. Now all I need to do is put this mental block aside and choose any of the things on my list to do today.

1 comment:

Sally Cummings said...

I'm so glad to hear that you're taking part in #blogeverydayofjune :) I really enjoy reading your blog, and hearing about the different places and types of libraries that you've worked in.

My partner and I are planning to move to Darwin at some future time, so I'm especially interested in your NT experiences. I actually considered applying for the job that you're in now!

I can identify with your struggle to prioritise all the important, tricky, inter-related activities that you describe in this post! I have the same issue when starting new projects. Maybe a Gantt chart would help... ;)