A day in my life

I’m going to be updating this post throughout the day to track the things I do. I’m writing this as part of the Library Day in the Life meme.

I have been a librarian since 1995, but I have not worked for a specific library since 1999.

In ’99 I left a Reference Librarian position at the Lake Agassiz Regional Library in my hometown (Detroit Lakes, MN), to take a position in the US Library Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Seattle. In that role, I traveled to libraries around the country providing training. When that ended, I moved to Kansas and worked as a Technology Consultant for the Northeast Kansas Library System. In that position, I worked to help support many, many libraries. Now I am the Library Training Specialist for the MaintainIT Project. MaintainIT is a TechSoup project and the offices are in San Francisco, but I am virtual and work from my home in Roeland Park, Kansas.

… I am virtual and work from my home…

7:30 AM I began my work day in my pajamas. I made myself a cup of green tea and since the weather was right, I sat on the deck. I read emails and looked over my calendar for the entire week and for next week, too. I created a to-do list (using a paper notebook). At 9 AM, it was time for my morning cereal break.

1:50 PM Checking in again…

People often ask if I feel isolated, working at home. I don’t. I think the fact that I don’t live alone helps. I also credit IM with helping me feel really connected. I conduct a big share of my work communication via IM. This afternoon, for example, I’ve been working with Kendra Morgan, WebJunction‘s queen of TechAtlas, via IM to plan a workshop we’re delivering together on August 12th. You can see at the bottom of the shot that I have another IM conversation going, with Sharon Moreland at NEKLS. I’m doing some training at NEKLS Tech Day on August 1st so am planning that, too.

7:30 PM I took a break for dinner (the Monday night special at Waldo Pizza — mmmm!) and am now wrapping up a few loose ends before I turn the computer off for the day. To recap some of the other things my day included… attended a meeting with other MaintainIT team members (via ReadyTalk), printed out and signed contracts and documents to mail for an upcoming training that I am doing, helped to find speakers for an upcoming webinar, promoted upcoming trainings, and… wrote on this blog! It was a busy day and I’m excited to unplug and maybe even catch a movie… or maybe I’ll go back to where I started and will spend some time back out on that deck.

Thanks, Bobbi, for inspiring this! Great idea!