Monday 25th January 2010
So this is my first blog entry for the ‘library day in the life: round 4’. This is the first time I have taken part so I apologise in advance if the way I’ve set it out is random or erratic – it was easier for me to keep updating throughout the day.
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5.45 – Up and get ready for work!
7.00 – Leave to get bus into town. Get there 15mins before next bus so pop into train station M&S to get some mini cooked sausages for a leaving party in the department (got the silverskin onions last night!)
8.00 – Get to work, set up laptop, and get morning Mocha coffee! (Although I do have plans to cut down on coffee….)
8.05 – Check work emails.
8.15 – Said laptop starts freaking out because I didn’t upload the updates on it on Friday; so, wait while laptop does that and flick through my notebook to check over upcoming tasks and deadlines.
8.30 – Have redesigned the home page but need to choose some images for it. I looked through NHS Photos last week and started looking through ‘iStockphoto.com’ for:
a) any relevant to the homepage, and
b) any which might be useful in the future for AEUs or newsletters.
I have made up lists for each type (called ‘lightboxes’) so we can look through them at tomorrow’s ‘homepage redesign’ meeting with the academic clinical fellows (ACFs) who are involved in the collection.
10.30 – Still checking images (trying to get it done all in one go before tomorrow’s meeting so the ACFs can have a collection to choose from) and also realising that I am on the verge of getting a cold. Great, when I’ve managed to avoid it thus far!
12.30 – Stop for leaving party lunch in the department lecture theatre.
13.40 – Back from leaving party. Lots of food (yum yum yum) and chocolate cheesecake (even yummier yum yum yum!) I always find leaving parties/speeches quite sad as that is when you realise you might not see that person again. Reminded me of before Christmas when the collection also had a library assistant, but he left to go back to his studies; so now it is just me and my supervisor!
Leave image searching for a while: supervisor has emailed me the finished summaries for the Urinary Incontinence AEU so I can add them to the RMS pages. This takes precedence over the image searching, so will get on with this; the whole AEU is launched next week (beginning of February) and there is lots still to do!
14.12 – Hm, RMS does not seem to like copy and paste today so have emailed supervisor asking her advice. When I am copying the summary into RMS the font type/size is changing, and there is not a way (that I can see) in RMS to be able to change the font type/size. I wouldn’t have thought it would be a case of typing the whole summary in…not so bad for the actual summary but when it comes to doing the Resources page (a master list of all references deemed the best evidence for the past year) typing out each one individually would be slightly numbing…!
14.35 – Heard back from supervisor with advice (copy and paste into notepad first, and then to RMS so that there is no Word formatting present) and am now getting on with putting summaries into the RMS pages for the AEU.
14.58 – Realizing that when my supervisor said it was fiddly work, she wasn’t kidding! Aside from putting the summaries into the correct RMS page I need to: make sure it has copied everything alright, check the references, check the headings and paragraph spacing; and if needed, create the URL links to outside references on Pubmed.
There are four contents/main headings pages, six summary pages, an introduction, a methodology, a master reference list page and a page where users can download the PDF version. Phew.
Oh yes, I have yet to create the master document of the AEU to email to my supervisor (who will make it into a PDF document) to put on the aforementioned PDF page.
Really, I find the AEUs quite exciting, and I have been with this one from the start: I ran the searches, created the initial RMS pages and am now continuing on till the end. It will be interesting when we get around to the Diabetes in Pregnancy AEU as I also created the actual search strategies for that one which took a lot of time, frustration and many, many changes!! In other words, it will be really pleasing when it is finally launched!
15.07 – Emailed list of potential resources (from medical evidence/research website Bandolier) to supervisor to check through and see if any should be added to the collection or not (I searched for potential resources from Bandolier last week).
15.46 – Just had departmental email saying that there is that much food left over from today, they are putting it out in the seminar room tomorrow between 1-3pm so feel free to help ourselves!
16.01 – Home time now. Will quickly get ready and then run for the 16.05 bus to town and then get the bus home.
17.25 – Get home a wee bit later than usual as I got off the bus at the bottom of the hill to pop into Co-op for butter and apples. Speed walked up the hill home, and am now sat writing this while Alex cooks tea!
