library

Acting Up

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Nothing ever stays the same in any area of work or life – and an opportunity for a secondment has come up at work. On the principle of “What’s the Worst that could happen?” I’ve put my hat in the ring to be considered. This hasn’t been an instant decision – far from it. The role is another step up the seniority ladder to a level of role I’ve not handled since I was very unwell nearly twenty years ago. It’s taken a lot of introspection and work in counselling to consider the fears and shadows raised – and to recognise that I am a very different person and have grown and healed considerably since then. Even more important has been the recognition that it wasn’t the previous role that had caused the illness and that there are, in any case, very few points of similarity between that role and this.

So I’ve updated my CV and spent a couple of hours working through a personal statement to support it based on the job role and profile provided – and am now stepping away from it for a few hours before I return to review it. I’m hoping that I won’t spot something immediately problematic and can hit the send button with confidence.

I refuse to let my imposter syndrome sabotage me – and part of that is recognising that this is just an email and a foot at the door. The worst that will happen is that I won’t be what they’re looking for just now and they’ll go with someone else. You know what? That’s okay too

Spinning Plates

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One of the things that simultaneously delights and drains me is the number of metaphorical plates that I spin to do my job. Staff pastoral care, strategic partnerships, outreach, projects, building maintenance, performance monitoring, leadership, staff networks, events, and many more facets all require careful prioritising and switching. The satisfaction of things spinning and landing in place in the right order (more or less) is – to me – hugely rewarding. The downside is the worry and temptation to get lost in the contingency planning.

Having been off for a few days last week I was relieved to find most of the plates still merrily spinning or landing where they were intended. My team have picked up and dealt with things as needed – though there have been some issues that I’ve leapt to the last couple of days too.

For the most part this has been to deal with external events in the local area – and especially the impact on staff. I’ve also got an event tomorrow evening where I’ve agreed to speak: an evening at the Surrey History Centre for LGBT History Month. I am both looking forward to it, and also nervous. It will go well, it will be wonderful – but its still a performance and I’ve had limited time to prepare. What’s the worst that could happen?

Warm Welcomes

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Its all been a bit of a scramble but there’s a network of community resources opening up across the UK to provide warm spaces for people, free of charge. We were already planning to be part of it as a response to the cost of living crisis, but the cold snap this week has only underlined how important it is. Local government services, faith groups, and community groups have been working together to try and provide support – and now there’s a searchable resource online – www.warmwelcome.uk – that should help you find warm spaces or to recommend them to other people. You’ll be seeing more about this through the winter and I hope its helpful to amplify it here.

The Warm Welcome scheme was started by the ChurchWorks Commission and is enthusiastically open about partnering up with anyone who is providing assistance across the UK. There’s an extensive FAQ on the website with all sorts of advice on setting up and partnering to provide safe and warm spaces so please do have a read through.

The libraries in my group are going live as sites as a soft launch while we finalise comms and supplies, mostly as it builds on our general availability around the year and existing mission to be safe and neutral spaces for all. The enduring appeal of working in libraries for me is the supporting role we play in our communities as a social space and its no leap at all to extend this winter. The paperwork is extensive, but the risk assessments are worth it…

In Praise of Library Staff

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One of the qualities I admire about so many of my colleagues is the quiet steadiness. Sometimes its fuelled by bloody-mindedness, and often without even realising just how creative and caring they are. Libraries work in the heart of our communities and hear people’s stories day in and day out – often struggling through transport and bad weather themselves to provide warm welcomes and activities for all.

Even when times are tough and we’re stretched thin, there’s a resilience that keeps people smiling and turning up. The reasons vary from person to person in their particulars but the overwhelming majority cite helping people as a major reason to do what they do. Sharing their love and knowledge of books can sometimes feel far away from the grind of making sure that people can do their printing, but its a rare person working in a library who doesn’t light up when someone is excitedly telling us about a new book they’ve discovered. It doesn’t matter how old or young that excited discoverer is, a library person will listen with a broad grin on the face.

Being at the heart of our communities we’ve seen a natural call for schemes aiming to raise quality of life. Whether that’s warm banks or trading standards testing equipment; firefighters advising on alarms and prevention, or offering space to Citizens Advice to meet their clients there’s a growing realisation that libraries are continuing to provide safe and neutral spaces. More importantly its becoming clear to a wider audience that these actions and interactions are nothing new. Libraries have been doing this for decades, quietly supporting and boosting local groups and being spaces for growth.

As a manager I occasionally field complaints about how libraries should be quiet spaces and all this bustle should be dismissed, and depending on the context of the conversation there are a number of responses that I find useful. In essence, there’s a world of difference between academic libraries and community libraries. Public libraries are firmly in the latter camp, and have been for many years – with ebbs and flows in the focus of activities of the day to provide a rich variety of ways to use the space.

We couldn’t do it without the staff. They bring enthusiasm and delight, along with steady professionalism and a spice of gossip. I continue to count myself very lucky to be working in libraries – there’s no job like it

Surrey Stars

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I was invited along last night to something that Surrey County Council hasn’t really tried before – an awards ceremony for outstanding individuals and teams. Various nominations, including some I put forward for my team, were whittled down to a select few, and my invitation lay unnoticed until my co-chairs in the staff LGBT+ network started commenting about how the date clashed with various family plans and asked if I was going. One hasty brushing off of the spam filter later I’d got the paperwork sorted.

Hosted at Sandown Races, the traffic was… heavy as only rush hour can be in that neck of the woods, but I was there on time and headed for the very sparkly-dressed people standing at the main entrance to gain entry. I’ve not been to anything like this before, so the nerves were firmly squashed, and I stepped forward all suited and booted.

It was a good evening – partly to meet people I’ve only ever met on Teams and Zoom, and partly to make new connections with my staff network chair hat on. There was live jazz and reasonable food and drink for a corporate bash, but the people there were definitely the draw. I think setting it right at the beginning of the Christmas period was a good move as it gave people an excuse to break out the glad rags and let their hair down a little bit. The mood was light, the networking was non-stop, and I was somehow surprised still to find how many people either already knew me by sight or reputation – or who wanted to talk in my network capacity.

There were some amazing stories that came out through the awards of the amazing work done with and for people in our local communities and in the pursuit of equality, diversity and inclusion for all. I don’t say it lightly, it was inspiring and I’m determined to get more library recognition in for next year. As it was, our Young Employee of the Year award went to a Saturday Assistant based in Camberley Library – much to his complete surprise.

I was even home at a not too late time – so I was quite buzzed for work this morning and spent quite some time making sure my peers and staff knew about the awards and how we need to get nominations started for next year. Pleasant to have something nice to plan really.

Librarians at Play

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After several weeks off while people had holidays and various bouts of not feeling well, we managed to get everyone together this week for the second session of Dungeons and Dragons I’m running with some colleagues from work, as well as Lady M and the boy s. We’d left them in the middle of a fight with two apprentices and their animated champions: a small shrub, and a broom. Chaos and hilarity ensued as the broom flew around the room smacking people as it passed, and people variously tried to grab and wrestle it into submission.

Lila, a thief with an extensive knife collection, was able to intercept one of the pair of miscreants and pin him to the wall. She told him to get his shrubbery under control, but at more or less the same time the cleric Wilhelm cast cause light wounds on it and it shrivelled away to dust.

The artificer, Xander, was knocked unconscious by the broom, but was stabilised by Pan before Caitriona (the other cleric) arrived and got them back on their feet. The distraction was enough for the second apprentice to flee to the other side of the chamber and say something into a rune-carved stone that he produced from his pocket. Moments later, a shadowy portal appeared in the air and a gaunt hand pulled him through. The portal promptly disappeared.

As a distraction, Xander imbued the broom with a fart-generating property – and blamed it on their concussion. Between them, in the meantime, Pan and Caitriona were able to smash the broom into several now-noisy segments.

The captured minion confessed that he and his companion had been practicing the animation spells to gain the favour of “The Maester” who had promised them power and work if they could manage it. He was offered a job in the kitchens of Wilhelm’s husband’s mansion and allowed to leave – and was last seen running as fast as he could. A few moments’ collective thought identified the portal as having been the manifestation of a dimension door spell – which meant that the Maester would have to have been at most 500 feet away. With no obvious additional ways out however, the group decided to gather up the abandoned book that they had been sent to retrieve and return it to the Morgrave University Library. They then gathered back at the inn on the campus before going their separate ways.

Wilhelm informed everyone that his husband had extended an invitation to them all to attend a black-tie event with rare book dealers who may be able to provide more information on missing books – or indeed this mysterious Maester.

We’ll be regrouping in two weeks’ time, and I’ve told the players there will be downtime activities to resolve and to think of what they might like to do with that time.

Creative Use of Library Space

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We had a dance company in at one of my libraries yesterday performing a series of 10 minute pieces based around the interactions of people on the doorstep – inspired by lockdown among other things it features love blooming between a shopper and a delivery person. Fast, funny, suitable for all ages, and a great way of opening up library spaces and the way people think about them. The series is called “Doorstep Duets” and its presented by New/Adventures – they’re touring all over the place so keep an eye out for them.

Libraries are being used more and more for creative purposes, and its wonderful to see new people coming in to experience them. We did a recent survey of the sort of activities people would like to see, and a striking number wanted to see performances and music more often. Between that and a resurgent interest in local history we’ve got some good places to start in reimagining how we grab people’s imaginations. There were certainly a lot of smiles at the performances yesterday, so that’s a good start.

Productive Day

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There’s a project close to my heart that I’ve been slowly pushing forward over the last four to six months, and that started to gain traction today. I’m aiming to improve access to items helpful for people with sensory processing issues in both schools and libraries – essentially a range of tactile, audio, and visual objects that can help or ground people with Autism or Alzheimer’s. The idea is that loaning these items will enable people, their families, schools, and carers to identify what best works for them at a reasonable price.

Today we agreed a project brief, and proposed some time scales to put a pilot together with some partner groups. It feels like a very concrete first step towards something quite special.

I also dropped in to the Pride In Surrey hub in Woking to introduce myself with my co-Chair hat on, and had some brief conversations around the upcoming Pride event at Camberley. I may also have bought a new mug and a snap fan in the colours of the Progress Pride flag.

Various other operational irons were stirred in the proverbial fire, but I’m mostly glad that today actually felt like I was moving with purpose again.

Just Work Things

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Back to work on a Saturday and so far there have been comments about sick on a carpet that turned out to be a water pipe leak, a query about lone working for a teenager in a quiet library, the payroll/HR system not being available, and the sun shining straight in my eyes while I’m on a call. A pretty ordinary morning so far then. I’m usually senior cover in my libraries about once a month and by far the most noticeable thing about that is that the geographical range of things that I get pinged about is more diverse. This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination as it keeps me aware of the wider state of how things are going rather than just on my patch. It’s also generally not an onerous duty as the staff are proactive and engaged and usually just need a nod to continue.

The building I work in is one of those radio shadow lattices from all the metal in its construction that plays merry havoc with mobile signals – which includes the official wifi – and so connectivity for me in this location has become a matter of hotspots via strategically positioned work mobiles and uncapped data tariffs. Never underestimate the creativity of library staff to overcome data issues.

My challenge for this evening is to not forget that I have counselling – unlike a fortnight ago where I got caught up in watching something on TV and then realised I’d missed the whole thing and saw the reminder texts from an increasingly concerned counsellor that I hadn’t seen because I normally have my phone on silent. Oops.

Could You All Just Stop?

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My day started with one of my branch managers phoning me while they were having a panic attack on top of what turned out to be an acute asthma attack. They were worried that they might have to close their library as they were working on their own. There’s a lot to unpick there, and once I’d talked them through getting their breathing a bit less on the edge of collapse I wasted no time in telling them that I couldn’t care less about closing the library – their health is far more important. This is an individual who is new in their job and feels they have a lot to prove, despite my telling them many times over that they are doing a great job and literally have nothing to prove and they need to slow down.

Grumpy? Me?

While still reeling that in I got a call about another member of staff wrenching their back while reaching for christmas decorations in a cupboard, had an update on another person about to undergo surgery, and had calls from the cub’s school that he wasn’t well and could someone come and retrieve him. I may have growled about that as he’d pranked me this morning by walking out of his room with red vaseline around his mouth so that it looked like he had foot and mouth but was thankfully at that time okay. Lady M meanwhile had called in sick with a heavy cold, and while down in Portsmouth boy s had also succumbed to the same cold.

It turned out that the cub has, you guessed it, got the same heavy cold as Lady M and boy s – so I’m chalking it up to Con Flu from the weekend. Lateral Flow Tests have remained negative.

Me? I haven’t got time to be ill. I had school runs, building health and safety inspections, job shortlisting, event risk assessments, and partnership meetings to sort out – and retrieving boy s from Portsmouth after hours. Tomorrow I have more of the same, so I’ve quarantined everyone else in the flat in the other rooms and laid claim to the sofa. If I get this in the same week that I’ve had my blood pressure medications increased, I won’t be happy.

So, could you all just stop falling apart please? I haven’t finished my turn yet.