Sometimes I do so much of my "volunteer" job, that I kind of get to the point where I wonder where I'm going to fit in my "real" job. I wonder if I should blog publicly about this though - does anyone else find this? Anyone else so active in ALIA or another professional organisation that some days they have deadlines that are not job-work-related, but ALIA-work-related, that just need to get done?
It is a slow time of year for me, it's true, as students are so busy in our 24 hour library making their own way through the soup that is their studying filth (seriously, the drawback to a 24 hour library? The smell of teenage boys. GROSS.) that they don't need the assistance of a library and information professional.
Sure, I have second semester textbooks to order, but due to the awesome efficiency of my Library Assistant we're all over that, baby. And yes, I have many other busy and important person tasks that take up my time (thank you, Twitter) but I'm not teaching four of the seven hours of my day like at the beginning of semester, and the time I spend on the desk isn't so full of students tearing their hair out and emails from lecturers tearing off student's heads (most of them seem to be in Asia - one academic emailed me telling me he'd been "Shanhaied" - very amusing, I'm sure) and wanting me to put them back on, that my days are actually quite relaxed, at least compared to other times of year. I even have time to read my email. So when ALIA comes a knocking with "Access newsletter copy due TODAY" and "website needs to be updated" and "review my paper it needs to go in for final copy tomorrow" I kind of go "Oh, OK, I can do that".
It's nice to be able to have time to do some of it at work, because normally I spend so many hours at home doing my library volunteering (committee meetings, writing up minutes and reports and so on) that it's kind of snatched. I'm lucky that my work is OK with me doing some of my ALIA work at work. No-one else really volunteers within my branch, but it's supported within the wider institution, and I've been told that I can work on my ALIA related research project at work - not that I've had time. Which reminds me. I have a grant to apply for...
Oh, and come to ALIA Access. Enrol in the New Graduate Program. It's gonna be awesome. And send any eligible new graduates you know to this blog to get details of how to attend the conference for free. You might even be eligible yourself...
It's so good that you got the ok to work on ALIA work at work. I will still make up the time I spent on teleconf or meetings and such, just in case...
ReplyDeleteI am of the opinion that if you are doing stuff for a professional organisation you bring the kudos back to your workplace. So long as you're doing your real job properly there should be no reason why you can't do stuff for the profession as well.
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