This past week, I've finally dug into the boxes! (Context: for the last three months, I've been cataloging the file folders in the filing drawers. I finished those in the last week, and after a complicated few days of rearranging everything to be sure the file folders in the second room could fit into the main room, I have finally got all the folders into the drawers, and have started on the boxes!) Cataloging for days!
I'm learning quickly that the way to get my supervisor to commit to anything is to go into his office at the moment you want something done, and say "Hi [Supervisor], do you have about 10 minutes? I need to go over this file I found?" Or "I really need to know what these materials in one drawer is, do you have time right now to take a look?" Trying to schedule meetings never works, but letting him know when you need something done does. Which means I now know which boxes I should be going through (anything not with his name written on the outside) and those I should not (anything with his name written on the outside). This is also how I managed to toss an entire file drawer (!!!) to be shredded last week. Tagging him down to look - really, look - at the contents in the drawer. As one might expect with experience in libraries/archives, I cannot shred anything without the go-ahead from those higher than me.
This week also brought the always good-time of explaining, "But no, seriously, I work at a Corporate Library". We have quite a few Inter-Library Loan accounts set up with various academic institutions. Mostly in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, and one I set up just this past week in Kentucky. The Kentucky one is I need to acquire very specific documents, which are only housed at a university there. There was some back and forth with the Librarian there, to verify they had the documents I needed, with me finally asking what information they needed to set-up our ILL account.
"We only lend to corporate libraries. Not corporations."
Me blinks. "But I am the librarian for a Corporate-based library in a Corporation."
We got it straightened out in the end. This is not the first time I've encountered such a thing! I'm a Solo Librarian. The library/Archives I manage are two and half office-spaces. Larger offices, but still office-spaces, with various other materials scattered in the various of the Geologists who I support. I definitely feel like this could be a gray area. The library is internal use only, and my understanding of it, fairly unique to the North Regional Office (where I work). Compared to something like a law office library or the library for a larger corporation, it is barely a library. But we have books and they are borrowed, and "librarian" is in my title, so yes, I work at a corporate library.
Indeed, that is how I've been describing this most recent position. "I'm a Corporate Librarian< who does [goes into detail]" or "I work in a Corporate Library and I do [goes into detail]." If nothing else, this job is a learning experience! Both in the geological sense - I knew nothing of geology going into this job - but also in regards to the library itself. That since graduating library school, I've primarily worked in special or non-traditional libraries. That in talking with my uncle the other day, how these skills I am learning and applying could take me any number of places in the future, whether I stay in this current field, or try to move into a different field.
This is my first time as a true Solo Librarian. And one thing I am learning very quickly is I will make mis-steps, that's ok. The goal is to round those mis-steps to find the right step. And also to know exactly what I need when I need it, and to pin my supervisor down to do it.
I foresee a lot more shredding. I just hope he's ready for it.
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