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Being A Librarian

It makes sense to have a guide on how the librarian should use the administrative bits on here, or more specifically - how to deal with people wanting books out of the library.

Firstly, it's probably best if you read about getting a book out of the library as that's where everyone has to start. It's also worth making sure you're logged in too, as there are lots of extra features within the library that only appear then.

The way the whole taking books out things work is done over a series of stages

  1. They reserve the book
  2. You take the book out of the library
  3. You hand the book over to them
  4. You get the book back off them
  5. You put the book back into the library

You can see what stage a book is in on the book history page. This page also lets you progress a book's state to the next stage. To save time and because it's likely that you won't have access to the website whilst rummaging around in the books, you can implicitly do steps 2 or 4 by selecting steps 3 or 5 respectively. It's also possible to transfer a book between members if someone requests a book that someone else also has.

When taking books out of the library, it'll list what editions are available so if there are multiple editions, it's a good idea to make sure you mark the right copy as having been taken out. It also lists the location in brackets in the form (cupboard.shelf.row.column). Shelves are numbered 1 to 7 from the top. Rows are numbered 1 to 3 from the back of the shelf. The column is 1 to X from left to right.

Putting the book back where you got it from is a good idea, but if you don't, then updating the location will ensure that subsequent librarians can find the book quickly and easily.

Other parts of being a Librarian

Recently, promoting the library to potential users has become as much a part of the role as dealing with the books themselves. Buying new books to show off and holding regular open sessions is a good start but it may help even more to be creative.

This is especially important during Freshers' as the sorts of people who come along for the film nights and stay for the socials may not been the same people who would make use of the library. This means that publicising it to non-members to encourage them to join is very important wherever possible. If you can organise something involving the main library or other like-minded societies then even better.

Dealing with the student union (SU)/ Moving the Library

At times, the SU has been very indecisive about where the library should be and some of the places they have moved it to have been inconvenient (irregular access hours, blocked cabinets etc.). If you have any problems, raise them as soon as possible with the SU (both with the society VP and the societies coordinator... you may need to remind the VP that the library exists if they are new to the job).

If the worst happens, you may need to move the library, this is not an enviable task. See here for a short guide as to how you might go about doing so, brace yourself.

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