On vacation

Some years Farmer Bill & I have taken traditional vacations - actually leaving town for days at a time.  This winter finances don't allow for travel.  However, I needed time off from my paid work, so I have taken a long week off.  We were able to come up with plenty of small things to do and will spend a couple of days away from home at the end of the week.  Thursday I dropped off a quilt top to be quilted, did a bit of shopping, and then met a friend for supper followed by a visit to a local quilt show.  A lovely first day off.  On Saturday Farmer Bill & I went to the Guthrie with Bill's Aunt Pat.  Pat has season tickets to the Guthrie and generally invites us to attend a show with her once each year.  [Farmer Bill generally reciprocates by inviting her to attend a baseball game with him.]  On Sunday our daughter & son-in-law came and had dinner with us - Farmer Bill helped them do their income taxes.  I spent about an hour transplanting tomatoes and will do some more over the next couple of days.  Tonight we're going to Minneapolis for a program on climate change.  Tuesday and Wednesday I plan to work on quilting and hope to go snowshoeing both afternoons - the weather should be wonderful for being outdoors.  Thursday I'm dragging FB to Red Wing to wander through  antique stores.  We'll spend the night somewhere between Red Wing and Wabasha so that on Friday we can go to the National Eagle Center and Lark Toys.  Saturday and Sunday I plan to work on quilting again & get in a couple more snowshoe walks.  See, even when one doesn't go 'away' a vacation just flies by, the days full of possibilities.  I hope to have a better frame of mind for going back to work (but secretly fear that I'd need something like a 6- or 12-month sabbatical for that).

The tomatoes look very good and are well on track to be transplanted in the hoop house on April 1.  The orchard pruning is probably a bit behind schedule, but can be done well into May if need be.  The newest trees have all been pruned & since we hadn't gotten to all of them last year they were really in need of attention.  The recent snow (and any more that comes) was very welcome.  Snow cover will help keep the trees and strawberries dormant longer into the spring.  Cold and snow also help kill off insect and disease pests.  Plants and seeds for this year's crops are all ordered and will start to arrive soon (obviously the tomato seeds have already arrived since they have to be started February 1).  I'll help FB transplant in between other projects.  The greenhouse we've been using for starting seeds wasn't available, so I  allowed FB to use the back bedroom again this year.  He'd like to build a small greenhouse - it really wouldn't need to be very large - but of course it would cost money & require money to heat it so it wasn't in the plans for this year.

Right now I need to go read a couple of chapters of one of the books I brought home to read this week (I've finished 2 of them so far) before I have to get ready to go to out.  More later, perhaps.

Thank goodness for great colleagues

The librarian part of my life is often a struggle these days.  Librarians everywhere face it, whether they're in a public library, an academic library, or a K-12 school library.  There's a segment of the population who believes libraries are irrelevant, that reading and the book are dead.  Given that we have over 150,000 visits a year, I feel that I could argue we are relevant to a lot of people in our community.  It is true that the number of books we send home with people has gone down, but the number of people coming through the door has gone up.  Many of them are using the free Internet access we provide.  An ever-growing number are using electronic books.  Others are coming in asking for print materials and going away with resources accessed electronically. The circulation statistics don't directly include these items.  And circulation statistics really don't tell you how many people come through the door who don't know how to use a mouse, find the address bar on an Internet browser, or read enough English to follow the instructions on how to print their document.

Several years ago the library system I work for went through a major staff reduction.  Incentives were given to those willing to retire.  After the retirees were sent off, the remaining staff was re-allocated across all 9 locations, based on a formula that was kept secret.  My branch lost 60% of our librarian hours.  We went from having 3.75 FTE Adult Services Librarians to having 1.6 Adult Services Librarians.  I am now responsible for the work that 3 librarians used to do.  [Our 0.6 FTE Librarian kept most of her previous responsibilities, but didn't take on anything additional at our branch; she now splits her time between 2 branches and has some responsibilities at each.]  When I first started working at this branch in 2000, 4 librarians did the job for which I am now primarily responsible.

I'm here to tell you: one person can't do the work of three or four - and do it well.  I can't go through my collections the way I used to.  I have to call or email my community contacts rather than going out to meet with them.  And I pile stuff on my desk to deal with later as I race from task to task, putting out whichever fire is blazing the highest at that moment; it looks like I live in a hoarder's cube...

The people I work with help to make this craziness bearable.  For the most part, they are hard working, smart, funny, and believe in the mission.  They help me in myriad ways, as simple as coming up with new ideas when I feel tapped out and as in depth as weeding a collection that I don't have time to get to.  I hope that I help them in return.