Merry Christmas Everyone!

It’s almost Christmas, I can’t quite get my head around that! It doesn’t seem like Santa is due to visit so soon – maybe it’s the lack of winter weather?

We’ve been so busy over the past few months, lots of additional students, new services to promote and staff with less people to do it! I for one will be glad of the break. Our new High Demand Collection is up and running, one floor above our main service desk which means we need a member of staff there to ensure things are running smoothly. We have someone on a temporary 6 month placement who hasn't been replaced, another one on long term sick leave, one who was promoted and left for pastures new, another one who has resigned and is due to finish up next week, and 2 people who decided to save their annual leave until now. As you can imagine, trying to keep a service running with hardly any staff has not been easy. However, we had 3 newbies starting this week so that should hopefully ease things a little. Get them thrown in at the deep end, training on the front desk from the start and hope they come back after the Christmas break!

I’m currently training one of our newer members of staff in ILL. I haven’t had to do any training for a while so I think I forget sometimes just how many little things there are to remember. Since I’ve been doing this job for a while (scared to count the years) I suppose a lot of things are just automatic to me and when I have to point out all the little differences between things that on the surface appear to be the same I realise that it is a lot for someone to remember, particularly when they only work in ILL one week in every 8, or something like that. We’ve also changed a few procedures lately with regard to the new copyright law so I feel that I am having to think about some things a bit more before telling someone else how to do them. Then, making sure everyone else who won’t be working in the ILL section for a while is also aware of the changes and that they remember what’s different by the time they are back on my rota!

I definitely need a break. I think all of our staff do. Hopefully we’ll start the new year afresh with new staff and things will seem a bit easier since we’ll have some extra pairs of hands. Of course, that means more training…….better get the summer holiday booked up so I have another break to look forward to!

Hope you all have a great Christmas! Enjoy the break, I’m sure we all need it!

Joanne