Wrap Up

I learned a lot these last 3 years, but my biggest take away  is to start measuring outcomes, so that I may be able to present them to the library board and the city board in a different manner, so that hopefully I can make a difference in how the library is perceived and treated.  I learned that I am a lot stronger person than I thought I was and that people like me better than I thought.  I need to learn to delegate more responsibility to others and trust them to do it.  I need to praise others when they do a good job.  I need to work on being quieter, delegating work, and telling people what I think of their work performance.  I also need to work on learning more technology skills. I would also like to learn about perserving history.  I'm good at planning programs for the children.  I'm good at brain storming with others and taking others ideas and running with it, but I do usually give the other person credit for the initial idea.  I am going to continue to work on the appearance and safety features of the library. I'm going to start measuring outcomes and presenting information in a different manner.  I'm going to talk to library board about grants that we may be able to get.  I'm also going to start going to town board meetings every month rather it is time for me to report or not and I'm going to go to other meetings and be seen by board members and be recognized as part of this community.  I've already started.  I went to the town board meeting on Monday night and my report hadn't been given to the board, so mayor told me to come back and do it next month.  When meeting was over I was the first one out the door and in my car, but I thought better of it and decided I was better than that and went and looked at the new fire trucks and spoke to the fire fighters before leaving.  The next night the county mayor was holding a meeting at the same place and I showed up there before anyone else and spoke to him about coming to the library. I believe I met someone that can out talk me. He talked from 6pm-8:35m, mostly about the same thing. But you know what he knows me, because we went to school together and I graduated with his wife, so I have a connection right there.  I'm also going to try to push the electronic side of the library, that's where the future of libraries is going.  I have to take things at a slow pace and not expect results right away.

City

My daughter just asked me out of the blue, why was I going to go off on the city.  I told her I wasn't going to go off on the city, that I was going to start approaching the way I present my information to the city in a different manner, so that maybe they would start caring about the library.  It reminds me of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 song.

Graduation

We made it fellow PLMIer's. I don't remember the assignment for this blog, so I will have to write about it later.  I've started writing this 4 times, but I keep going off on tangents trying to make the points I want to make with this blog. So I'm going to try again and just start off with my points. Point #1:  My dad said he was proud of me.  I can count on one hand the number of times I remember him saying that. a. When I won 2nd place in the spelling bee in the 7th grade.  b.  When I graduated from college in 1992.  c. Graduating from this class. /He might have said it to me when I graduated 8th and when I graduated high school in 1980, but I don't remember it.  Even if he did those 2 times that is still on one hand. Point #2: All of a sudden I feel there is a new respect for me. Why? a. When we were going outside to take our picture, Tre Hargett actually stopped by my table and spoke to my child first, then shook hands with my husband and spoke to and shook hands with my father.  Now I know that was probably because we were sitting near the door we were going out of and not intentional, but I'm taking that as a good sign. b. I actually spoke to several of my class mates where we were complementing each other and hugging. c. I also spoke to Chuck Sherrill and to Janice Perry, our regional assistant director and feel I did good by them. d.  I had changed my clothes when I got back to my dad's and put on my black jeans with the bleach spot on them and a green t-shirt that I had ironed the PLMI logo on, but I also put my pin on. Now Timmy, Kandy, and I had to go all the way back to Dickson and get a hotel room with a pool, so he could go to Fairview and work on his big truck that had broken down on Tuesday. So on the way: 1. We stopped at a rest area to use the bathroom and this short man that was the janitor or care taker of the place looked at me and out of the blue said so I think the bug trap is working good.  My agenda at the moment was to go to the bathroom, not to have a conversation with someone, but I stopped anyway and looked at the trap and said what kind of bug does it catch and he told me the Japanese beetle. I told him that was interesting because I had had the Agricultural Extension Office come to the library this summer and he brought some with him to show to the kids.  He proceeded to tell me how the trap worked and how he had figured out the best way to catch them, etc. I told him that it was similar to the boll weevil trap, that I used to have a job setting out traps to catch them and he asked me some questions about that. In the mean time, my daughter had come back out to check on me, so I finally told him I had to go to the bathroom.  When I got back out of the bathroom, he just started talking to me again saying he had figured out how to fix the boll weevil problem with genetics like they were doing with the mosquito, so I told him about getting a batch of eggs out of the lagoon when I was in elementary school thinking they were frog eggs. That the class was going to watch them change into frogs and that when they hatched they turned out to be mosquito's, so we had to put oil in the water to kill them.  So my take on this man is that he was a very intelligent man Science wise, but there was something not quite right about him.  2.  Then we went to Wendy's at a truck stop and this man asked was I in-line. I said yes, but I thought he was there first.  He said for me to go ahead.  All of a sudden there was an announcement over the intercom about showers and I didn't quite understand what was said about the showers, so I asked the man that let me go first and all of a sudden other people in the start striking up conversations with me. / Now my point about this point is that people don't normally just start talking to me like that.  I usually do that to them and these 2 times I didn't intend on doing that.  Point #3.  People don't realize what we librarians do.  When we were checking in at the hotel, my husband was telling the clerk about his truck being broke down since Tuesday and I told her that I had been away at Paris Landing taking a week long class that I had been going to one full week in the year for 3 years now, then I told her that I had been in Dickson in February when I was going to the Summer Reading Training, that I had had a presentation there.  This woman's reaction was, " Good grief, all that for the library." I was like , "yes mam."  

Year 3 Day 4 Challenges

I totally get that the challenges were about working together as team and that's the way we need to be at our libraries, but I feel that the last challenge the team I was on had an unfair disadvantage.  I think our shirt was frozen harder than the other teams.  We were in front, then we couldn't get it apart.  I'd also like to say this.  I may not have been a winner on any of the challenges, but I am a survivor.  I am a Librarian! On second thought that makes me a winner.

Year 3 Day 3

The group project is similar to the Capstone Project with a lot less plus some of the homework assignments we have been working on.  It was things we had done before, so not too hard.  When you are sharing, discussing, and asking opinions everything runs smoothly, but when one of your team members is missing or there is no discussion then you begin to feel left out, unless assignments have been specifically made clear.  Come to find out I was trying to make it more complicated that it needed to be.

Year 3 day 2

Mary was awesome.  The information was useful and interesting.  Involving us the way she did was very good.  It goes along with the Benjamin Franklin quote I use ...involve me and I learn.  However, even though the information is useful, it is easier to learn how than it is to actually apply it in real life, especially when you have a reputation as being crazy and bossy and when people don't care about the library.  In other words, it's hard to change your ways.

Year3Day1

The projects are a lot of work.  I hope we will have time to do the project justice.  The team aspect makes it better.  I feel that each of us have our own strengths to be help with this. I'm the idea person and the other 2 are good at organizing it.

Overwhelmed and Panicking

I finally got into my blog.I had changed my gmail password last week so I could get into it.  I am overwhelmed about all the homework assignments we have.  I made a document entitled passwords for things I think I will need in case I forget again.  I,m panicking because I am behind on everything.  Evidently Heather didn't know that the library's e-mail was changed back in November, so I missed out on a lot.  She finally realized it, since she hadn't been hearing from me.  So now I'm panicking about what all I have to get done.  Making sure that my blog is working is one thing I can now check off the list.  I read some of the other new blogs while I was at it.  Wish me luck, getting all these assignments completed.  I wish everyone else in class luck as well.  It will be nice to see everyone if I can get all this work completed.

Glenda Doyle
Lee Ola Roberts Library
Whiteville, TN