This week\u2019s “days in the life” are very different from the ones I did back in July. In July, I was still in the midst of maternity leave and was working only half-time. I was taking care of a three-month-old child and often felt so overwhelmed by that responsibility that I was having trouble finding a work\/life balance that preserved my sanity. Now, I really feel like I\u2019ve found the right balance for my life and feel much more comfortable in my role as working mom. <\/p>\n
On Mondays, I work from 1pm until 9:30pm as I have the evening reference shift. This was the first Monday that we\u2019ve ever put Reed in daycare; until now, I\u2019ve watched him until 12:30 and Adam had him the rest of the day. Losing a day of work-time just wasn\u2019t working anymore for Adam, and with my Web 2.0 class<\/a> starting tomorrow, I\u2019m going to be a lot busier too. Reed is a very high-energy, social boy, so daycare really suits him and he\u2019s always happy to be there. I went to visit Reed on my way to work and absolutely did not want to leave his daycare. I go through phases where I appreciate having productive adult time away from him and phases where I can\u2019t stand not hugging him all day long. Lately I\u2019ve been in the latter phase of mommyhood.<\/p>\n Since I took Friday off last week to spend my husband\u2019s birthday with him, I came back to a mountain of emails. I first answered emails that I could get through quickly and flagged those that required more thoughtful attention. I\u2019ve been bugging faculty in my liaison areas to request books for purchase and it\u2019s finally paying off, so I passed a big bunch of paper and electronic acquisitions requests on to our Acquisitions Associate who orders books. There are certain programs still that aren\u2019t purchasing much, and the way it\u2019s set up in the School of Social Sciences, if psychology (or another department) doesn\u2019t spend their money, the rest of the faculty in the other social science areas can spend it (as opposed to me spending it on psychology books). This worries me because I feel like we\u2019re doing a poor job developing the collection in certain areas, but I can\u2019t just take the reins on this when faculty have always controlled the book funds.<\/p>\n I then went next door and talked to the Distance Learning Librarian about a new online program being proposed by the school of graduate studies since we just received the proposal for it in our Inbox this weekend. We both question whether we can adequately support the program. I feel strongly that some programs should still be taught face-to-face because of the dearth of online resources in those areas. This is definitely one of them. We\u2019ve been asked to create an estimate of how much it will cost for the library to support this program, and we know our figure will be far more than they will be willing to support. I wrote an email to the faculty member proposing the new online program asking for some clarifications on his proposal so that we can get a better idea about the program\u2019s potential resource needs.<\/p>\n