Buckets

It is Friday and the end of the work day. One of the last conversations I had before leaving was a wandering one that was part weekend projections and part weekday recap. One of the statements that came up by my colleague was “I couldn’t tell you what my job is.” She meant how a liaison is specifically defined within an institution that also considers librarians tenure-track faculty based on research. This is a separate consideration than how we spend our time.

I was just thinking about this today. I spend my first year tracking how I spent my time. The purpose was to make sure I was using my time and energy toward things that were important. This job has parallels to what i feel a project manager does. Most aspect are planning and implementing something, and we are left on our own to determine our workflow. When looking at the data, I was able to create a spreadsheet that serves as my tracking sheet. (How stats in considered and calculated is a contentious matter).

The result that I have found is that as a liaison, I can group my work into several buckets. The headers of them are intuitive, but the contents aren’t always.

The buckets I have identified are: reference, administration, research, curriculum, professional development, and interal. Each of these buckets have a variety of activities, not the least of which is the project or preparation work that goes into each one. What follows is a breakdown of what I put in each bucket.

• Reference (chat, email, in-person)
  • Answering questions (internal and external)
  • Mediated searches
  • Consultations
• Administration
  • Making contacts (current constituents ~1000 people)
  • Generating business
  • Managing email
  • Tracking statistics
  • Communicating to stakeholders
  • Coordinating outreach
• Research (three active projects, two in the wings)
  • Project design
  • Project execution
  • Data analysis
  • Documentation
  • Writing
• Curriculum (six embedded classes, 3 standing orientations, stand-alone workshops as requested)
  • Teaching
  • Develop materials
  • Assessment
  • Analysis
• Professional Development (Three professional associations)
  • Conferences (two standing)
  • Webinars and workshops
  • In person training events (when there is $$)
  • Reading
  • Social media conversations
• Internal
  • Committees (eight)
  • Collection development
  • Independent project development and execution

While these are simplified categories, several could be their own job. Many of the categories overlap. For example, part of my teaching comes from course embedded instruction, while other teaching comes from offering on the data management committee. What is not listed is the sheer amount of work it takes to accomplish anything on this list. Almost every action takes time; affects collaborators that need to be consulted; needs planning, and documentation and organization. Now that I see buckets, I can look to see categorically where I am spending my time.

The imbalance is currently toward internal work and reference. It is interesting that at an institution, research is highly regarded but time for it is minimally protected. At this stage, I am not expected to participate extensively in research (none is not held against me necessarily, but they like to see the intention). And I could disregard that for the moment, but there are ideas that I am pursuing. Interestingly, while in science I never felt that I had enough drive for research, I find the ideas come easily for me in librarianship. In addition, I have been complimented on my research intuition. However, I don’t feel that I have enough time to dedicate to it.

Now that I have this added layer of information. I feel more secure in planning for the work that needs to get done. Getting it done is another question.