LCCN, February 14, 2013
ISSN 2324-6464
A Day in the Life of a Section Head: part 2
Bob Morgan, Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Division, Eastern
Central Europe Section
Bob's day continues with a wide range of activities. See the first part
of his day at:
http://listserv.loc.gov/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1301&L=lccn&T=0&P=199
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time to access WebTA, the automated system that we use to manage
employees' time an attendance. I approve requests that employees have
submitted for taking various types of leave and for earning credit
hours. I validate my own account for the pay period. While I'm doing
this, an employee comes to me to ask permission to take leave for the
rest of the day because he is suffering from a non-work-related injury.
I approve the request and tell him that I hope he will feel much better
soon.
A technician from another section advises me that one of the large book
trucks is full and needs to be taken to the Collections Access, Loan and
Management Division. It is my section's month to transport processed
material according to the rotating schedule. Since I do not have
technicians in the area, I deliver the loaded truck and bring back an
empty one.
My section relies on assistance from technicians in other sections to
produce some of our Initial Bibliographic Control Records (IBCRs). A
technician in a neighboring section comes to remind me that he will need
books from our arrearage for this operation the next day. I take the
books that he has completed the previous week, shelve them, and bring
him 24 Polish books that have been selected by the Recommending Officer.
Another technician stops to point out that I made a mistake in creating
an item record for a bound serial two weeks ago. I acknowledge the
mistake and she offers to correct it for me. How did I make such an
obvious error?
It is 3:30. I go to the office of the Information Technology Specialist
of the Acquisitions Fiscal Office to redesign some reports that show
selected acquisitions statistics for supervisors in the Directorate to
use in managing employee performance. I send .pdf versions of the
reports to her via email for distribution to other members of the
Directorate's Acquisitions Reports and Statistics Committee.
It is almost 5:00 p.m. I return to my workstation, approve some other
employee requests in WebTA, write the names of those employees who will
be on leave or teleworking the next day on the whiteboard in the
section, and begin a memo to staff regarding a new initiative by the
Preservation Directorate to test hardbound material for acidity in our
work area before it is transported to CALM. By agreement, the new
procedure began on Monday, but I've been unable to find time to write
the memo and have fielded several questions regarding it from staff
members during the week. My main focus during this time has been on
spending or obligating our funds for this fiscal year, so I hope to
finish it by late Friday.
But wait, I stand up and notice, over the top of three stacks of
material on my desk, that a little red light is lit up on my telephone.
I access my voicemail account and find out the teleworker called me at
3:30 to say that she didn't have access to the internet and couldn't
send me an email with her daily production statistics. I call her back
to tell her that she could send that information in the morning if the
service was available then. The next morning, I noticed that she was
able to send me that email at the end of her work day.
So as you can see, I've done a wide range of activities and tasks during
the day, some of which are clearly supervisory, and others that are
clearly non-supervisory. I do what needs to be done to keep our
section's operations running as smoothly as possible.
Sent via:
Melanie Polutta
Library of Congress
/LCCN/ Editor
