My First Two Days At RCS

The first two days of my traineeship have been varied and have often involved my new colleagues helping me navigate around the college and it's many floors and coded doors along with becoming accustomed to the policies of the College and the roles of my colleagues.

 Day One...

My first day was spent with the college's User Services Manager who gave me a good overview of my office and had planned an extensive induction period to last for the initial two weeks, for which I greatly appreciated, detail and organisation are the way forward! Along with the procedural and health and safety information I read as general compliance, I got opportunities to engage in wider LIS reading and explored the college's journal 'bulletin' which gave me a good idea about the Library's main objectives and achievements over the past few years. What I immediately noticed was the presence of the Library and Information Service in the wider college community and  sense of engagement with it's users in a factual and user-focused way, factors which are imperative in keeping the service current and relevant for it's users. I am looking forward to exploring the upcoming User Services projects in more detail and contributing to a competitive and accessible service.

Day Two...

Day two was spent getting to know the role of the Collections Manager and her role in developing and maintaining the college's collections. It was hugely satisfying to learn of the scope and historical significance of the texts and tours of the collections and store rooms made me feel a little more confident about the prospect of enquiries from members, however I calm any hesitations around fulfilling these needs by trying to remember the role of the information professional is not to know the complete details and instantaneous location of everything in the collection, but to successfully seek out and utilise the systems available to find the right information to suit the user's needs. My main issue on day two in particular was finding my way back to my office. Rather than stick to the tried and tested way I knew, the explorer in me fancied an adventure and ended up taking several lift trips at lunch time to different floors of the building, only to find the loft annexe (where my office is situated) isn't really that close to a lift. I'll stick to the stairs I think...

Tomorrow, I look forward to learning about journal check-in and a tour of the Hunterian Museum after lunch followed by systems and electronic resources in the afternoon and hopefully many more excellent food and restaurant suggestions from my colleagues!