Sunday reflections - Ch Ch Ch Changes...

Sunday reflections – Ch ch ch changes…

I have had a huge year and not much blogging as have from last June/July, completed a big year (for me) which included an overseas trip – Paris, London, Scarborough, Bath and stops between and as much change on the work front as is possible in the same position.

Though the trip overseas is now a pleasant memory, it is one I will have forever of a summer in Europe that was hot and full of wonderful things. Many small and interesting and other big ticket, ‘must sees’; The Musee’ d’Orsay, lunch at the Eiffel Tower, the Eurostar, the quiet lap of the waves on a still day in Scarborough, the quite hysterically lame ‘Dracula Experience’ in Whitby. The smell and feel of the life in London, the way the rubbish is stowed and collected with a strange lack of bins. Rounding a corner and entering the fabulous Green Park with Londoners cooking in the midday sun. Many great memories of the Underground, Baker Street, Big Ben, the Tower and Shakespeare at the Globe, a musical play in the west end “Matilda”. The ‘NORTH’, and the many, many roundabouts on the journey to get there and driving through the English countryside ‘b’ roads in summer. The road signs of the many places we recognized from reading and images and deliberately not visiting ‘Midsommer’ as everyone dies there, especially visitors. :-)  The lack of air conditioning/ventilation or the ability to open windows in various hotels, but happily never a bad bed. The food good and hysterically bad (don’t get me started on the ‘Famous fish and chips’ in The NORTH). I think it rained once and there was ‘a fly’, at least I think it was a fly.

What did I learn from this, I learnt people are the same everywhere, individual in their approach to tasks and most quite helpful and respectful to stupid tourist questions’. I tip my hat to the disdainful waiter in France, I loved him, and his service was impeccable. I love that the tour guides were multilingual and wish we were more so here. (The guide on the ‘Bato Bus’ ferry on the Seine had four languages.) I love ‘skip the line’ tours, we learnt about this in Singapore in 2010 and it saved amazing time, when you only have a short time to spend.

Came back to complete semester two with a relatively new (from the start of 2013), inclusive and evenhanded manager who ‘consistently’ considered us part of the team, even from a distance. I learnt so much about various things the main one being how to let the bad shrug off and move on with the job, great skill and hard to learn.  I also survived “change management” and was not made redundant. (Clear communication is the key.)

By far the largest change for me was, during the first 5 months of 2014, we had the Library moved into storage, while a “new home” has been constructed in a heritage Building constructed in the early 1900’s. I will not go into the reasons for the move as that is not my area, suffice it to say, we waved goodbye to our High School and TAFE clients for whom we will no longer deliver services.

We also waved good bye to our staff member who was made redundant because of these reduced services and the change management process. She was a good, consistent worker who turned up with a bright smile and sank her teeth 100% into any task she was given. I wish her well.

With the decision to move we delivered services, as best we could, (Using phones, courtesy phones and email from a Reference point of view and unpacked various collection boxes - if urgent) from an office in the middle of the “Academics office building”. I learnt so much from this about our clients and it deserves a whole post on its own.

When the building was nearly complete, we oversaw the move of the library stock and our office in to the new space, with all the inherent problems of non- library staff completing the move. We are now working out how best to put to practical use the space planners and architects vision, dodging builders for two weeks and then some more… We have also survived tourists, the official opening, more builders, security establishment issues and just basically how to score a cup of tea/coffee on the run. (Yay! to the admin staff from Mining, who are wonderful.)

We have now opened in the new space. It is very nice, bright, colourful a good mix of the old and the new and seems to contain all a small library needs. With longer hours, at client request and a resounding “if you build it where they need it, they will come”, the attendances are good so far…Yay!

Professional positions in the country of Western Australia for Librarians are few and hard to get, without moving hearth and home often. I have to share that it is not often you can get a new job, by just changing the crap out of the old one, but this is my story. Change managed. *waves wand*

@kalgrl

And now a small musical interlude…

David Bowie

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