On 3/20/08, jakjmjto wrote:
> I appreciate your response. When I said I would be teaching
> for half the day, that was on top of any library teaching in
> an alternate role outside of the library.
A lot depends on how much work the library needs.
If you have to clean out several year's accumulation of
low-quality or damaged books and acquire new ones, and fix 20
years of bad cataloging, then even a tiny library can be a full
time job. If your library has been well-maintained and well
cataloged, then the tech work is a much lighter load, though you
will have to learn how to catalog books properly, so as not to
leave a mess for your successor.
If you have a huge book budget, then acquisition and cataloging
can take a lot of time, as will getting rid of older books to
make room for new ones.
If you have a miniscule book budget (more common), then you have
a choice of letting the library stagnate, or of spending a lot
of unpaid hours browsing used book stores for suitable books in
good enough condition. Cataloging used books is often more
difficult, as many of the school library catalog systems (and
even Library of Congress) won't have the proper MARC records for
the books that you find.
You won't get much (if any) of the tech work done while students
are in the library, as they will quite reasonably want your
attention for various reference librarian tasks, as well as
needing general disciplinary oversight.
Running even a small library is a full-time job, and difficult
to do well if you are also preparing non-library lesson plans.
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