So many spinning plates

 So our Interlibrary Loan operations these days is a one man show, for better or worse (it's worse)....it really is a job for 2 people, has been for a long time in a system our size.  There's so much to do just to keep daily operations running that it's exceedingly hard to find time to do more thoughtful maintenance work and tweaks on the system that would keep it in tip top shape.  Some days it feels like everything is held together with metaphorical duct tape and bailing wire.

I do what I can, but I know stuff slips through the cracks.

I faced a real Catch-22 when my former co-worker suddenly quit out of the blue and I applied for and had to fight to actually get her position.  My Director asked me point blank if I could keep operations running solo and I said YES.  In the short term I can keep daily operations running, no doubt.  It's not ideal but I can do that much.  If I had said NO, they would've hired someone from outside to be technically over me and I would've been required to train them.  So I said YES and got the promotion but the library steadfastly refuses to hire me a Clerk II to replace the position I vacated to accept the job as ILL Paraprofessional held by my former co-worker. (Sigh)

I love my job and yes, it's a long overdue promotion and STILL not a Librarian I position.  I should be a Librarian I for the massive responsibility I've been asked to shoulder.  Everyone I tell this to at the library agrees.  And yet it does not happen.  I'm still just a paraprofessional.  I call myself a librarian anyway because I have my ALA-accredited MLS degree and have been a professional Academic librarian earlier in my career.  I think my former cataloging experience makes me a superior ILL professional, actually, because I have a more intimate understanding of databases and searching.

It seems like Interlibrary Loan is very seldomly a professional position (Librarian) anymore.  It may be supervised by a Librarian, but the grunt work isn't done by one (and it should be).  In my system technically my manager is responsible for Cataloging and Processing as her primary role and on paper is responsible for ILL and I work for her department, Support Services (sometimes called by the older term Technical Services in other library systems), named thus to avoid any confusion with our actual technology (IT) folks.  But could she step into my role and process patron requests in my absence?  She could not.  I do need to retrain her in how to process requests in ShareIt but neither of us have the time at the moment and it sucks.  I need an assistant because I'm not getting any younger and though my  aim is to work at the library as long as I'm physically able, until they MAKE me retire, someone has to be waiting in the wings to take over Interlibrary Loan operations when that day finally comes.  I need a good circulation person in their 20s, say.  Somebody to at least help out with the lending side of things and maybe help with some of the filing of paperwork while I focus on the borrowing side and returns.  I've managed to do both for some time but it runs me ragged.  It is helpful to coordinate returns with out going lending whenever possible via TAE courier and I suppose one person doing both jobs can stay on top of that easier than two people but...my former co-worker and I did manage it at least some.  Even when it was two of us, she did lending AND returns too.  My focus then as now was on borrowing and processing the incoming stuff, and keeping up with renewals and the like.

I'm usually kept busy and active most days.  Very little down time, there's always something to do.  It does make the day go by faster but it keeps things tense and can get stressful at times, too.  We tried assigning me a summer intern but the poor girl couldn't alphabetize to save her life so we had to reassign her because she was creating more work for me not less and made things worse not better.  I learned that young people apparently aren't really taught how to alphabetize anything anymore since most computers do that for them.  Gah!  What a skills deficit!  Makes you crazy to contemplate.  Do they not sing the ABC song in school anymore, the one that goes to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?  Because I still sing that in my head at work when I'm filing paperwork.