I recently posted a question to the listserv asking for ideas on how to track the invisible work I do in the library. Recent changes in the structure of library services at my school confirmed that the higher levels of administration do not fully understand all of the tasks that go into making the library run. Part of this is on me – I tend to let my work speak for itself and after a building level administration change several years ago, I did not advocate for myself or the library as much as I should have done.  My increased advocacy efforts were too little, too late and library staffing and services were cut. The positive side of these events is that my elementary colleague and I are working together to highlight the instructional and enrichment activities that we lead within the library program, and we have increased our communications with all of our constituents. Advocacy is our joint goal for the next few years.

Meanwhile…. about that invisible work. I know I’m preaching to the choir, but there is a lot of invisible work that happens in the day to day running of the library.  My breaking point, so to speak, happened a couple of weeks ago when I spent the better part of 3 days physically preparing books for the shelves.  There was a backlog of books, due to the loss of our library assistant position, and it took me longer than normal to complete this task.

Through conversation with one of the administrators on campus, I discovered that the perception of the libraries is that when students are not in the room, we are not really busy and have time to “sit on the computer”.  My computer time at work is filled with updating the library pages, curating book lists in Overdrive and our catalog, reading book reviews, searching for relevant databases and resources, preparing research guides, cataloging books, etc.  The conversation with the administrator again highlighted the lack of visibility for much of the work that fills my day.

As a first step I took time to make a shared spreadsheet for both librarians to track the work that must be done behind the scenes for the library to run. We are going to try this low-tech version of tracking for the rest of this calendar year while we investigate other options that we can share with administrators.  I am also adding this “invisible” work to my quarterly updates to administrators because it is important information they need to know.  I’m working on an infographic format that isn’t as text heavy but will still get the message to the right people.

I feel like I have the best job on campus, and I suspect that I have taken it for granted because of course everyone knows how important the library is to the school. This year, I am going to show my community all of the ways we impact student learning and school culture.  What are some of the ways that you highlight your work and library within your community?