Library Day in the Life: Round 7 Day 1

Job: Senior Officer of Newspapers and Periodicals (Digitisation Project) at the National Library of Wales

I've heard about the "Library Day in the Life" Project before and after seeing it advertised around the internet recently decided to take part this year.  I'm only going to be doing it for three days as I'm away at the end of the week and don't really think that it would be relevant to keep people up to date with my travels around Longleat Safari Park although if people are really interested for some strange reason I might. I'm not sure how interesting it will be for people but hey.

Monday 25th July 2011
8:25am Arrived at work and clocked in
8:30am Took the lift (yes I know lazy) to the fifth floor where the digitsation suite is situated.
8:35am Computer on, checking emails, sorting out what days I need off. (Thursday, Friday and Monday if you're interested)
8:40am Spoke to my line manager
8:50am Started checking "Cyfaill y Werin" Newspaper metadata for accuracy.
9:40am Went to catch up with the Project Manager
9:50am Started checking Welsh Gazette Newspapers for accuracy. There are more of these so it'll take longer (a lot longer)
10:30am Tea Time
10:50am Back to the Welsh Gazette
11:35am Distracted by an advert for free land out in Canada. I have a tendency to want to read what I see in these newspapers some of them are really interesting...  Although this time it's only an advertisement!

Welsh Gazette: March 30th 1905 Edition

 11:43am Again distracted this time by an article about the beginnings of the National Library of Wales in the March 30th 1905 edition of the Welsh Gazette. There's a good illustration as well!
12:01pm Well there's something funny going on with the Welsh Gazette the years don't seem to be in the proper order. The CSV for 1906 for example is coming before the one for 1905. As the CSVs themselves seem to be correct think I'll carry on going through them and then rearrange them as they should be.
12:06pm Helped my opposite number on the scanning team (I'm on the metadata team) find a certain title in the database; Athraw (Llanidloes) there seem to be an awful lot of Athraw periodicals, the editors don't seem to have been very imaginative, many titles are repeated numerous times throughout the 1800s.
12:13pm Approved a request by one of my staff members to take the afternoon off using HR21 our Electronic Holidays form.
12:25pm - 12:50pm LUNCH
12:51pm Onwards with the Welsh Gazette
2:00pm - 3:30pm Scanning QA this involves a programme called WOMBAT (which is the libraries internal workflow system) and a program called scan scan which shows the image. I check various images (which the workflow programme picks for me) for accuracy. This isn't in a typical day for me. But as the metadata team have built up quite a buffer I am getting some experience on the scanning side of the team as the person who's usually responsible for doing the QA is off sick. Hopefully there won't be any problems.
3:36pm Tea time
3:50pm Back to the QA
4:10pm While doing the QA of The Public Library Journal, which was the Quarterly magazine of the Cardiff and Penarth Free Public Libraries and the Cardiff Museum. I came across this old proverb "Ni bydd doeth ni ddarlleno" on the title page. I've heard it before it means "He who does not read will not be wise" and just thought it was something that would be interesting to some people. I'd forgotten about it but now that I remember I may use it for my blog...
4:20pm Had a slight problem with the QA process so waiting for the person in charge of the scanning side of things to come and tell me what to do. Think I'll get back to my own problems with the Welsh Gazette in the meantime...

4:40pm Had my question on the QA answered. Apparently it does throw up funny questions on occasion.
4:50pm Logged off the QA computer. Yes it has a special computer for some reason. 
5:00pm Logging off my own computer and heading home.