I use the S drive regularly. Examples: store staff photos for the awards ceremony; put a copy of a PowerPoint that the Marketing Team wants to see as an Outreach tool; put a copy of a Friends brochure that another branch might want to use; put a copy of a video for the the e-branch to load to the web page; put a copy of a poster that we need to be printed.
The P drive is full of stuff that all our staff needs to access: picture files for recently taken events, so that everyone who took photos can contribute; instructions for openings / closings; sheets for recording statistics; building and equipment repair files; procedures and forms for working with volunteers, etc.
My Z drive is also full of useful items relevant to my job as a manager: inventories of equipment; documents related to ongoing projects; Friends of the library bylaws and minutes; staff meeting minutes; collection profiles; contracts; budgets; grant proposals, etc.
At our branch we have a fourth type of drive, called the Q drive, or "Super Drive." This is one that the branch librarian and the three team leaders (Circulation Services, Adult Services, Children's Services) can access, but the regular staff cannot. This includes such things as interview questions, branch staff lists, Sunday staff lists, locker numbers, security procedures, tracking sheets for performance appraisal due dates, etc.
We save a lot of stuff because we need a lot of stuff. However, we surely have more stuff saved than we really need, and this exercise has been useful for pointing out the NEED to WEED.
My most obvious contribution in the past week has been to purchase an external hard drive, and to move a lot of archival pictures (e.g. the photo record of the construction of our library) and files onto that drive and off the server. I hope this made a small dent in the amount of space available on our servers. Did anyone think about doing a "before" and "after" spring cleaning comparison at the system level to see if we have been successful?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Spring Cleaning #29: E-mail
Confession: I am an e-mail addict.
I don't know how I kept in touch before there was e-mail. Mike L. says I am one of the super-users at HCPL, and he is probably right. I believe in communication as a management tool, and I send lots of e-mail to my staff, the library Friends, my community partners, and the Sunday staff that work at my library.
That means I also get lots back. And this is where things sometimes go awry.
I already have LOTS of folders, and I try to respond/file/forward/delete e-mail everyday. It STILL builds up. I have been deleting right and left for this exercise, and my Outlook Inbox is still well over 1,000 items. Bad. It is going to take me some time yet to get back on track. But I will DO it.
My address book is large, too, as one might expect, but it is pretty up to date. I review it on a regular basis.
One useful thing I have found to clear the storage volume quickly is to start with the the "Large Mail" and "Unread Mail" folders in Outlook. I have also been better lately at saving important attachments to a file and then deleting the e-mail copy. Too often in the past I used to save both. This was particularly bad if you made changes to one of the versions, but not the other. Invariably, you send someone the wrong version.
Besides my work e-mail, I have a regular home e-mail through my cable provider. I also have a more flexible e-mail through the free online Google/gmail that I can use in case I have fears of being spammed when I sign up for something. These days you get enough spam even when you are actively trying to avoid it. It that regard, "10 Minute Mail" sounds like a useful site to use on special occasions. "Spamhole" may be, too, but unfortunately, I was Forbidden to Access the link that was given in the iHCPLnextgen blog.
A pet peeve of mine is the forwarding of hoax e-mails. Often senders are unaware of how they can check on the validity of these before forwarding, since some sound pretty real. I try tactfully to send them a reply from Snopes.com or TruthorFiction.com or Purportal.com ("The bunk stops here...") so that they have a weapon in their arsenal for the next assault.
I don't know how I kept in touch before there was e-mail. Mike L. says I am one of the super-users at HCPL, and he is probably right. I believe in communication as a management tool, and I send lots of e-mail to my staff, the library Friends, my community partners, and the Sunday staff that work at my library.
That means I also get lots back. And this is where things sometimes go awry.
I already have LOTS of folders, and I try to respond/file/forward/delete e-mail everyday. It STILL builds up. I have been deleting right and left for this exercise, and my Outlook Inbox is still well over 1,000 items. Bad. It is going to take me some time yet to get back on track. But I will DO it.
My address book is large, too, as one might expect, but it is pretty up to date. I review it on a regular basis.
One useful thing I have found to clear the storage volume quickly is to start with the the "Large Mail" and "Unread Mail" folders in Outlook. I have also been better lately at saving important attachments to a file and then deleting the e-mail copy. Too often in the past I used to save both. This was particularly bad if you made changes to one of the versions, but not the other. Invariably, you send someone the wrong version.
Besides my work e-mail, I have a regular home e-mail through my cable provider. I also have a more flexible e-mail through the free online Google/gmail that I can use in case I have fears of being spammed when I sign up for something. These days you get enough spam even when you are actively trying to avoid it. It that regard, "10 Minute Mail" sounds like a useful site to use on special occasions. "Spamhole" may be, too, but unfortunately, I was Forbidden to Access the link that was given in the iHCPLnextgen blog.
A pet peeve of mine is the forwarding of hoax e-mails. Often senders are unaware of how they can check on the validity of these before forwarding, since some sound pretty real. I try tactfully to send them a reply from Snopes.com or TruthorFiction.com or Purportal.com ("The bunk stops here...") so that they have a weapon in their arsenal for the next assault.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Spring Cleaning #28: Don't Clutter Up Expensive Cyberspace
The explanation of GTD made me tired before I even read about it. GTD was TMI -- 3 models, a 5-step work flow process, 6 levels of "focus" and 5 stages of the natural planning method. You do the math.
Since one of the steps in the work flow process was "Spend more time doing than organizing", I decided to follow that advice and pass on most of the GTD theory. The one thing I have absorbed is the suggestion that "If it takes less than two minutes", do it now."
I complained to one of my staff members that I had too many files (electronic and paper), too much e-mail, too many pictures, too many notebooks. Her response was -- "You have to. It's YOUR JOB."
There is an element of truth in this. Part of the branch manager's job is to preserve some record of what has gone on at the branch. To provide some sense of tradition, to aid continuity, to honor the value of past endeavors.
The ideal is to keep only the items of most worth, so that the accumulated bulk of the past does not prevent moving forward. This exercise has encouraged me to be a better evaluator of the worth of what is saved.
Which makes me think. Right now we are worrying about cleaning up our local "neighborhood." We are encouraged to store things "out there" on the Internet. Is there a maximum capacity that the Internet can handle? With more and more people storing semi-useful things like their blogs, their libraries on Library Thing, their photos on Flickr, their videos on YouTube, etc., how long will it be before we get messages asking us to clean up our larger mess in Cyberspace? Will Google ever grind to a halt because there is just too much junk to look through?
Since one of the steps in the work flow process was "Spend more time doing than organizing", I decided to follow that advice and pass on most of the GTD theory. The one thing I have absorbed is the suggestion that "If it takes less than two minutes", do it now."
I complained to one of my staff members that I had too many files (electronic and paper), too much e-mail, too many pictures, too many notebooks. Her response was -- "You have to. It's YOUR JOB."
There is an element of truth in this. Part of the branch manager's job is to preserve some record of what has gone on at the branch. To provide some sense of tradition, to aid continuity, to honor the value of past endeavors.
The ideal is to keep only the items of most worth, so that the accumulated bulk of the past does not prevent moving forward. This exercise has encouraged me to be a better evaluator of the worth of what is saved.
Which makes me think. Right now we are worrying about cleaning up our local "neighborhood." We are encouraged to store things "out there" on the Internet. Is there a maximum capacity that the Internet can handle? With more and more people storing semi-useful things like their blogs, their libraries on Library Thing, their photos on Flickr, their videos on YouTube, etc., how long will it be before we get messages asking us to clean up our larger mess in Cyberspace? Will Google ever grind to a halt because there is just too much junk to look through?
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