As usual, I woke up rather early. I enjoy the early hours of the day … how quiet they are, especially when it has been snowing, it is in these hours when I get a lot of work done. Being a part time student, and working full time hours during the rest of the week, every single pocket of ‘available’ time is of precious value.

This morning was spent in the company of D.F. McKenzie and Joao & Bebel Gilberto, whilst giving the finishing touches to an assignment due next week. I am now at the point of wrapping up my taught lectures (I am currently in my second year) for the MA LIS and have just planned the skeleton for the two remaining written assignments. Somehow I feel partially ‘free’ to continue my work on the dissertation. I am already looking forward to many hours of research and typing in this rather small space (my secretaire desk), but surrounded by music, and films; how big it feels then!

It is here, in this small cabinet, where I look for and process information, where I organize notes, schedules and action plans. Speaking of which: I have known for some time now, that I work in 1-hour-rhythms … as I am now planning my MA research, I am taking this bit of information into account. I even informally trialled it this past week by setting an alarm in my computer as I was starting a task (I set the alarms slightly over an hour each time, when starting a job) this past week was continuous cataloguing and copy editing (at work), and reading one single topic (at home and reading rooms) I am absolutely convinced this will help both my spirit and my productivity.  Even better! At work it means, that I can consciously intertwine some project planning –or just plain pause from computer work- whilst going through my normal workflows.

Later on the day I organized a forthcoming trip to Cambridge to attend the conference “Incunabula on the move” organized by the Cambridge University Library Incunabula Cataloguing Project and the EIRI Project of Keio University, Japan. I am extremely excited about this event and cannot wait to hear Paul Needham ‘live’ for the first time! I was also surprised (and daunted, of course) to discover I am writing about a topic that he has been thinking about as well. This came as a boost of energy after having to cancel going to another -very interesting- conference in Munich a week and a half from now: “Eine Experimentiertphase im frühen Buchdruck: Blockbücher des 15. Jahrhunderts”

And now I will sit down, pour a glass of ‘freshly bought’ Kölsch, and enjoy the rest of the Sunday in the company of my husband, either continuing reading Homero Aridjis’ “La zona del silencio” … or maybe watching “The fearless vampire killers”.

We haven’t decided yet. (I might have to persuade him with regard to the latter…)

This week is the eighth round of Library Day in the Life, a blogging and microblogging communal diary initiative started in July 2008 by Bobbi Newman.

As it says on the project wiki, “It’s a great way for students who are interested in the library profession to see what we really do.” I thought that prospective librarians might be just as interested to see what happens at library school, and, now that our student blog is fully operational, several of this year’s cohort have agreed to blog some of their activities here.

Look out for posts this week from Ellen Allardice, James Curtis, Karina de la Garza Gil, Annie Johnson, William Earp and Jennifer Yellin.

If you want an idea of the sort of things they might have to say, take a look at Helen Doyle’s ‘My Week’ column in Library & Information Update, February 2011 (close-up of cutting here) and Sarah Maule’s blogging for libday6 (week commencing 24 January 2011). Sarah also blogged libday7 in July 2011, when she was completing her MA LIS dissertation and working full time.

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Image: UCL Portico on graduation day 2011.