As retirement approaches sometime in the next 3 years, it is easy for me to weave a picture of what life will be like for me after leaving the library. I have shelves of books all waiting to be read, a floor loom to use with the closets full of yarn I have collected over 40 years, naps to take, and hopefully travels to thread memories. I have few problems graphing out the pattern.
It is not as easy to think about what needs to be charted at work before retirement. I am starting with the basic plan for the plain fabric of procedures. This will include the patterns for my work and the work done by the staff that I supervise. This creates a good review of the processes and how they are intertwined within the section, department and library. I have previously written procedures for most of my tasks and will be reviewing them for updating. The procedures of the staff in Preservation Services are somewhat similar and overlap to create the completed and more unique fabric of the work in the section. Some tasks are repetitive and move as a twill fabric. Others are completed with more complicated repetitions, creating large overshot patterns. This will be a good time to review and examine the fabric of our work here in Preservation Services.
So, work continues with dreams of the future and knowing that “You have to be warped to weave.”
Library and Archives Preservation 