So many people ask what it is that I do all day and what exactly a records coordinator does and to be honest it is sometimes hard to define it quickly.
In an essence I help organize all of the information that is created at Metro Vancouver; emails, reports, data, everything. I also help to figure out ways to make all this information easier to save and easier to find when it is needed.
Last week I got to be featured on an Instagram account call @lifeoflibrarians started by a few students from my alma matter. Every week someone in the library world takes over the account and shows what happens in their day to day lives. I really love seeing what others people’s jobs are like and I was excited to share my own.
Today I am going to share some of the highlights from my week of sharing. Feel free to check out this great Instagram for more people talking about librarianship and the library world.
Sunday – Introduction
This week @lifeoflibrariansis being taken over by Andrea Connors (@andreaconnors23)! Andrea received her MLIS from Western University in April 2018 and then moved back to British Columbia and started working for Metro Vancouver as a Records Coordinator in June.
Metro Vancouver is a Regional Government of 21 municipalities, one treaty first nations, and one electoral area consisting of around 2.5 million people. Metro Vancouver administers services for the area such as Air Quality, Liquid Waste, Solid Waste, Water, Regional Parks, and Regional Planning.
Andrea works in the Metro Vancouver Head Office and helps to administer the records services for the organization. This includes a variety of tasks to do with records, archives, as well as some work alongside the Library.
Monday – Planning Day
This Monday was definitely not a normal one. Instead of heading to the office my entire department went off-site for planning and team building.
We looked back at our successes of 2018, did a SWOT analysis, wrote down some goals and projects for 2019 and did some team building and communication exercises. It was a beautiful winter day so I snapped this photo on my lunch break.
There are currently three of us on the records management team and we work closely with the rest of the department in different ways, but we also support the entire organization and their records management needs
Tuesday
Back at the office today and I had a very productive/alone day.
- 8:00-8:15 – emails/to-do list
- 8:15-8:30 – debrief about archive photo project with boss
- 8:30-9:00 – report governance (drafting a document about all the reports we produce and the reasons behind them)
- 9:00-10:00 – box validation (checking document inside boxes and sending to the correct department)
- 10:00-10:15 – break
- 10:15-10:30 – went to print room to pick up some photos they had scannned
- 10:30-10:45 – checked photos with scans
- 10:45-11:15 – put photos back in correct boxes, did some emails about photos
- 11:15-11:30 – phone call request (permissions)
- 11:30-12:00 – governance report
- 12:00-1:00 – lunch (walked to library)
- 1:00-1:30 – governance report – finished and sent to team
- 1:30-2:00 – did searching for box validation project
- 2:00-2:30 – archives folder audit (finding outdated and unneeded documents)
- 2:30-2:45 – break
- 2:45-4:00 – box validation
- 4:00-4:30 – finished up day, to-do list for tomorrow, filled in tracker for requests, prepped for rest of the week
The rest of the week includes more meetings so it was nice to have time to check a few things off my list today.
Wednesday
Today was much of the same as yesterday, just with a few meetings thrown in so I figured i would talk about something different today, scheduling and to do lists.
At home I am all about the paper planner. I decorate it and spend a lot of time tracking everything from a daily to-do list, to meal planning, events, and much more but at work I am much more laid back.
I use One Note for my main to-do list and I do it on a weekly basis. This helps when there are things I can’t do all on one day and I want to see things on a bigger picture. I love that i can still use check boxes with this program and whatever i can’t finish one week I move to the next.
I also handwrite lists for the day as I love breaking up tasks. I find it best to focus on something for 30-45 minutes and then switch to something else so I will write up a quick time block so I can focus but just for short bursts.
Friday
Today started with a few meetings to try and improve how we get rid of transitory materials and make purging easier.
Then I got a very large delivery of boxes (second picture) which I will be working with the next few weeks to chart their details amd information.
It was another beautiful day so I took advantage of my lunch break to go for a long walk and enjoy the fresh air and mountains.
The afternoon was spent going through a few of the boxes (finding records as far back as 1909!) as well as working with a department to go through and bring some files up to our new standard.
It has been so great sharing my week with you and I hope you have got a bit of a glimpse into what working in records management in a government organization is like.
I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into my work life and what I do on a day to day basis.
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