Hey Friends!
Whew! Once again, I’m going through another week at a hundred miles an hour. This week has been focused on migrating to a new computer management system and the end of my summer MBA class. Add in somebody from reference who just put their 2 weeks notice in, and you’ve got some of us moving at super speed.
Snapshot of me on a Monday.
Work aside, school is going well. If you’ve been following my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, then you’ve seen some of my school hi-jinks.
When it came time for group projects, my extremely proactive teammates had already assigned team roles almost the moment teams were created. My team randomly nominated me as the editor for all the team responses.
Yes, give the writing/editing to the guy who writes his own material all the time.
What else is going on?
Well, some pretty big stuff if coming. Starting in about two weeks time, my library is going to inventory AND tag our books with RFID tags at the same time. I posted about our training session with a neighboring library system last week on Instagram and I got several responses asking the hows and whens of RFID tagging.
Rest assured, I will be posting about my experiences with it in the coming weeks. All the joy, sorrow, questions, problems and strategies that will help us get through this transition.
To answer a few of your questions thus far:
- We are going with 3M. We tried and tested a few other companies out at ALA and TLA, but we found their tech to be the best for us.
- The tagging consists of a regular bar code scanner, an RFID pad, a laptop, a translation module (that little magic box beneath the laptop and pad,), the tags to put inside the books, the 3M software, and a wooden or plastic cart.
- NO METAL CARTS. The metal carts interfere with the radio frequency and cause errors when the pad is programming the tag.
- We are borrowing spare RFID tech from a neighboring library system that has already made the transition.
Got more questions on it? Let me know and I’ll answer them on my social media and here as well!
Justin Brasher, Brash Librarian
Justin Brasher, The Brash Librarian 
Do you have a list of MBA programs that are best suited for librarians? Any old MBA suffice? I imagine a top-tier school would be overkill for a lead administrator job at a library?
Hi Alistair!
I don’t have a list specifically, but I can certainly reveal my criteria when I was hunting for an MBA program:
-Look for something online that you can do from home and works around your schedule.
-Look for anything that isn’t associated with for-profit schools. *coughuniversityofphoenixcough*
-Most MBA programs will require you to take the GMAT entrance exam, which is a total nightmare. HOWEVER…if you already hold a Masters in another field (like MLIS or MLS), many schools will waive the GMAT. If they didn’t waive the GMAT, I didn’t give that school a second thought.
I hope these help!