This week I'm doing two days of my internship in anticipation of a vacation I'll be taking in late July. Today, sadly enough, the discard function is still broken. It has been my experience that it normally doesn't take this long, and sure enough, a call has been put in for our ILS vendor to take a look at the situation.
And so, instead, I spent the day reading journals and book reviews again. I did take a break to peruse the powerpoint files for the classes I'll be teaching. They're fairly long, one being sixty slides and another being almost eighty five, but each slide contains only about one concept each. I'm fairly nervous about it, only because I'm rather shy and have stage fright. I've taught more complex stuff before, and this is fairly basic, but I know I'll be pretty nervous on my first day.
Otherwise, not much to report!
I arrived at 8:30am and left at 6pm, totalling 8.5 hours.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Internship Day 3
Today was the third day of my internship, and I spent most of it weeding the cookbook collection. I personally enjoy weeding, and take a great deal of pleasure in knowing I'm helping to create a more nimble collection. I do regret that it takes so much time, and I anticipate as I progress in the profession I may even come to dread doing it, as many seem to. But, for the time being, it is enjoyable; I wish I had more time for it!
I did hit a small snag insofar as our ILS's discard file became full halfway through my first cart. This has happened before, and it doesn't seem to take too long for a new one to be created. But, alas, none has been yet. Regardless, I have prepared two carts for discarding. All that remains is for the items to be scanned.
I've weeded fiction for some time at my day job, but I've never weeded a non-fiction area. The cookbook area wasn't particularly challening, and all I had to look for were items that were related to Florida or that struck me as classics. So far, I've only saved one item.
In the morning I assisted in inputting ILL requests. We have an online form that patrons may fill out at any time of the day or night on our website to request an item that we don't own. I've done this myself a few times! This information is then sent in an email to the reference desk here at Main, and is entered into the ILL system through WorldCat. I didn't have too many problems, except one gentleman requested a DVD, (I emailed him alerting him that A/V items aren't typically available through ILL,) and another who had an incomplete request.
Another exciting part of my day was my participation in the selection committee meeting. I have been reading many book reviews and writing down my thoughts on if we should consider the option of purchasing it. Today, everybody who has also been doing this from all the branches converged and shared our thoughts. Mostly everyone was in agreement except for a couple titles, and even then those that were interested weren't particuularly crestfallen. I suppose it's a good system to weed out what they called "shelf-sitters." I did anticipate more debate, and I have to say the meeting was pretty brisk!
I arrived at 8:30AM and left at 5pm, totalling 7.5 hours.
I did hit a small snag insofar as our ILS's discard file became full halfway through my first cart. This has happened before, and it doesn't seem to take too long for a new one to be created. But, alas, none has been yet. Regardless, I have prepared two carts for discarding. All that remains is for the items to be scanned.
I've weeded fiction for some time at my day job, but I've never weeded a non-fiction area. The cookbook area wasn't particularly challening, and all I had to look for were items that were related to Florida or that struck me as classics. So far, I've only saved one item.
In the morning I assisted in inputting ILL requests. We have an online form that patrons may fill out at any time of the day or night on our website to request an item that we don't own. I've done this myself a few times! This information is then sent in an email to the reference desk here at Main, and is entered into the ILL system through WorldCat. I didn't have too many problems, except one gentleman requested a DVD, (I emailed him alerting him that A/V items aren't typically available through ILL,) and another who had an incomplete request.
Another exciting part of my day was my participation in the selection committee meeting. I have been reading many book reviews and writing down my thoughts on if we should consider the option of purchasing it. Today, everybody who has also been doing this from all the branches converged and shared our thoughts. Mostly everyone was in agreement except for a couple titles, and even then those that were interested weren't particuularly crestfallen. I suppose it's a good system to weed out what they called "shelf-sitters." I did anticipate more debate, and I have to say the meeting was pretty brisk!
I arrived at 8:30AM and left at 5pm, totalling 7.5 hours.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Internship day 2 continued
In my previous post I mentioned the many different areas that reference materials are kept. We have the three current areas, ready-ref, telephone/virtual ref, and the general reference collection. Each of these carries current year materials, and as these are replaced, some are placed into a storage reference collection. There are three storage reference collections, one the so-called atlas room, which carries "Who's Who" books as well as military-related materials. The second is a Florida-related area which is, perhaps, 4 bays of shelves in a hallway. The third is a general reference storage area, which is actually located on top of the bookshelves in the reference area.
All of these materials, (some of which may not be cataloged at all, I can't be sure,) are labeled in our computer system simply as reference. I, at least, find that completely inefficient! I know our computer system is capable of so much more than we utilize it for. I suppose, if it were up to me and we all lived in a perfect world, I'd ask our kind IT folks to make us a couple more locations so we could more easily find these materials. Of course, this would require that someone scan each of these items individually, which is probably the biggest hurdle. In the few times I've interacted with the reference staff, complaints of poor staffing have been pervasive, and so I doubt they'd be thrilled with this idea from some young whipper-snapper.
Of course, this idea of putting things into a virtual storage location to reflect a different physical location might be something that administration frowns upon. At my branch for at least two years we had probably close to 10 crates of science fiction and mystery books that we didn't have room for on the shelf. I had raised the idea of simply putting them all into storage so that we knew where they were as opposed to where the computer claimed they were. This idea was not received well, however, resulting in many being marked missing. I'm happy to say we've been weeding a great deal lately, which makes my heart warm, so we don't have this problem anymore.
I can only hope that one day, perhaps when the Main staff get a new library, they'll be able to rectify this.
All of these materials, (some of which may not be cataloged at all, I can't be sure,) are labeled in our computer system simply as reference. I, at least, find that completely inefficient! I know our computer system is capable of so much more than we utilize it for. I suppose, if it were up to me and we all lived in a perfect world, I'd ask our kind IT folks to make us a couple more locations so we could more easily find these materials. Of course, this would require that someone scan each of these items individually, which is probably the biggest hurdle. In the few times I've interacted with the reference staff, complaints of poor staffing have been pervasive, and so I doubt they'd be thrilled with this idea from some young whipper-snapper.
Of course, this idea of putting things into a virtual storage location to reflect a different physical location might be something that administration frowns upon. At my branch for at least two years we had probably close to 10 crates of science fiction and mystery books that we didn't have room for on the shelf. I had raised the idea of simply putting them all into storage so that we knew where they were as opposed to where the computer claimed they were. This idea was not received well, however, resulting in many being marked missing. I'm happy to say we've been weeding a great deal lately, which makes my heart warm, so we don't have this problem anymore.
I can only hope that one day, perhaps when the Main staff get a new library, they'll be able to rectify this.
Internship day 2
Today was the first day that I worked with the reference trainer at the Main Library. I was given a sheet that, presumably, they give to new reference librarians. For the first two days we are to review ready-reference materials, although we didn't do much of that today. Perhaps next week we will, as I'm under the impression that this was the first day the trainer had come back from vacation. I'm looking forward to learning more about them, as there are certainly a plethora of them to know about! I'm hoping a class I'm looking to take in the Fall, (if my work schedule permits,) will compliment this information, as all of my other classes at FSU have been lacking in this real world librarianship information.
So, this morning I did more journal reviews, also from a copy of Library Journal. I wasn't able to review my reasonings as much with Dani this week, but I suppose she understands my rationale from last week enough to carry it over to this week. An exciting thing I learned to do today was to input ILL requests into the ILLIAD computer system. I did mess up the delivery location for one, and wasn't able to fix it as the folks from ILL had already processed it. I'm told next week I'll have an opportunity to practice this on my own.
I also spent some time classifying materials in our reference collection, which is quite large and sprawling to me. We have six separate places that materials classified as "reference" might be found. We have a small collection for the telephone and virtual reference areas, a ready-reference collection for the actual reference desk, a large catch-all reference collection, and three separate storage areas: one for the catch-all reference materials, one for Florida-related materials, and a third for military-related materials as well as "Who's Who" reference materials. As materials from the first three areas become outdated, they are transferred to our three storage areas, depending on their subject matter. It has fallen to me to correctly classify them into their proper area as well, it seems, to find room on the shelf for them.
I'll continue this discussion at a later date.
I worked eight hours today, from 8am to 12 noon, and from 1pm to 5pm.
So, this morning I did more journal reviews, also from a copy of Library Journal. I wasn't able to review my reasonings as much with Dani this week, but I suppose she understands my rationale from last week enough to carry it over to this week. An exciting thing I learned to do today was to input ILL requests into the ILLIAD computer system. I did mess up the delivery location for one, and wasn't able to fix it as the folks from ILL had already processed it. I'm told next week I'll have an opportunity to practice this on my own.
I also spent some time classifying materials in our reference collection, which is quite large and sprawling to me. We have six separate places that materials classified as "reference" might be found. We have a small collection for the telephone and virtual reference areas, a ready-reference collection for the actual reference desk, a large catch-all reference collection, and three separate storage areas: one for the catch-all reference materials, one for Florida-related materials, and a third for military-related materials as well as "Who's Who" reference materials. As materials from the first three areas become outdated, they are transferred to our three storage areas, depending on their subject matter. It has fallen to me to correctly classify them into their proper area as well, it seems, to find room on the shelf for them.
I'll continue this discussion at a later date.
I worked eight hours today, from 8am to 12 noon, and from 1pm to 5pm.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Internship Day 1
Today was the first day of my internship. I was more or less familiar with the lay of the land at the Main Library as I had recently participated in a job exchange from my branch library, which is located nearby. I worked from noon until 9pm, with an hour for lunch, equalling 8 hours for the day.
I arrived and went to see my site supervisor, Dani. We spoke regarding my schedule, various things she would like me to attend, and other administrative tasks. Afterwards we discussed the selection committee process, and she showed me a journal for me to review. In my system, various journals are reviewed for new and upcoming titles. Various staff members from a variety of locations review them, and these titles are discussed and ultimately compiled into a selection list. It is this list that various locations may order from.
So, today, I was given a copy of Library Journal from which I had to read reviews and judge whether or not a title was worthy of being on the selection list. Various criteria that I had to consider was if the author was popular, if the topic of the book was popular, cost, relevancy to the area, and other such things. So, for about four hours I did this. I made notes according to my thoughts, such as, "popular author, but recent titles didn't circulate well," or, "title is somewhat pricey, but received an excellent review." Afterwards, Dani and I discussed my choices. I learned a few things from this discussion. For instance, I had decided a gardening book was worthy, but I was told that our particular climate was a problem as it typically alters gardening practices significantly. As such, many generalized gardening books aren't considered unless they mention or deal with our particular climate.
After dinner I came back and observed Dani doing virtual and telephone reference. Monday nights my system participates in the program run by the Florida State Library, "Ask a Librarian." We received questions from all over the state which ran the gamut from scholarly research questions to the more mundane, such as if a particular system carries a TV show. One excellent resource I learned about was the Statistical Abstracts resource, which we consulted to determine how many children were in foster care between a two year period.
I logged 8 hours today, from 12 noon to 4pm, and from 5pm to 9pm.
I arrived and went to see my site supervisor, Dani. We spoke regarding my schedule, various things she would like me to attend, and other administrative tasks. Afterwards we discussed the selection committee process, and she showed me a journal for me to review. In my system, various journals are reviewed for new and upcoming titles. Various staff members from a variety of locations review them, and these titles are discussed and ultimately compiled into a selection list. It is this list that various locations may order from.
So, today, I was given a copy of Library Journal from which I had to read reviews and judge whether or not a title was worthy of being on the selection list. Various criteria that I had to consider was if the author was popular, if the topic of the book was popular, cost, relevancy to the area, and other such things. So, for about four hours I did this. I made notes according to my thoughts, such as, "popular author, but recent titles didn't circulate well," or, "title is somewhat pricey, but received an excellent review." Afterwards, Dani and I discussed my choices. I learned a few things from this discussion. For instance, I had decided a gardening book was worthy, but I was told that our particular climate was a problem as it typically alters gardening practices significantly. As such, many generalized gardening books aren't considered unless they mention or deal with our particular climate.
After dinner I came back and observed Dani doing virtual and telephone reference. Monday nights my system participates in the program run by the Florida State Library, "Ask a Librarian." We received questions from all over the state which ran the gamut from scholarly research questions to the more mundane, such as if a particular system carries a TV show. One excellent resource I learned about was the Statistical Abstracts resource, which we consulted to determine how many children were in foster care between a two year period.
I logged 8 hours today, from 12 noon to 4pm, and from 5pm to 9pm.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
First Post!
So I'm trying to blog about my experiences at my internship this summer. The first few posts are being backdated simply to allow me to chronicle them on the actual day that they occurred.
This internship will last all summer long and will be for three credit hours, equalling out to nine hours each week. I'll be working at the Main Library for the Palm Beach County Library System each Monday, all day, and odd hours here and there to bring myself up to nine hours.
I have three learning objectives. I'll be taught introductory things one would normally teach a beginning reference librarian, such as how to use various reference materials, how to conduct a reference interview, and such like that. My second is to participate in the Collection Development process. I'll be doing this by participating in selection committee meetings as well as aiding in weeding processes. My third and final objective is to practice my teaching skills by teaching two different computer classes before the end of the summer.
This internship will last all summer long and will be for three credit hours, equalling out to nine hours each week. I'll be working at the Main Library for the Palm Beach County Library System each Monday, all day, and odd hours here and there to bring myself up to nine hours.
I have three learning objectives. I'll be taught introductory things one would normally teach a beginning reference librarian, such as how to use various reference materials, how to conduct a reference interview, and such like that. My second is to participate in the Collection Development process. I'll be doing this by participating in selection committee meetings as well as aiding in weeding processes. My third and final objective is to practice my teaching skills by teaching two different computer classes before the end of the summer.
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