Endeavours in Librarianship

Part of my response for my end of year reflection:

I will admit, I was quite disappointed to know that the Public Library jobs are threatened so much. I’m honestly not quite sure where the degree plan comes in either. I was at a very small library and everyone was super nice to me and really showed me the ropes. None of them had an MLS degree so I felt kind of silly being there, to be quite honest. I was very happy to be there, so this is not to say I didn’t learn anything or appreciate what they do and what they did for me. However, I equated the job at the library more to working at a grocery or department store. Aside from the Tech processing or here and there activities conducted, there was just a customer service job. Even people who have lost their jobs at grocery stores are given job placement. I’ve heard that a lot of temps leave their positions at the library as well and it’s a revolving door atmosphere. I’m not surprised. With the same type of working being available to any given retail store that will ensure 40 hours a week plus retirement (at, say Publix) why not go that route instead? A lot of people are given on-the-job training and go from section to section of the library within the span of a few years. Again, I’m just not sure where the degree aspect comes in for the Public Libraries. Since I don’t live in Texas, I couldn’t undertake a school librarian focus on my program, but I think that’s where I’ll be headed. I’ve taught English in the past and I really thought these two jobs would compliment one another but I really don’t see that (in my small corner of the world, mind you) meshing. It’s a shame. I’m not trying to be disrespectful to the profession, I’m just not sure where it comes to play in the whole arena of Public Libraries.

Again, it’s not to say I don’t appreciate every librarian for what they do, I’m just not sure the Public Library is where I’d enjoy working as much. I miss literature. High school librarian? University librarian? Something up that road I think is better for me. But then again, maybe not. Maybe something will fall in my lap that I really love in the Public Library. There’s more than Titusville in my future, so I’ll just have to see where my career ends up.

Happy Flag Day, everyone! My vacation is over and sadly Steve had to go back home. We had such a good time and I’m so thankful for our time together. I’ll be going back over to be with him soon, so until then I have to occupy myself with all my library goings on.

Summer term started last week. I’m looking at the Public Library course retake with fresh eyes. I’ve decided to use a different library for my focus – the library I’ll be volunteering at. That way I can get a better view of the library and write up my projects based on what I experience there for more than a couple of hours on my own. This means that, conveniently, the Practicum and Public Library courses for the term will work side by side. It’s quite nice for a Summer term. I have to work 120 hours from now until August and I’ll be starting my internship on Wednesday. There will be Storytime that day, so I can hang out with tiny kids for a change. (Not that I didn’t get my fill at Disney for the last two weeks.)

For both classes I’ve had to write up my introductions and why I chose Public Librarianship over the others. It just worked out that way, honestly. True, I’ve been a teacher, but to get a School Librarianship you had to go through the rigmarole of a state teaching certificate, which I couldn’t do as a distance student. Plus, aside from working with students, I’d like to work in the public holistically. I like chatting with people here and there, so working with people of all ages would be something I’d like. Not sure where I’ll end up working in the long run, but for now, Public Librarianship is my main goal. So I’m excited for this Summer. I’ll be getting some good hands-on experience and inching closer to going back to be with Steve soon. Happy days!

Last night I finished my reflection paper for Collection Development class.  I has to discuss my Collection Development project – the YA serialized novel collection.  I talked about how it went, what tools I used and how I would have changed it.  There’s a lot I would have changed. 

Read my Reflection Essay here

I finished the Web Development final website on Thursday.  After I submitted my simple, efficient Friends of the Titusville Library site (a site which I can’t link to as it has to be used via my TWU account) was nothing compared to the other sites.  People had sidebars, headers, tons of info, etc.  But I did what was required and what I thought was good for my project.  Oh well.

I still have no idea what’s going on with Financial Aid.  The office told me that I would be awarded for 2010 but the information for my account online still says there’s no award.  School starts at the beginning of June so my classes have to get paid somehow.  I have to take Practicum and Public Library (again).  I have to have an extra class as I’m doing the volunteer class.

Also, TWU hadn’t received anything from the library director here about my volunteering.  When I called to ask for the director to contact the school, I spoke with a nice librarian (one reason why I love this profession – librarians are so nice) who was eager for me to volunteer because she “definitely needs” my help.  How nice to be needed.  I can get my education and help people all at the same time.  What a nice career I’ve chosen.

So that’s all for the time being in the world of my late night library endeavors.  I will be finishing up the grades this weekend for the classes I taught and then it’s major cleaning and getting ready for the vacation. 

20 days until Steve and I are on vacation together!

Collection Development class discussion

Short essay by school librarian – do you agree?

Bringelson , Carin. (2004). On intellectual freedom. School Libraries in Canada, 24(4), p.57-9

I really liked this passage in the article, "My job was not to take a position on the book, but simply to provide concrete information about the title and sometimes perspectives on the broader issue or issues involved. My work gave me the opportunity to think about the reasons why people challenge materials. While these reasons were many and varied, among the concerns that came up repeatedly (for many different titles) were objectionable language, sexuality, and violence.”

I would find it hard to not take a stance on a book, especially something I felt strongly against. I feel like a lawyer, trying to defend a client whom I thought shouldn’t walk the streets. I think this is probably the hardest part of our job, but I sort of see it from a parental sort of view to. (Granted, I have no children yet, so my views may change later when I do.) But, it seems like if you give kids the ability to be taught at home what is acceptable and what is not, then allow the kids to decide on their own if they think something is too much or inappropriate. Maybe it’s like drinking. If you tell them that it’s restricted and off limits and then on their 21^st birthday they put themselves into a stupor, it’s because the whole thing was so out of their underage reach.

What is the difference between selection and censorship?

How can librarians avoid self-censorship?

Can you provide an example of self-censorship? This one can be real or made-up. Just provide a "case" for us to talk about. If real, do not name the library’s name or the librarian.    

I’m not sure if things are fairly similar in small towns in Texas as they are in Florida, but I live in a very conservative place.  The school where I use to teach had a very nice, Sunday school teaching librarian and he was totally against having the book Wicked in his library.  But, as he pointed out, the kids wanted to read it so he put it on the shelves.

I honestly would have a hard time with self censorship, I admit, especially if I were working in the Children’s Library.  Our jobs as librarians are to allow children to read whatever book they want to on the public library level. That’s a hard pill to swallow. Now, as for school libraries, I think it’s going to be even more tricky. As we’ve discussed, there are plenty of parents who are against Harry Potter novels yet the school libraries have them. I’m glad to know that, as our Power Point notes state, “Children – Lesser, but substantial protection, Parental control, ‘Harmful to minors’ statutes, Not all minors are the treated the same -5 year-old vs. 16 year-old.” But, if there is a YA book that has something a parent doesn’t like, it doesn’t mean the book will be yanked off a school or public library shelf. Again, I think it’s the toughest part of our job, quite honestly, to keep our own personal beliefs and convictions out of the selection process.

Class work

I have to finish shining up my website for Web Development class.  I’ll add some library events and tweak the fonts some, but otherwise it’s a basic website and that’s all we need.  (Well, it has that dreaded CSS stuff in there too…)

I also have to write my final Reflection paper and turn that in for Collection Development.  Everything, for both classes, is due on Friday.

Personal stuff

I finished teaching my day class on Monday, and now I have to finish up grading their Lit. Criticism essays and Annotated Bibliographies as well as their Final Exams.  Tonight I go to school for the last night class to collect the same work from those students.  Then I’ll put the grades in by next Monday and be finished with everything and officially on break for a while.

I’ve been jogging and swimming at the gym, so that’s giving me something else to keep me busy each day.  I also started up my new project called Unfinished Book Reviews that I may or may not keep on blogspot.  It seems the easiest right now to use Blogger for this stuff since so many library, librarian and education blogs are products of Blogger.

23 days until Steve and I begin our vacation!

Web Development class discussion

Do you think Vannevar Bush’s vision was prophetic? Why or why not? What strikes you about his essay?

“There is a growing mountain of research. But there is increased evidence that we are being bogged down today as specialization extends.” I think this is exactly correct. We have commercials for Bing.com that show how even a simple web search can boggle us with nonsense we’re not interested in. There is a huge abundance of information available to us that we can never possible read it all or even try to sift through ever bit of it. There is no ultimate decision as to what can and cannot be printed online so any kind of information is transmitted or submitted in so many avenues of electronic communication that, yes, there is a mountain of research material.

It’s amazing to me that Vannevar Bush had such a vision yet the internet is something that we can’t completely grasp entirely in our present day.

“[A]dvanced photography which can record what is seen or even what is not.” I was just thinking how the Hubble telescope is such a major step in that direction.

“To make the record, we now push a pencil or tap a typewriter. Then comes the process of digestion and correction, followed by an intricate process of typesetting, printing, and distribution. To consider the first stage of the procedure, will the author of the future cease writing by hand or typewriter and talk directly to the record?” This is my favorite quote. You know, we’re still amazed by Dragon Diction apps on the iPhone. I wonder if we’ll ever cease to be amazed at what kind of gadgets we have available to us. Now we don’t even need a real keyboard. Eventually we will stop writing or typing at all and only use verbal dictation to our recording device?

http://www.ps.uni-saarland.de/~duchier/pub/vbush/vbush.txt

Personal stuff

I just have to collect the Final Exams next week, then get everything graded by May 10th.  I have my last week for TWU next week too.  I’m almost done!

Collection Development class assignment

You will create a marketing visual to advertise your new collection. This can be a flyer, bookmark, web page, blog page, handout, etc., but it must be visual, graphic, and eye-catching.

http://schultzstm.pbworks.com/Young-Adult-Readers-%40-the-Titusville-Library

Since we’ve been talking about Wikis so much in this class as well as my other courses, I decided to try my hand at this.  I found a local librarian who has a Wiki for her YA Collection (http://sbateensread.wikispaces.com/)  while doing my Collection Development Project.  I used a lot of her ideas, then changed the information to reflect what my collection contained.  I’m not really good with this yet, as you can see, but I tried to make it sort of like I would a blog.

Collection Development class discussion

I’m the moderator for the discussion this week so I have to stay on top of things.

Please pick one promotional activities and talk about it. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? In what circumstances do you think you would use it? Also, what kinds of promotional activities have you seen from your local libraries? Do you think it was effective? Why or why not?

I’ve seen a lot of various marketing strategies at my local public library. The website was revamped and is a lot more modern and cleaner looking. It has more zing. I think that will attract people more, especially in the library itself – for a while they still had computers with text based only card catalog search capabilities. I’ve seen the same library have information on their webpage but I’m not sure how much viewing it gets. For example, since I’ve been interested in the YA section of the Children’s library, I did not see much listed online at their old website regarding Books Clubs and activities for teens. Now that I’ve been in the library more and snooped around on their new website they have tons of Teen Space stuff. Still a lot of it is not updated. I would love to have a job where I did that kind of marketing in my library. The webpages need to be updated and fancied up as much as possible to keep the views and interest coming in.

I also bought the Friends of the library tote bag they have on sale too. The Friends’ website, incidentally, is so outdated looking that I chose it for my Web Development class project.

Please post the bibliography of your selection tools that you used to develop your collection. Also, please answer this question: What did you think about the assignment? What did you learn about collection development? This should be an informal comment. I just want you all to talk about your experience. You’ll be doing a formal reflection for the assignment next week.

I really did enjoy the project, I’ll say that up front.  However, I still contend that this was one of, if not the most, difficult things I’ve done in school before.  I still wonder if librarians do this start from scratch type of collection development often.  I understand we needed to learn how to pick and chose carefully as to what we will include in our collection.  I found that fun in the beginning.  I was very interested to see the similarities in what kinds of books libraries and bookstores had.  Still, it was quite time consuming, just by listing everything.  I took notes throughout the project but it was the actual listing, organizing, polishing, choosing the best justification, etc.  That was the most difficult for me.  And, as I said before, after $2000 worth, I didn’t feel like I had even scratched the surface. There are so many great books and great magazines for teens that I would love to pick and choose a little of everything. It really opened my eyes to the world of teen literature.

In my bibliography I listed every thing I ever used to gather any kind of information in my collection.

Personal stuff

35 days until Steve gets here!  No wonder I’m finding it hard to concentrate on grading – I just want to get ready for him to be here!

Collection Development class discussion

This question focuses on different collection evaluation methods. The textbook and the articles talk about different methods to evaluate collections. Please pick one method and talk about it. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

Circulation studies seems like a fairly easy method to deciding if the materials on the shelves are something your patrons are interested in. If you have a collection with books that have not been checked out in several years, maybe it’s time to add that to the library book sale next time and look for books that will be of more interest. However, if we look at the circulation as “the adequacy of the book collection is directly related to its usage” idea, then we may be weeding out some valuable, classic literature that just hasn’t been checked out for a while (Evans 326). That is not to say that a student in the near future will not want to do a project on Mark Twain and will be interested in checking out his works (for example).

This module is all about collection evaluation and collection assessment. For the collection that you are developing in this class, what are the methods you would use to assess your collection and why?

For my YA serialized novel collection, I would definitely have to keep tabs on the circulation of each book. Even if it’s something I view as good as an expert (choosing something recommended in Booklist or something I saw at the bookstore that seemed interesting) that doesn’t mean my teen patrons will be interested. I would try to “push” a book like that through the Book Club and Teen Space website, but if that fails, I would look to see the use of other libraries statistics. If the book is doing well at another county library, then I’ll keep the book on the shelf for longer in hopes the interest will pick up.

Teaching

The semester is almost over and I keep getting late work turned in.  This weekend will be all about me getting these last grades in for their Drama Unit and then by next Wednesday all the Literary Criticism work (and the inevitable last minute work) will be turned in.  I’ll also have to give them the Final Exam that day too.  Then finals will be done, grades will be put in and everything will be done for the term.  It’s been fun.  I’ve enjoyed working BCC quite a lot. 

Personal stuff

Once school is over, I’ll be doing mad cleaning and getting ready for Steve to arrive.  Then it will be Disney vacation time!

Comments to my professor:

I know we didn’t have to write a reflection, but I wanted to mention that I have 7 total items because the assignment says “at least three other formats.” I found this assignment very difficult just in time consumption. Every book has positive reviews but since I’m working with sets, it was harder to find a positive review for each book in every set that I had wanted. I thought I’d be smart and find books in Booklist first, then find a second positive review. I went to a couple of libraries numerous times as well as looking through the Teen Fiction section of Barnes and Noble. There’s plenty to choose from and I feel I only scratched the surface.

This helped me learn a lot though. I enjoyed the project all in all but this was the toughest assignment I’ve ever come across. Would we have to start from scratch like this a lot as a librarian, or does a vendor make this part easier?

Collection Development project is organized and I know what to do. It’s the taking the notes and putting them into my fancy Word document, tables and all, that is what I have to spend this week doing. We have to find two justifications for each book or material we list. So that’s the main part that gets complicated – I’ve used actual “Booklist” magazines to find recent YA books that have good reviews. Then I have to find a second positive review by using “Books in Print” for example. But, again, I have a clear grasp on the whole thing, it’s just the organization of it. And I love organization and book shopping so it’s actually quite fun.
My classes will be doing their own Literary Criticism projects in the library this week. By May 6th they’ll have their Finals done and the term will be over.
Our vacation is all arranged and I’ll just have to get our Disney tickets before Steve gets here. We’re both excited.
Okay, out of line at the Post Office. There had to be 20 people in there waiting!
Off to the store…

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Location:Barna Ave,Titusville,United States