The last few steps to the end.

For the most part, selection, reference, and classes for University City Public continue as they always have.  On Saturday, I picked up a class advising Intro to Excel; of course, the obligatory GoogleDocs presentation is here.  It isn’t as finished as I would like, because I largely had to throw it together during a busy few hours at the Reference desk.  I wonder if all librarians work in a similar manner, or if my mastery of multitasking is special.

The shelf scanning portion of the deselection project is done; all that’s left to do is suggest more deselected items based upon age and lack of use.  True, religion isn’t one of those subjects that needs to be updated every five years or so, like medicine, but as new developments on the social landscape surface, the collection does need to change to reflect those new questions.  Most Christian apologia, for example, is written concerning Atheism, or with Atheists and Agnostics in mind.  Newer texts, however, focus upon dialogue between Christians and members of other faiths– Judaism, Buddhism, or Islam, mostly.

For now, I’m finishing up with a list of necessary names for 700s review (emphasis on visual arts) as well as recommendations for minority religions– and selection which minority religions to represent has been hard.  Mostly I’ve been working from which texts have been popular in the past (thanks to again, help from lists collated by the Sirsi/Dynix techs), but I’ve also had to make approximations based upon my knowledge of St. Louis’s religious breakdown.

The 200s project should be done within the next couple of weeks; I look forward to posting it here.

The joy of shelf scanning

The 200 collection development project continues forthwith– and I have to say, I’ve learned more about various religions than I’ve expected I would. For that, I thank the very good resources I’ve been able to secure as a student, through MOBIUS. Already I’ve made a decent list of suggested resources, for both the casual reader and the more comprehensive needs of the student.

Truth be told, I’ve also found plenty of offensive material in this part of the collection: either things that irritate me personally or that others would consider objectionable. All I can say to the– and to myself– is that I am not here to tell people what to read; they must consider their sources and make their own decisions.

Now, though, begins the process of deselection. I was surprised to find the library’s deselection policy [PDF] to be so vague, though I imagine its vagueness comes in handy for special cases, or as new media presents itself. I’ve been working from a shelf list (courtesy of the lovely and helpful Horizon techs of UCPL), but the only way to know for sure which books are where is to go right into the stacks and check them, one by one. Last week I did nothing but that– my goodness, there were a lot of misfiles, though none of them were old (our shelvers are too good to let misfiled things go for a long period of time). Still, a lot of books were listed as “missing”– that is, checked out and never returned.

Finally, I’ll be back on Saturday, and hopefully I’ll teach a class on Web Email. Of course, GoogleDocs presentations on this subject are probably forthcoming, but I want to look at our handouts for the session before I make anything. If I do, rest assured that it will be posted here.

Extrapolation upon a theme.

I can’t believe that it’s been nearly a month– it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long!

The 200s collection development project continues apace– I’ve already managed to compile a list of suggested reading materials, broken down by faith group (which I’ll make available to this space as soon as I’ve finished). With help of the (still awesome and very knowledgeable) staff, I’ve gotten ahold of a shelf list for the 200s– now that I’ve made suggestions for acquisitions, it’s time to figure what we have that is superfluous so that I can suggest items to deselect. I’ve also been making updates in Horizon as to the status of the shelf list; it’s depressing how many books have gone missing.

I’m also continuing to teach classes– very general topics like Intro to Computers and Web Email, but it’s been satisfying work. Just Saturday I managed to show a patron how to get into the email account that his grandson set up for him; it was a pleasure to see him so happy.

Since classes are very basic, I’ve put together a GoogleDocs presentation (http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dfbdkthr_0fxmkz9gz) to assist in teaching. I’m not sure if it helps yet– it does keep us on track, but the difference in abilities between individual students can be so great, sometimes it really is better to divert your attention elsewhere, at least for a time.

I haven’t begun working on the Cataloging part of my practicum yet, but that’s partially because, due to a lot of scheduling shifts, I’ve been working more Saturdays than Tuesdays, and Tuesdays are when the cataloging staff is working. Hopefully, once things are sorted out, I should get to that– probably around the beginning of April.

Of collection evaluation and classes.

The past half-month or so has been very well– again, with copious thanks due to the University City Public Library staff. The freedom at which I’ve been allowed to go at my own pace and select the projects that I want to work on has resulted in a rewarding experience. It’s also upset my plans, but only slightly.

For now, experience cataloging has been pushed to the back burner as I’ve taken on two evaluation assignments– one for the 200s (Religion and Mythology, if you’re not up on your Dewey Decimal System), and one for the 700s.

Evaluation of the 200s is largely limited to Bibles, texts on Christian theology, but also vital texts on other religions. Staff has expressed an interest in carrying authoritative texts for most world religions and other religions that are commonly found in St. Louis. This has resulted in first, an interesting chase through the local census and other sources to find the general religious makeup of St. Louis– a significant majority of several Protestant faiths, especially Baptists and Lutherans, with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, a small but steadily growing population of Jews, and a very large majority listing their faith as “Other”. Checking listings of local religious and ecumenical organizations has revealed that St. Louis also has Baha’is, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists. Finding definitive texts for each of these faiths has been challenging, to say the least. But for now, I feel like I’ve narrowed it down to five translations of the Bible (ranging from very literal to “dynamic,” or “thought for thought”), and today I pulled together a bibliography on both Mahayana and Theraveda Buddhism. Baha’i, Judaism, and Islam will be next– after I find enough bibliographies for each faith. After I compare my selected bibliography to the catalog, I can suggest books. After that, I’ll probably need to go through the 200s shelf-by-shelf on a deselection campaign.

The 700s– specifically, the 707-709s, 730s, 740-741, and 750s– mostly need a revision to see that we have all the “major names”– that is, the canon for Western fine arts. I haven’t started on that heavily, but a cursory survey of the area shows that for the most part, we have at least one book on most of the masters as well as the significant schools and groups. Most of the work in this area may be more along the lines of deselection.

On a decidedly different note, I taught my first class today all by myself– Internet Job Searching. Because only two people showed up (typical of most classes, we’ve found), I was able to pare my talk down to specifics, which helped both people. One participant had plenty of experience using computers and wanted suggestions on which Web sites were the most reputable and what the proper procedure was. The other, by contrast, had less computer experience, so I had to explain how to gauge reputable websites, why it’s important to have a digital copy of your resume on a storage disk or jump drive, and why many websites require registration. Both participants thanked me, but I wish we’d had more resources like a white board, and fewer problems with the laptops we used (signing into them was torturous). From there, though, I have a good idea on how to better prepare for the next session.

Finding a Pace.

My full day on Tuesday was terrific, thanks to the staff– everyone has been very easy to approach, and extremely helpful for when I have questions (which is often).  Many thanks to everyone who has had to put up with me so far; you have all been welcoming and gracious.

Working in Reference allowed me to tinker a bit more with Sirsi/Dynix in the downtime (partially because I was checking the catalog) , and I have to say, I like the simplicity of it a great deal more than I do Millennium.  The interface isn’t as “pretty,” but it’s more informative; as you click about, you can gather information about functions based upon how they are grouped together and how that particular library uses them.

Arriving early in the morning allowed me to work with the shelving staff, who are incredibly awesome and knowledgeable about the library’s inner workings.  It also helped me get an idea for how it interacts with other members of its consortium.  Like most other consortia, it appears to work on mutual agreement by all representatives, but when I meet the consortium representative I’ll get a more detailed view of what’s going on.

And so it has begun.

My first day was actually Saturday, the 12th, even though I was only there for about 4 hours.  It was good to be able to look around the library and get used to its ins and outs, though it’s a big place and I’ll certainly need more time to get used to it.  It was also great to meet the weekend staff– I was tremendously impressed by how friendly and knowledgeable everyone was.

Before I had come in, the staff had brainstormed various projects I could work on in addition to learning the ropes; the ones that caught my eye were:

• checking the catalog
• gathering and crunching reference statistics
• collection analysis (mainly in fields like literary classics, visual arts, magazines, business reference, and religious material)
• blogging (I’ve allowed this blog to an exemplar for the staff; like them, I’m curious to see how my perceptions will change as I learn more about the field)

Those were four that stuck out immediately– at least at first.  Again, once I become more secure  in what I’m doing, I plan to take up projects, finish them, and take up new ones (e.g., displays, assigning cataloging numbers, marketing, etc.).

After I looked around and got some photos of the facility– which I’ll be changing in the banner every week– I sat down at the reference desk, where I almost immediately had to wrangle my first reference question.  However, I did manage to find a public notary available on Saturday after 12:15pm.  Other questions involved me finding books around the collection– I suspect many patrons feel uncomfortable with the library catalogs because of their inexperience with computers.

I hope to post later today on using Sirsi/Dynix.  I was able to tinker a bit with it between questions, and I have to say– as someone who is used to Millennium at work, Sirsi/Dynix seems to have put their ILS together in a more intuitive and comprehensive way.  I like being able to switch from general circulation to cataloging to serials without having to back out of programs that only allow so many users on the server.  Let’s see how it performs when most of the staff is there using it at the same time.

Hello world!

Since I’m still working out my Learning Plan with my supervisors and my practicum instructor, there isn’t much here yet.  But expect this blog to change as I progress!