Reflection

The most important things I learned from the course were from People Skills - learning to listen reflectively and how to employ the assertion process.  I also found the article by Cavicchia "Shame in the Coaching Relationship: Reflections on Organisational Vulnerability" to be extremely valuable.  The Leadership book helped me understand the roles and qualities of a leader and the importance of the give and take nature between a leader and his/her group members.  Other points that stick with me are that to be an effective leader you must be a visionary, truly connect with your members on a personl level/meet their needs, and use your networking skills to further your cause. These are things that I maybe knew but hadn't realized their impact on my ability to be a great leader instead of just a good one.

 

If I had to choose a theory that I think defines my approach to leadership, it would be the Situational Approach.  I feel like I tailor my support and directive behaviors to the group members' development level.  I believe a lot of this is due to my experience as a teacher. 

I believe I am already an effective leader at the building level- not that there isn't room for improvement.  At the end of the school year, I sent a document to my principal outlining what I had accomplished my first year as an LMS and what my goals were for the immediate future according to my library improvement plan.  My 2011-2012 goals include:

• Library Facebook (or other social networking) page
• School-wide end-of-year summer reading promotion & program
• Book Swaps – students bring in gently-used books they’re finished with & choose a different one to take home (twice a year- before Christmas Break and summer?)
• A seating area (couch, easy chairs, coffee table, rug)
• More involvement in dept. and/or staff meetings to present demos & ways to incorporate free 2.0 technologies
• Quarterly newsletter
• ebook & ereader research

2012-2013 (after graduation) goals:

• Reshelf fiction by genre
• Revamp library webpage
• More collaboration with the Crawfordsville District Public Library
• Annual Poetry Slams
• Leadership at the state level: presentations at ILF, involvement in Young Hoosier nominee selection, other

Although I don't have them stated as library goals, other areas that I have promoted and will continue promote are content area reading and inquiry (vs the standard research paper).  These are items that I've been laying the groundwork for and would like to see addressed in the school improvement plan. 

I also have been promoting the use of 2.O technologies.  I had shown a L. Arts teacher a Glogster poster that I'd created for a YHB.  She then wanted students to use Glogster for an assignment, but since the free version has access to adult content, our admin wouldn't allow it.  I made my pitch for Glogster and other sites that have a social networking aspect and how that shouldn't be the limiting factor because we would also teach students how to use the technolgy responsibly.  I also pointed out that students were already using Glogster and other similar technolgies outside of school, that we needed to get relevent, and that dozens upon dozens of other schools- elem. through HS- had links to it on their webpages (provided website addresses) and were, therfore, using it. As a result, we are forming a committee to further discuss how to approach this aspect of 2.0 technologies as well as other filtering issues.

What I'm anxious to do is take my leadership skills beyond the building level, to the state/national level.  That is my personal goal, and I believe that once I'm finished with school, I will have the time to devote to becoming a noted professonal in the field. 

 

How do I see leadership issues playing out around me?

I did not have time to post much last week between interning, reading/posting to the forum, homework assignment, and family obligations (nursing home to cut my step-father's hair; shopping/running errands for my invalid mother, and father-in-law visit.) Hope to make up for it this week.

For the small staff and budget it has, the WLPL accomplishes quite a bit.  The director, Nick,  has a very middle-of-the-road management style,  He doesn't like confrontations.  There were times when I thought he should be assertive about what I considered important things not getting done, and he seemed to just brush them aside.  One example that I mentioned earlier in my blog was about  the lack of timely promotion of events.  Maybe just the fact that someone brought it up at the staff meeting was be enough to ensure it didn't happen again.  No fingers were directly pointed but I knew who was being alluded to, so maybe that's all it takes. Or maybe Nick spoke with the person in private; I don't know.  (avoiding the Cavicchia shame factor?) I might have used some of the indirect questioning mention in the article:  “Might it be possible that. . .?”, “Have you thought of . . .?”

At the monthly staff meeting, one of the employees read the paper during the bulk of the 3 hours.  From a couple of comments I heard later, I got the feeling that this was a common occurrence.  Actually, I wasn't surprised by this person's behavior because I rarely see her doing much of anything when she's "working" at the upstairs reference desk, and I know that she has processing/cataloging responsibilities that she's to be working on.  I also have never seen her speak to a patron; she's only spoken to me when I've initiated the conversation, and then her response has been minimal.  I think she is a definte weak link in the staff, and if I was in charge, I would let her go.  I also think that Scott has too much on his plate; he does all the scheduling of events and rooms, promotion, and securing speakers, etc. plus he works the Information desk (main floor) - which is always crazy busy-  including answering the phones.  If they would replace the weak link with a someone who is more outgoing, that person could work the Information desk downstairs/answer the phones and Scott could work at the reference desk upstairs- which is a much calmer place- and get a whole lot more accomplished. (Or put weak link in the tech processing room and hire someone part-time for the Information desk or use some volunteers??)

There was an agenda for the monthly staff meeting but we didn't get through everything.  When Nick was starting to wrap things up, Ruth, who is in charge of patron services, said that she needed to bring up a couple of circulation issues.  Apparently, the departments are always listed in the same order on the agenda, so the ones at the bottom of the list often are cut short or not given time at all AND they are not put at the top of the list for the next meeting.   I suggested assigning a specific time limit per topic and using a time keeper to ensure everything got discussed and also rotating the order that the depts. are listed on the agenda.

The department heads are definitely more vocal than Nick.   One day there was a conflict over the scheduling of one of the community rooms.  A room had gotten double booked for the second time. The Teen Writing Group was supposed to be meeeting there every other Wednesday; it had been on the calendar since May.  My supervisor, Nancy, made it clear that the other group would have to move because the Teen Group had been scheduled first, plus they had moved the last time. 

Pam is in charge if the children's department and Linda works under her and does children's programming.  WHen I brought up the organizational issue of books in that dept. - too many categories and not patron friendly or shelver friendly - she said that she knew some changes needed to be made but that Linda wasn't always on board.  There had been times when Pam made decisions in which she considered Linda's input but didn't use her reccommendation for whatever reason, and Linda had taken it personally - at one time going to Nick and trying to make Pam out as the "bad guy."  Linda is very good with the patrons and at programming, and Pam is concerned about possibly losing her over some future decision that Linda might not agree with.   We talked about Pam taking Linda aside and basically employing the assertion process.  Maybe I should loan her my book!

One of the general skills that I had listed to work on is time management.  I already keep a "To Do" list and prioritize it, but when you are the lone LMS and responsible for everything, it is easy to get sidetracked.  Anyway, I had the opportunity to observe two different approaches to the same project.  I had typed up a list of Feed read-alikes and was discussing with Nancy formatting options: a table vs columns, etc.  Her suggestion was to just leave it the list as it was and to literally "cut and paste" it to another sheet of paper and photocopy.  At first I was baffled as to why she would want me to do it that way, but then I realized it was a huge time saver.  After all, it's a one-time use list (One Great Read).   I got to see just how much time it would've saved when I got downstairs to photocopy it.  Bekke was at the desk; she took it from me and spent an hour creating columns and playing with margins before we got it printed.  Time mgmt. lesson learned.

Internship Leadership Examples

Examples of leadership mentioned in my blog so far:

·         Questioned the organization of the children’s section

·         Initiated/created a read-alike flyer for the One Great Read title Feed including titles for adults/YA/youth

·         Initiated/created Feed read-alike book display in Teen room (one already downstairs for adults)

·         Initiated and updated end-cap signage on the adult fiction bookshelves

·         Initiated/ generated a list of YA titles for purchase

·         Initiated/ generated a list of children’s book for purchase

·         Questioned the weeding of certain biographies

·         Initiated/generated and posted music, book, movie, and other links to the library’s Teen webpage

New examples of leadership:

Asked and was given permission to revamp Teen Room

·         Created a “new books” display

·         Created a new furniture layout; removed unnecessary equipment

·         Weeded  entire YA collection

·         Redistribute books to balance the shelves;  displayed a book on each shelf facing outward

·         Recommended UV film for east windows of Teen room because of faded book covers

·         Initiated a “Recommended Purchases” suggestion box

·         Created new signage

·         Suggested putting all Stars Wars books together (even though written by different authors) under FIC STA; same with graphic novels about Batman, Spiderman, etc. – house them together under GN BAT, GN SPI etc.

Other:

·         Recommended replacing chair at lower ADA compliant counter/computer catalog with a rolling stool so that it could be easily moved for wheelchair accessibility

This and That

Things I've forgotten to mention in earlier posts:

• Related to my goal of learning how to plan and implement a summer reading program - I mentioned in an earlier blog what the WLPL does for their children's program but neglected to say that Linda and I talked about how that might look for a middle school library.  The main issue for me is funding - both salary and prizes.  I know I could write a grant but I don't want that to be the determining factor for the program's existence.  Students could sign up before the end of the school year but then how do you sustain their interest?  Working on the assumption of a limited budget, we decided that having the library open in the afternoon for 3 days (T, W, TH) midway through the summer to give out prizes, have discussion/activities, check out books would work.  One of my goals for the upcoming year is a revamped library website and a presence on FaceBook.  I would then need to heavily promote the site and FB page throughout the year because those would be my only ways of advertising  the mid-summer library dates once the school year had ended.  The rest of the prizes could be picked up after the school year has begun during before school or lunch.  One of my concerns with a school summer reading program is that I don't want to compete with the C'ville public library's program.  However, I think I might draw different students due to our location and familiarity.  As for as money for prizes, WLPL has several sponsors that donate annually including their Friends of the Library association.  This may be a challenge for me since we don't have a PTA and since I don't live in the community I work in, I don't have as many connections, but I'm sure I can get ideas from the staff.
• Data collection on the summer reading program -  I talked in an earlier blog about how the youth department keeps track of participants' prize levels, but the library also tracks the adult club numbers.  I've actually tallied info a couple of times.  At the adult level, only the number of participants (fill out a form: YA, adult, senior) and number of books read are tallied.  Readers at the adult level fill out a slip noting the book title and then rate it.  These are used for the prize drawings.  This just reminds me that I need to keep data on all of my programs.
• One day as I was working in the tech room on a cataloging project, the book repair volunteer came in to work and I was able to observe her.  She uses only Norbond Liquid Plastic Adhesive to do repairs, which she applies with an artist's brush; she never uses tape (which I often use).  I was amazed at how well the adhesive worked - even for single pages. Took lots of notes and plan to try out her process.
• Stayed late one Wednesday to observe/participate in the Teen Writing Club lead by Elizabeth.  The part of the program is a contest based on Chris Van Allberg's The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, which I had never heard of before.  Participants chose an illustration from the book to base their narrative of choice.  That night we also completed a writing piece based on a story prompt - slips of paper that we drew out of a container.  (Mine was "It was over as quickly as it had begun.") Even though there were only two teen participants, they were very enthusiastic.  Afterward, Elizabeth and I discussed manga, and she later emailed me a list of sites to share with my students.  Since I would like to implement a Teen Writing Club eventually, this was a valuable experience and I now have a great contact.  Finally, while I was on vacation, Elizabeth hosted a program on animated comic creation. Since she works nights and I work days, I haven't seen her to ask how it went, but she did share resources with me about it. :-)
• Since WLPL no longer has a teen librarian, I made a suggestion list of YA titles to add
• Not impressed with the Evergreen catalog system from either a patron or a library employee standpoint .  Froma a patron standpoint: Call numbers are not obvious and you can't narrow your search by collection location: YA, juvenile, adult.  You also can't search by genre.  From a employee standpoint:  When deleting titles, you can't see whether other libraries have a copy w/o scrolling to the right.  Adds time b/c you need to know this to determine whether the record also needs to be deleted.  Scott tried to print a bucket list of Feed read-alikes.  We know there is a way to do this b/c Bekka printed an earlier version, but between Scott, Nick (the director) and myself, we couldn't find a way to print the newest version.

Sunday, July 17

Worked the reference desk upstairs - pretty quiet day although I did help 5 patrons.  Worked some on my YA website project and figured out with Nancy the work schedule for my last two weeks - 70 hours to go. :-)

Friday, July 15

Deleted a cart of weeded biographies from the catalog.  One thing Nancy does is leave weeded items on the cart for a couple of weeks so that employees have a chance to look through them - in case they disagree. I don't think anyone has the time to look though.  Anyway, I pulled about a dozen titles that we talked through and after our discussion, she ended up putting 5 of them back on the shelf.

Had noticed before when pulling ILLs that in some rows the shelf signage range didn't match was was in the aisles and asked if I could update them.  Apparently certain sections had been reorganized and the signage was overlooked, so I got that done.

Almost finished updating YA NF locations on the catalog.  It is a HUGE list!

Tuesday, July 12 & Wednesday, July 13

Tuesday
I did a couple of new projects on Tuesday.  For one, after I finished my YA Feed read-alike display, I rearranged the furniture in the YA room.  All four club chairs were in a line against the wall, so I rearranged them into a conversation group and also repositioned the 2 display shelving units.  Then I updated and reorganized the 2 bulletin boards; one for library news and one for "other" news.  Gosh, it just hit me; they could use signs: "Library News" and "Community News" or something similar.

The second project had to do with donations.  WLPL gets a couple of hundred donated books, videos/DVDs, CDs, etc. every week.  Before they give them to the Friends of the Library group to sort for the used book store or for the book sales, Ruth goes through everything and pulls popular authors/titles, etc.  These are put on a cart and and taken to the floor to be compared to titles currently on the shelves.  If the donated copy is in better condition, the floor copy is pulled.  That's what I got to do with a cart of fiction donations.   Before I did it though I looked up all the books to see where they were located: mystery, romance, sci fi, or general fiction.  I pretty much could tell by looking at the cover or reading the flap but some of them surprised me.  By looking them up, I could also find out if something was checked out/not on the floor.  When I was finished I asked Ruth to listen to my justifications to make sure I was on track. She was pleased with my reasoning.  On Wednesday Beth will cataloged the "new" and get them ready to be processed and delete the old copies and mark them for discard/donation.

Wednesday - I am halfway through my internship:-)
The cassettes were weeded based on condition and use (if hadn't been used in the last 18 months)while I was on vacation.  In the morning I worked on deleting weeded titles from the catalog and marked them for discard/donation to the Friends.
In the afternoon I continued working on updating the location of YA titles.  Most of the nonfiction was entered as a fiction location and most of the 741.5s got changed to a new Graphic Novel (GN) location.  I also updated any call numbers that needed to be changed from 741.5 to GN and corrected call numbers with typos, for example !33.4 to 133.4.

Thursday - off

Monday, July 11

Ok, so I've learned a couple of things about posting - the daily post doesn't work for me.  For one thing, I don't remember everything of importance that happened the day I posted and found that I need to go back and add things.  I will do that all in  a single post - sometime soon, I hope! (I made myself a list!)  Secondly, things come up and I don't always have time to post every day.

Today was my first day back interning after a three week vacation.  The first thing I worked on was a project that I started before I left.  I found that I needed to write better notes about what I was doing because it took me a little while to figure out what I exactly I'd accomplished and what I needed to do next.  I had completed step 1 before I left which was to locate titles that were "missing."  Some were where they were supposed to be, some had been weeded, and some were mishelved (YA in the adult section and vice versa).  Today I worked in the catalog to correct call numbers and shelf location information.

I also finished a list of readlikes for our community read, Feed - including suggestions for adults, YA, and juvenile titles and got the lists printed on colored paper and out on the floor.  I also worked on pulling books for the read-alike display.

I was able to attend the weekly department head meeting where upcoming events and any issues are discussed.  It appears that getting events advertised in a timely manner - both on the website and in various publications- is an issue.  Our library hadn't been publishing as much in the local newspaper for a couple of reasons: 1) the paper wasn't putting out accurate information on the dates and times and 2) patron participation had been high.  Participation has dropped off so they are going to rely on the paper more again.  The reference assistant takes care of this.  My direct supervisor (reference/computer) is in charge of the website.  To tell you the truth, I don't know how they keep on top of all the different responsibilities they have but I would think that getting the information out there should be high priority. 

There was also some discussion about where to shelve board books in the youth dept.  I know I posted earlier about all the different sections they have.  I think it makes it hard for the patron to find things and it definitely complicates things for the circ dept. as far as getting the books on the right shelving cart.  I mentioned this to my supervisor a while back and she agreed, but I haven't heard any plans to change things.  Working in a middle school, I don't have that issue.  It'd be interesting to see how other libraries organize their youth departments, but I seriously doubt I'll have time to check into it.

Days 5, 6 & 7

Friday
Spent the day in Children's.  Trained a couple of 8th grade volunteers how to register children in the summer reading club and how the prize levels work.  Figures it was the busiest morning so far!  Learning about summer reading clubs was one of my goals, so all this has been a good thing.  I like that WLPL allows the children to chose a number of books or a number of hours read as their goal. Seventh graders can chose to participate in the Children's or the Adult - there is no YA Summer Reading Club.  Am told there just isn't enough interest.  The prizes aren't as nearly as good for the adults - but they only have to read ONE book to get into the drawing!!  Children's has prizes at:
5 books or 2 1/2 hours
10 books or 5 hrs.
15 books or 7 1/2 hrs
Final goal - minimum 20 books or 10 hours -by July 31
Once you reach your final goal you also get in drawings for prizes:
1st place: choice of bike (2), Nook Color
2nd place: complete set of HB Harry Potter books
3rd place: telescope, + 3 other things - can't remember what
4th place: 100 different items!!

Shelved for the first time in Children's - a very complicated process.  These book are all shelved in different places:
JE FIC white label - shelves
JE FIC purple label - shelves
JEPB (paper backs-blue label) - bins- alpha by author first letter only
Board books - bins - random
J BAS - shelves by windows
Favorite authors/character  such as Curious George or Dr. Seuss- by bin
NEW books - blue dot - outward facing display
J FIC
J FIC Dickey Collection - Award winners
J YH nominees & winners
J Dear America & Am. Girl
Series - top shelf of shelf section
J NF


Sunday
Worked upstairs- by myself! - at the reference desk.  Pulled  ILL books, printed their tickets, and shelved for delivery or pick up. Looked up a double-sided cart of donated books to see whether the library already owned them or not.  Typed up a couple of small projects that I came up with - list of YA book recommendations - WLPL no longer has a YA librarian due to budget cuts (was only a 10hr/wk position) and a dystopian list to go along with the Lafayette-West Lafayette One Great Read - which is M.T. Anderson's Feed. And helped patrons, of course!

Monday
Changed some YA graphic novel spine labels from 741.5 to GN.  I think the books were checked out when they did the rest of them. I noticed they're still 741.5 in the children's room though. (I changed ours at school to GN a couple of years ago after attending a session by Robin Young at the ILF conference.)  Because there were only a half dozen, had to use a typewriter to make the labels - yikes!   Haven't used a typewriter in 15-20 yrs.

Also deleted weeded copies and their records (if West Side had the only copy)from the Evergreen catalog.  I'm hoping the process is similar on my system at school.  I weeded the nonfiction this year- 000-899s, but I haven't taken them out of the system yet 'cause I didn't know how.  Nothing like learning as you go! (Or putting off because you don't know how - didn't really have the time either though.)  Then had to mark the books - a W over the bar code and mark out the WLPL stamp on front endleaf, title page, and page 19 in black marker.  Surprised that there isn't a "discarded" stamp; anyone could use a black marker.....

The last couple of hours, I got to work on my other pet project - YA resource links for books, writing, music, homework, etc.

Day 4

OK, according to Linda, the Evergreen consortium is made up of 90 small/medium libraries. I checked out the website and it says it is made up of "public, school and institutional libraries located throughout Indiana" but I didn's see any schools or institutions (colleges?) on the list. Also "Patrons of member libraries can use their Evergreen Indiana library card to view the catalogs and borrow materials from the other member libraries."  I tried to post this as a comment under day one but couldn't get it to work.

Today I helped with another outreach program - this time to the Purdue Village Daycare.  I pulled books and went along for the read-aloud.  The rest of the day, I worked in Children's.  I finished ther NF project and the spider craft preparation, did some shelf reading, and worked the SRC table.  Got to sit & talk with the Children's director for a while- which was nice.  She told me about how far in advance she plans and preps for the craft programs and how she keeps a notebook with comments about what to change for the next year.  We also talked some about the teen reading program & how hard it is to get teens to come in and participate in programs.  They've had 3 Teen Librarians (only 10 hours/wk) over the last few years.  Apparently the last one didn't do much so when budget cuts had to be made, the position was  eliminated. 

I sign out at the information desk.  For some reason, there wasn't anyone working the desk and on my way out, a man walked up, so I asked if I could help.  He was looking for a "series of novels that came out fairly recently and were best sellers."  He didn't know titles or authors- I took a stab at the Stieg Larsson trilogy and that was it!  Well, didn't remember at the time how to spell Larsson and spelled it Larson; then tried the title -Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but figured out later that I spelled tattoo wrong (tatoo), so decided to take him to the mystery section and, thank goodness, we found an honor copy (paperback - no checkout); all the hardbacks were out.  Suggested he put holds on the others.  I was a little flustered about not being able to get the results I needed on the catalog......

A topic that's been on my mind-
I subscribe to the edWeb listserve and there was a lot of talk about filtering/censorship of Internet sites/tools at the ends of the school year- especially ones that have potential use in the classroom.  A comment was made by Rita Oates- a former tech ed director that we shouldn't be focusing on mass market tools but on what schools ARE using.  Here's the link to the post: http://www.edweb.net/.59bf7d40/0.  Anyway, she says we should use educational social networks instead of Facebook, GlogsterEDU instead of Glogster, etc.  Well, GLogster EDU costs money that schools don't have.  It seems to me the EDU versions should be free and the "mass market" versions should have the fee.  As for Facebook, she says that students don't want teachers coming into their social space with assignments but that isn't how most teachers would use it.  They create a course/library/guidance. etc. page and students join in.  Also, Facebook is where the students are.  They are not going to join some social learning network; that isn't cool.  I don't think it's good that Facebook captures data on users and resells it to advertisers though.  She mentions some networks that I wsan't aware of and plan to check out and definitely gives some food for thought.

Days 2 & 3

Tuesday I worked all day in the Children's Department- cut out craft pieces to make a spider hat to go with the Anasazi story later this month, started trying to determine the location of a list of Juv NF books- on the shelf or in storage (basement); by necessity did quite a bit of shelf reading as I went through the list, "manned" the SRC table- signed up new participants as well as gave out prizes.  Children's is a busy place- especially 10-12 (story time 10:30) and after 4:00 - activites every day.  It's a LOT of work to get everything set up - stories, demos, crafts, etc. And you must be creative - which I am not!  They are also having a Scholastic Book Fair a week from Monday. Now that's something that I have experience in!  Will get to train the staff on the registers and help set up.  YAY!
Also helped pull books for Outreach tomorrow - 25 assorted large print(mix of romance and mystery), 10 mystery, 10 general fiction.  I had to make a concerted effort not to just pull books that I liked. 

Pretty much just shadowing several people this week. Today (Wed.) I went on outreach to two different nursing homes -  independent living in the morning and assisted living in the afternoon.  Residents request books plus we bring an assortment of others for them to choose from - usually newer copyrights. (books have a "new" sticker on the spine) The indepedent living home had a resident who checked in the books being returned; she has lived there 22 years!  One of the ladies in the afternoon was 93 and she had a huge stack of books:-)  I would  love this job because you get to know the patrons more intimately.  The only thing I wouldn't like is backing the library van down the steep narrow driveway into the single bay garage - brick wall on one side and cement posts on the other! Or when a patron died...... 

I thought I would spend the last couple of hours of the day on the computer deleting more weeded titles from the catalog, but I was having "authorization" issues.  I had already had to ask my supervisor for the password and didn't want to bother her again as I knew she was working on a report, so I decided to go down to Children's and continue working on the Juv NF project instead.  Got though most of the list.  Guess at some point I'll be checking the basement shelves for the copies I didn't find.

Day 1

Today was the first day of my internship at the West Lafayette Public Library.  West Lafayette is across the river from Lafayette and is referred to by the locals as the "West Side," hence my blog title - which my mom came up with, by the way.  I've been trying to come up with something creative for 3 days, and I ask her for ideas tonight and "boom" - she comes right up with this!  Oh well....
Got a tour of the building, met a lot of employees and volunteers, and set my schedule for the next couple of weeks.  Did a lot of shadowing plus got to:  pull ILLS, delete copies of weeded books from the online catalog, and weed and reorganize the YA magazines.
A few thoughts:

• I am amazed by the number of volunteers that work on a daily basis
• WLPL uses Evergreen Indiana - I wonder why Tippecanoe County Public Library/Lafayette doesn't
• Children's Summer Reading program already has 400 participants signed up.  I think Pam said they had a total of 900 last year.  WOW!
• Was surprised by the number of donated books, etc. that come in on a daily basis (Most used for their book sales)
• Lots & lots of programs!