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.