The End is Near

It's now finals week, which means my internship has come to an end. The past couple weeks have been busy with the Thanksgiving holiday and the end of semester madness. I did manage to finish my projects for the internship, however. I selected some videos to purchase for Diana's departments. Diana will send the list off to be reviewed, so we will see if many of them get approved for purchase. Diana and I also finished touching on some of my remaining learning outcomes. We spent some time discussing basic cataloging concepts as they apply to King Library. We discussed the importance of professional development and publishing. To tie into the topic of publishing, Diana sent me a draft of a manuscript she is working on. I read through it and provided her with some feedback on the content.

Before I knew it, my last day had arrived. As I have mentioned previously, I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, as I have learned so much. I am positive the experience I gained during this internship will benefit me throughout my career.

Wrapping Things Up!

Things are moving right along at the MLK Library. Here's what I was up to in November:

Nov 1-Nov.5:

I continued filling in for my supervisor during her scheduled virtual reference hour. I received a couple of questions this week, but nothing that required the use of the library’s resources, however. For example, one person wanted to know how to read Ebooks on his iPad. This kind of question required some good old-fashioned Googling. I spent the rest of my time at my internship finishing up the Company Information Subject Guide project I had been working on. (To see an example of a Subject Guide my supervisor, Diana Wu, created, see this link: http://libguides.sjsu.edu/business .) At this point, I had already updated most of the information and links from the Company Information Tutorial, so I began transferring this information into the Subject Guide website and organizing it. I also added some pictures to liven up the appearance. In the original tutorial there was a quiz at the end. I wanted to recreate this feature in the Subject Guide, but I had a difficult time finding a quiz builder that provided free services. I finally settled on creating a quiz using Survey Gizmo. The only downfall is that users cannot see the correct answers after they answer each question. I hope to get feedback from other librarians about this.

Nov. 8-Nov. 12:

Since I wrapped things up with the Subject Guide, I began working on the other project my supervisor left for me to work on during her vacation. Since we discussed collection development before she left, she thought it would be good practice for me to work on selecting titles to purchase for the departments she is responsible for. Her departments include Accounting and Finance, Management and Information Systems, and Marketing and Decision Sciences.

Before I began the project, I read the budget policies for each department and familiarized myself with the classes available for these departments. Once I had a good idea of important concepts, I browsed the CSU union catalog for new and popular titles relating to each department. I took into consideration how relevant each book was, how many other universities owned a copy, and if the copies owned were checked out or not. I recorded this information in a document to share with Diana upon her return.

Nov. 15- Nov. 19:

This week my supervisor returned from her time off. I was excited to catch up with her and discuss what I worked on while she was away. I was relieved when she approved of many of the books I selected for her departments. I added these titles to our Gobi account. This makes it easier for Diana to send the titles to acquisitions, where the books will be ordered by other staff members. I also helped select some videos afterwards since each department was granted money for videos (though I’m told the budget is much lower than in previous years).

There are only a few more days left in the internship. I'll check back in soon.

Shifting Gears

It's past the midway point of the semester and I am entering the last portion of my internship at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK) Library in San Jose, California. The first half of my internship focused on reference and instruction, but now the focus is shifting to collection development and liaison responsibilities. I've broken down my recent activities by week:

Week of 10/11-10/15:

On Tuesday I attended my last library instruction course since Diana and I agreed to shift our focus from reference and instruction to collection development and liaison work. The instruction class was scheduled for a Religion class title, Death and Dying. Diana thought it would be a good idea to observe a variety of classes to get a feel for various teaching styles. This class was structured differently than the others I have attended thus far. First, we toured the reference area for religious materials. Then, we took a small detour to view the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) art exhibit, since it related to the focus of the class. Finally, we went back to the classroom, where the librarian gave a brief demonstration on how to use the library databases. Following the demonstration, students were free to research their individual topics. Time definitely went by quickly during this class since we were up and moving during a good portion of the class. The students seemed to enjoy this interactive approach to the class, and I will definitely try to incorporate interactive strategies into my teaching style in my future career.

Later in the week I attended my first faculty meeting. Faculty meetings occur once a month, and cover governance issues. An agenda was passed out at the start of the meeting. After the previous meeting’s minutes were approved, the librarian leading the meeting brought up the issue of vacation requests and sick policy. Faculty members had not been following the procedure to request time off, so he encouraged everyone to submit the proper form in order to establish consistency. There was some conflict because some librarians felt that it is not wise to request time off during the semester. Others argued that if all librarians took time off during the summer then there wouldn’t be enough librarians on staff during that time. The effects of the budget cuts at the library became apparent when the conversation shifted to the topic of there being a shortage of librarians. The conversation had to be cut short so that there would be enough time to discuss the budget. I learned that the budget was recently passed, but a somewhat complicated process has to occur before our actual funds are determined. Attending the faculty meeting was a great way to catch a glimpse into some of the pressing issues taking place on the academic side of the library.

On Friday I accompanied Diana at a meeting with the Chair of the Management Information Systems department. Diana stressed that it is important to maintain communication with the contacts in our departments. The Chair and Diana discussed various topics, including: the budget, the new university website, promotion of information literacy courses, and the use of the institutional repository. Being in attendance at the meeting gave me an idea of some of the issues at hand within this particular department. It also gave me an idea of the amount of responsibility it must be for a librarian in charge of multiple departments.

Week of 10/18-10/22:

I had my first experience working at the reference desk this week. Previously, I observed a few different reference librarians as they worked their shifts at the desk, but I didn’t interact with patrons. The reference desk is set up so there can be up to two reference librarians and two library staff members working simultaneously. Generally there will be one library staff member and one or two reference librarians, depending on how busy it is. My job was to answer any general questions that came to the desk. If there were any complex reference questions, I referred them to a reference librarian. Most of the questions I received were directional or technical (relating to the computers, printers, copiers, etc.).

I also observed my supervisor as she was on duty for virtual reference. Since she was leaving to go out of town, we agreed that I would cover her virtual reference hours while she is away. Unfortunately, it was slow and we did not receive any questions, but I made sure I jotted down all the steps of how to use the virtual reference service.

Diana and I also began discussing collection development, the next topic of focus in my internship. Since Diana is the liaison librarian for several departments in the College of Business, she is responsible for keeping in contact with the department chairs and selecting books and materials for purchase for these departments. She explained that the current trend is to spend 75% of an allocated budget on digital materials and 25% on print materials. Although many younger faculty members are fine with this trend, some older faculty members prefer print materials.

Week of 10/25-10/29:

This week concluded my time working at the reference desk. I am a bit sad about that since I was just beginning to feel confident answering a variety of questions. I will, however, continue covering Diana’s hours at the virtual reference desk while she is away. When I was covering the virtual reference desk hours on Tuesday, I received a few questions, one of which was a difficult question related to baseball (perhaps it would have been less difficult for a baseball fan). To make a long story short, I took the patron’s email address down and told him I would email him as soon as I found the answer. It took a couple of tries, but I finally found the information he was looking for. It felt great when he told me that I had found exactly what he needed. Later on, Diana sent me an email with a copy of a survey completed after my session. I saw that the patron rated my service as “Excellent.” It felt so rewarding to see that the patron had indicated he would use the library’s virtual reference service again in the future. I genuinely feel that providing reference services will be a highlight in my future career.

My First Official Week (and a half)

Due to Diana's travel plans during the latter half of August and the beginning of September, I did not meet her again until September 8th. When I arrived at her office, Diana informed me that there was going to be a webinar in the conference room, so we headed over to listen in. There were other librarians seated around the conference table with a projector screen set up. We could hear someone speaking while we followed along with the Powerpoint slides. The topic of the day was assessment in libraries. I found the topic to be interesting. I remember learning about assessment in LIBR 204. The virtual presenters explained that assessment is vital to the success of libraries, especially since libraries have been changing so much during this period of rapid technological advancement. Methods of assessment were also discussed. Following the presentation, Diana and I discussed my revised learning outcomes for the semester and set a tentative schedule for the coming weeks. Diana explained that in the first half of my internship she wanted to focus on reference and instruction since she had the majority of her library instruction classes scheduled early in the semester.

The following week (9/13-9/17), I came in Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Tuesday, Diana gave me a tour of the 4th floor administration offices. She intended on introducing me to her colleagues, but many of them were out of the office. She said that many of them were probably busy teaching or taking care of other tasks. Afterward, I observed Diana as she was on duty for IM chat reference. Unfortunately, there were technical difficulties, so we were not receiving messages. In the meantime we discussed the various ways libraries are attempting to reach out to patrons by expanding the forms of reference services, like text messaging or live online chat.

On Thursday, Diana arranged for me to shadow John Wenzler, Associate Dean for Digital Futures, Information Technology and Technical Services. While at the reference desk, John pointed out that since the MLK Library is a joint library between the city of San Jose and SJSU, many of the questions asked at the reference desk are not necessarily reference questions. As I observed, many of the questions were directional or related to using the public computers nearby. Following my time at the reference desk I met up with Diana to sit in on an instructional class she was scheduled to teach for Professor Makani's Integrated Marketing Communications class. The time went by quickly in the class. I think it was because Diana made the class interactive and used examples that were interesting to students, like social networking. I later learned that Diana had experience teaching, which she said was very helpful because a big part of being an academic librarian nowadays involves teaching. As a somewhat shy person, I know this is an area I will have to work in if I want to be comfortable teaching in the future.

The following day, Diana had meetings in the morning so I looked at some of the tutorials and LibGuides on the MLK Library website. Diana mentioned that she wanted me to create a LibGuide (a webpage with resources related to a specific topic) later this semester, so I thought it would be wise to familiarize myself with the setup of already established LibGuides. Once Diana finished her meetings, I went with her to observe her at the reference desk. Upon arriving at the reference desk, we noticed that there was a security guard present. We learned that someone had been arrested on the fourth floor for masturbating while looking at pornography on a public computer. This was another reminder that we were in a joint library. I was informed that the forth floor has an area for public computers, but it is located in a corner, and out of the view of many others on the rest of the floor. The incident raised an interesting topic of concern in public libraries. Should patrons be able to access pornographic sites in public libraries? On the one hand, censorship would violate first amendment rights. On the other hand, not censoring is also a cause for concern since the library is open to everyone, including small children who could be exposed to such material. This is a topic that I'd like to look into more to see what has been written about it so far. After the security guard left, it was back to business as usual. Diana noted that it might be a little slow since there are not many classes taught on campus on Fridays. It was indeed slow on the academic end, but there were plenty of phone calls. I was surprised that one of the patrons on the phone was asking for phone numbers for local businesses. After Diana answered the first question, she told the caller that she could only help with one more request. She later informed me that there has to be a limit set to how many of those types of questions can be answered because otherwise the patron may keep asking for more requests when there are patrons waiting with actual reference questions.

My internship so far has been exciting. Already, I feel that I have learned so much just from observing and being in a library setting. I am so grateful to be working with Diana, who is very knowledgeable and friendly. I am eager to see what the rest of the semester has in store for me..

First Impressions

Since Diana and I were both traveling during the summer, we agreed that it would be best to start my internship in September. However, Diana and I remained in contact via email during the summer. In an email sent in August, Diana informed me that she would be working at an orientation for new international students at SJSU, and invited me to join her. I was eager to meet international students and inform them about the resources available to them at the MLK Library as enrolled SJSU students, so I agreed to meet her on August 18 in the Loma Prieta Room in the Student Union.

I met with Diana and Susanna Liu, another academic librarian, at 10 am to work at the MLK Library table at the orientation. We took a little time to set up our display board, then soon enough, the orientation began at 10:30 am. It was interesting to meet the new, international students. Quite a few of the students did not know how to obtain their library cards. In addition, many of them were not aware of the services they have access to through the library. For example, many of them were surprised to learn that they could check out laptops and use the wireless internet access at the library. It was rewarding to help the students gain access to the information and tools that can help them be successful during their academic careers. The orientation ended a little before noon. After cleaning up our table, Diana and I took some time to review my learning outcomes for upcoming internship.

At our first meeting on July 6, Diana encouraged me to work on my learning outcomes over the summer in preparation for the internship (these are required for the internship experience class). I had never drafted learning outcomes before, so I wasn't sure if my outcomes were what she was looking for. After taking a look at my outcomes, she helped me organize my outcomes into distinct groups, such as, professional development or instruction. After talking with her, I felt much more confident in revising my learning outcomes.

My first encounters with Diana and the MLK Library were positive experiences. Diana seems very willing to help me develop my professional goals. She is also very knowledgeable, and will be a great resource when it comes to learning everything there is to learn about the library (if that is possible). I am positive that I will gain invaluable experience during this internship that I would not be exposed to in a strictly online learning environment.

Internship Opportunity

It's been just over a year since I began working for Professor Joyce Osland in SJSU's College of Business. During this span of time, I've had numerous opportunities to meet many new contacts and gain plenty of experience conducting research. Professor Osland opened up another door of opportunity for me when she mentioned that she'd like to connect me with Diana Wu, the liaison librarian at the MLK Library for the College of Business.

As an MLIS candidate in SJSU's online program, I was excited at the prospect of gaining hands-on experience with an academic librarian at the MLK Library since it would allow me to gain experience in a unique, joint academic/public library. Diana and I got in touch, and discussed the possibility of her taking me under her wing as an intern at the MLK Library this fall. After discussing some of my future career goals as an academic librarian, Diana agreed to serve as my supervisor for an internship this fall. I am delighted that I will be working with Diana, as she is pleasant to be around and can offer me the invaluable experience of catching a glimpse into the daily life of an academic librarian during this time period of evolving librarianship.