Archiving Desk to Desk

LSTA Grant: Approval to Apply

Jacquelyn — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 00:59:23 +0000

Apparently when one goes after big money it’s more complicated than one thinks. If you can cast your minds back to a few posts ago when I mentioned I was on a grant writing committee with my library. We are seeking funds to start offering new services to our transient population, as well as our general community. One of the major things about the library I work at is that it’s the main central branch. This means we serve a variety of people, unlike the branches who have become more of a neighborhood branch we are like the city’s neighborhood branch. More and more public libraries are expected to offer programs, both fun and informational. Well that costs money and that’s not something public libraries have in abundance. And with talk of a new central library being built I can only imagine the feeling that we would have more programming is steadily growing.

So a grant is in order and since we last left off I was working on some preliminary research and programming planning to go into the Letter of Intent. Well went sent that off and waited anxiously for word on whether or not we should actually submit a full grant proposal request. This past week we met and discussed the questions and concerns the state library brought. The first being the suggestion we ask for more money. At the end of the meeting we came away with more things to do, my number task is to pull up every single article that mentions public libraries and homelessness. Which is a lot, some with the homeless population painted in a negative view and some with them in a positive view? Since it’s more than I actually thought would be out there I’m narrowing it down to articles about programming and homelessness. I’ve found a great from a book club model in Australia that sounds similar to what we are trying to achieve through the programs.

Money Smart Week® @ your library

Jacquelyn — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 12:44:36 +0000

Since sometime in November I have been working on what seems to be the biggest project I’ve been assigned so far. Money Smart Week® @ your library…I had never heard of it before either so don’t feel bad if you are reading this with some confusion. It’s alright.

Money Smart Week® is a week in April (it seems to change from year to year, this year it is 4/21-4/28) that was started in 2002 by the Chicago Federal Reserve, aimed to promote personal financial literacy. In 2011 (just amazed that it’s 2012 already), ALA and the Chicago Federal Reserved decided to team up and start Money Smart Week @ your library. Their goal is to use the library to connect with businesses and agencies to help their communities learn more about personal finance.

I have to admit I was somewhat thrown in the deep end with this and I’m not really sure how I feel about that. Since November I’ve been steadily trying to garner contacts in the financial community, testing the water to see if there is any interest in individuals donating their time to offer up unbiased information. Surprisingly I’ve gotten great feedback and people are eager to come in and help with this mission. How great is that?

So far I’ve scheduled 2 individuals for two separate programs and one company for a series of programs throughout the month of April. I’ve got two more potential companies to schedule a program for and then meet with the Adult Services Committee to see if anyone would be willing to host these programs at their library doing the month of April. Then the next step is figuring out how to get some companies to donate some refreshments, it would be great to get some healthy refreshments even light lunch items. Then I can start the marketing blitz. The goal is to start mid-Feb. with web news, facebook, posters, flyers, postcards, bookmarks, the whole nine yards. I’m working hard to bring some good information to the community, it’s only fitting they should know about it.

Happy New Year 2012!

Jacquelyn — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 01:10:48 +0000

Wow did the last couple of months go by fast. It always seems to be that November and December are always my busiest months. I’ve had such a great time getting to know my new workplace and coworkers. In December we had a Staff Day where I was able to meet all the staff in the system. It wasn’t until this day that I realized how many people I actually work with. It’s a large system and some of the best librarians I’ve met so far. Towards the in of December I took on the duty of organizing MoneySmart Week. Which I’ll talk about in another post.

Now that it’s a new year it’s time to look back on what all I did in 2011. Last year I set forth five goals for me to try and accomplish in the year. Out of the five goals I was able to successfully complete two and semi-successfully complete one. I graduated in May with my MLIS. In September I landed an awesome full time job at FCPL. I’ve also been able to knock out 90% of my consumer debt in preparation of paying back my student loans this year. It’s been a busy 2011 and 2012 is shaping up to be even busier. How great!

Just like last year I’m going to set myself five goals to try to carry out. I’ll be taking them from my 30 to by Thirty list, while also keeping the two goals I wasn’t able to carry out for the next year.

My 2012 Goals

1. Get to a healthier weight.

2. Take a celebratory trip, possibly New York, New York.

3. Wear an article of clothing sewn by me in public.

4. Visit an art museum that I have never been to. (Locally or nationally…or internationally.)

5. For one month be a locavore. (Read: Support local businesses and increase my Green thinking.)

I’ll also be attempting a 365 project, more details to come and hopefully I’ll do a better job keeping this blog updated. Happy New Year everyone!

2011 in review

Jacquelyn — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 18:25:00 +0000

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 52 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Six Months Later

Jacquelyn — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:28:04 +0000

Sunday marked the end of the six months since I earned my MLIS degree, and you know what I feel just like I thought it would. I’m exhausted…and jubilant.

Two years ago I honestly had no idea what I was getting into, and truthfully I’m still learning what it means to be a librarian. And here’s a clue; it doesn’t involve shushing people. Not that I thought it did but I hear that often when someone asks about my profession. If ever there was a misunderstood profession I would nominate the world of Librarianship. It’s almost like we are a mysterious cult but if you ever just take the time to ask a librarian about their library or their job I guarantee you they could talk for hours on one-tenth of what they do and what their library has to offer.

I guess I could sum of the last six months in a timeline sort of fashion but that would be boring. And librarians aren’t boring despite what literature would have you believe. The last six months really can be boiled down to one thing: Job Searching.

I started early (right before winter break I sent out my first resume), but not nearly as early as some people. I suggest you do the same, start looking for possible leads early on. Get on a variety of list-serves, a good friend and colleague of mines, Amanda Goodman, did an awesome write-up of some of the places she looked at and subscribed to for job leads. I cleaned up and invested some time into my social media outlets. I’ve had a LinkedIn profile since 2007 that I never got around to actually filling out. While I had the time I flushed it out and kept up with it.

These last six months were emotionally tough, as anyone who’s done any job searching since 2007 can surely tell you. But in the end I would say it was worth it. I can’t wait to see what the next six months hold for me.

LSTA: Library Outreach and Innovative Services Grant

Jacquelyn — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 23:31:39 +0000

This past week I’ve been tied up at work with meetings and program researching. All to help my library write-up a letter of intent for a grant we are seeking. If you recall I’ve done one of other grant writing process before, with the Diversity Research Grant. Which I’m beginning to see is different from a grant that a library would go after.

The goal of the grant is to help us improve the services offered to our homeless population. The homeless issue is big for almost all libraries and especially for the public ones. It’s nothing new and it’s something that you are going to have deal with if you work in a public library. For us it’s becoming an increasing topic as we go forth with the new Library Bond we just got the commission office to okay. It came up more than once, the sentiment that the main library “is nothing more than a day shelter and why should we build a new library for a bunch of homeless people?” Harsh, I know but it’s reality that there are people are there that think this way. Part and parcel of this project would be to offer up sensitivity and information training to not only the staff by the public at large.

This past week we’ve met to discuss the grant and work on the letter of intent which is due next month. I’ve been tasked with coming up with a really basic outline of informational programs that can be offered as part of the project. I’m kind of going about it blind because I don’t have background in homeless outreach services but there are some general classes that I feel can be beneficial to those who are temporarily homeless. We’ve already been able to sign on a host of local community partners which I know will be more than helpful in defining what this group’s real needs are.

It’s been very interesting and beneficial for me to work on this committee as I’m learning more about the Assistant Directors and how they work. As well as I’m learning grant writing skills, which is important for anyone in the non-profit world to know.

Inventory

Jacquelyn — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:13:01 +0000

One of the first things I do when I come in the morning is POSH which stands for Pull On Shelf Holds. Meaning the books that have been placed on holds by customers need to be pulled and processed so that they can be sent to whichever library they want to pick it up. I’ve used this function many of times since our libraries are spread out far. Sometimes customers don’t appreciate that service or understand the limitations of a public library as they will place the hold that morning and expect for it to be pulled and waiting for them within an hour. In my head I’m thinking we’re the Library not Best Buy but outloud I try to explain why that isn’t possible; really what can you do?

So anyways back to the point of this post, so every morning I usually help with POSH unless I have something else that needs to get done asap. Lately we’ve noticed the number of books that are going un-found because of shelving mistakes is starting to increase. I’ve also noticed a good number of books missing in my sections. Now being that this is a public library it’s expected to have books go missing and misplaced it’s still disturbing. My supervisor asked that we all do emergency shelf reading in our sections to try an reduce some of the problem. I’m an old hat at shelf-reading and I use to prefer to shelf-read. But I knew shelf-reading wasn’t going to do much because I knew that my branch hadn’t been inventoried in years. I brought up the topic with my boss only to find out that they uppers had decided to inventoried the branches but not the main one.

This was kind of discouraging to me as I knew that we needed it really bad. So it got me to thinking about my time in Circualtion and how we couldn’t just close down the library for inventory, but we still did inventory especially when preparing for any major move. That’s when I decided instead of standing there shelf-reading for 30 minutes or so I would pull a section of books from the shelves. Take them to the computer scan them under the inventory function, shelf read them, and then put them back on the shelves. This allowed me to straighten them as well as redistribute the shelves to alleviate crowding.

Yes it takes longer to do and it’s more involved, but at the end of it I’ll know that I’ve touched each book, and that I can run a report that will show me what books the computer says is there but aren’t physically because they weren’t inventoried (minus those I know won’t be there.) Pages and volunteers can do it and it’s a way around not closing the whole branch or floor for inventory.

Already I’ve come across three books in one section that wasn’t in the catalog…I wouldn’t have found them by simply shelf reading.

Back to School Training

Jacquelyn — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 23:06:18 +0000

Yes it’s almost Halloween, and in fact the kids around my neck of the woods started Fall break today but it’s never too late to be introduced to certain databases. Tuesday I attended a training session encompassing some of the databases that we have that are good ones to know when it comes to helping students of all ages with their assignments. Dealing with academic research I’m kind of use to a good set of databases that are my go to, Academic Search Premier being the number one favorite. I liken it to Wal-mart when I introduce it to anyone (a good analogy I got from one of my librarian friends while doing my practicum), it’s got a little bit of everything you could possibly want but not much variety on any given topic. And then you have those subject specifics that are great for when you get stuck in the general databases, like ERIC and PsycINFO. But sometimes those databases aren’t ideal for someone doing a 5^th grade report on the planets.

I’m really glad I was able to work in this training into my schedule and that my supervisor encouraged me to go. We covered five sources in the training.

MAS Ultra-School Edition

Why: Recommend to High School or Junior College Level students seeking magazine articles or historical documents

What: Includes magazines, original historical documents, including The Bill of Rights, the Constitution, The Federalist Papers and the speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Charts, tables, and graphs.

How: EBSCOhost search, can limit search to full text articles only, and sort by “date descending” for most recent .

LearningExpressLibrary

Why: Recommend to students or adults seeking test preparation materials (SAT, PSAT, Algebra)

What: Includes test preparation for all age levels,eBooks and practice tests

CultureGrams

Why: Recommend to students seeking information on countries or states (for all school levels)

What: Includes all of the information students need for their country report

Live Homework Help

Why: Recommend to students who need help with homework- free tutoring through chat

What: Provides tutor help online from 3pm to 11pm everyday

Gale Cengage Learning

Why: Great overall online encyclopedia.

What: Gale holdings will be growing exponentially for literary resources, to include short stories, novels, poetry, criticism.

The best part is that these sources are available 24/7 to our customers and most people in North Carolina. And if you aren’t in my neck of the woods call your public library today and ask if you have access to them. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind showing you how to get the most out of them.

The First Month

Jacquelyn — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:29:57 +0000

While sitting on the reference desk yesterday with my supervisor a regular customer came up and asked if I was the new staff member. My supervisor eagerly said yes and introduced me, saying I had been there for about a-…it was at this time we both looked at each other and realized that I had been there for one whole month to the day. The time has flown by…or at least it feels like it has. I can’t believe that it’s been a whole month. I think I’m adjusting great well.

My supervisor congratulated me on my first month and she’s really pleased with how I’m fitting in. Which is a big thing as she was not in on the hiring process, they were doing multiple positions and wanted to save time and energy. So only the big wigs were in on the hiring process. The department heads could only hope they got someone who would fit in. I’m sure that was a scary time for them. For her to say I’m so glad we got you, means a lot.

Looking back on my first week (part 1 and 2)I’ve started taking on more irresponsibility. I’ve worked my first night alone in the department and I’ll be doing my first weekend shift the beginning of next month. I’m serving on my first committee and starting to meet with librarians outside of my branch.

Yesterday I spent the morning down at our Government Center having a New Employee Orientation, which was surprisingly really fun. People who work for the local government are hilarious!

It still feels weird to know that I’m finally working in the field that I’ve worked so hard to get to. And I can only hope (I’m going to work real hard to make it so) that I keep this happiness that I get from it.

Cultural Diversity Committee

Jacquelyn — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:01:54 +0000

Last week I sat in my first committee meeting. It’s kind of weird to say I’m on a committee. I’ve been apart of things within groups but I can honestly say I’ve never been on a committee. And it’s a great committee to be on, Cultural Diversity. Although it should come to no surprise that it’s the first committee I chose to get involved with. The aim of the committee is to increase cultural diversity within our community inside the library and outside, for the public as well as the staff of the library.

Right now it’s a small committee relative to the importance, at least I think, of the committee. I see great things that could come of such a committee. And you know what’s true for any committee, group, or special interest the more you do the more people start to pay attention to you. It’s just simple logic. I guess I’m just one of those people who likes to shake things up now and then, especially when I’m passionate about something. But at the same time I know I’m just coming in and the last thing I want to do is step on toes. To all my librarians to be and any person who has yet to work in a professional environment, politics plays a major role in how things work in any company or business (even if it’s not related to politics…human nature?). My best advice to you would be to sit back and observe, never rush in.

Through the time in grad school and working with other scholars there were a lot of opportunities to experience cultural diversity that I would love to share with other people. And I know a lot of my ex-scholars are doing great work in diversity. Plus my hometown and surrounding area is getting more and more diverse that you can’t help but to get excited about a chance to share that with people.

We’ve got great plans for the upcoming year and I joined right when they are planning the Staff Thanksgiving Potluck Luncheon, so now I have to think of a great dish because you know they will be looking at the new faces and evaluating us on such an important task.