Trends in Children's Literature

I took the class titled "Trends in Children's Literature" because I found it applicable to this class because it talks about various techniques when it comes to selecting books for children. This course reviewed the basics of children's literature, examined contemporary books and looked at trends for students K-5. The course emphasized books published since 2000. More than 7,000 new juvenile books are published annually. Books written specifically to meet the interests of young people is a relatively new phenomenon. Many stories that are now considered to be for children especially fairy tales, myths, and folktales, were in reality attempts to understand society, the natural and spiritual world, or to record some aspect of the culture or history of a group and were not written for children's enjoyment. In fact, many examples of classic "children's" literature weren't appropriate for children at all. It's reasonalbe to expect that social values and interests will be reflected in children's literature and the very factors that make the books appealing to young readers may also cause concern for adults. The course had me shelve classic children's books by publication date. The course goes on to break it down by age and tell what these groups are interested in when it comes to literature. Some more trends are talked about such as graphic novels, book packagers, and licensed characters. Once again, the course encompassed so much information, it would be hard to talk about all of it. I did enjoy the class and would recommend it to someone else.

Weeding the Library Collection

Like many of you already have, I decided to take the Weeding the Library Collection class. Although I was originally going to take Weeding: It’s Not an Option, I completely forgot that the LE@D classes take 2-3 days to receive the login information (SO inconvenient), so I opted for this class instead. Although I was still impressed and thought it was very informative. They give a lot of great tips on how to create a weeding plan for your library as well as how to maintain it. My favorite part was definitely all of the examples of different items people have weeded, particularly the recipe book for how to make play-dough out of asbestos! Crazy! Overall I thought this was a great class and I now feel well-prepared for our weeding project. :)

Master of Disaster: Developing a Disaster Plan

The second class I took was on developing a disaster plan. It covered the different ways to identify possible hazards, prepare for disaster, create an action plan to prevent chaos and write a disaster plan the includes a strategy for recovery. I found the course interesting. It gave several good ideas what to do before the disaster to help facilitate getting back to business asap. One thing they mentioned was to make a call list of people to notify of the disaster. Another idea that I especially liked was how they prioritized the items into 3 categories in case of a disaster. The three priorities are:
1- salvage at all costs. This would include financial records, local histories, and reference.
2-salvage if time allows. this would be non-fiction and out of print items.
3-easily replaceable items. this would be mass market paperbacks, computer equipment etc...
The items in the groups would vary on the individual establishment.
Another thing they recommended (that I never thought about) is to make a list of local companies that clean carpets, spray for bugs, freeze dry valuable papers etc.. before the disaster so you can access their phone numbers easily and get the help you need fast. They also recommend that you keep a copy of the disaster plan and any lists off site in a safe spot so that if a disaster did strike the library the plans wouldn't be destroyed.
While some of this is in the safety plan where I work there are several things that were new. I think everyone would benefit from this. You can never be too prepared for a disaster!

Weeding the Collection

I took the Weeding Library Collection on Web junction. I have personally never been involved in a weeding project yet. This is one of the main reasons why I am looking forward to the Weeding project. I found much information that this class had very interesting. It will be very helpful for the weeding Project. It goes over the reasons why a Library needs to weed. Not just for Space but to also keep the collection looking nice. As well as helping patrons understand why libraries need to weed. This is a task that can sometimes be difficult or so I have heard. Another area that the class went over was working on a plan of when to weed/Policy. I found this class to be very useful.

Tech Services

I took the Web Junction course called, Technical Services: What they do, Why they do it, How it's Changing. It covered a lot of material starting with some background info about the history of cataloging and the Dewey Decimal System. It covered the different aspects of tech services, acquisitions, cataloging and classification, and processing. Collection maintenance was another part. It was interesting that it was said that repairing is not always a good option since the time and materials it takes may not be cost effective and replacement may be a better option. After each section there was an activity to reinforce what was learned, message board posting, Dewey classification exercise, and a collection maintenance activity where you decide what to do with items that need repair, replacing etc. I think this was a helpful course and a good addition to what we are learning in our class.

Intro to Cataloging for Non-Catalogers

This was the second course I took from WebJunction. It gave a brief explanation of the 4 different types of libraries and why library catalogs are needed. Cutter's Rules established in 1876 are still followed today: enable a person to find a book by author, title, or subject, show what materials a library has, and assist in the person choice by giving bibliographic information and character of the book. Card catalogs are pretty obsolete. Most libraries use OPACs (Online Public Access Catalogs). The main down side to that is that many people don't know how to use them and they are all different. The course then moves on to cataloguing which has 3 parts: descriptive cataloguing, classification and subject analysis. I found this course very interesting.

Weeding the Collection

I took Weeding the Collection as my second Web Junction course (and I'm noticing now that a few people took this one already, but I had signed up for it weeks ago, plus I still think its a useful skill to learn).

The course begins by stating the reasons why weeding should be done in a library, such as ease of browsing and aesthetics. It then provides the student with online resources that can assist in reading, such as the Texas State Library's CREW (Continuous - Review - Evaluation - Weeding) guide.

It then suggests that the student adopt published weeding guidelines to develop criteria for weeding the collection, such as MUSTIE and judging a weeded item by the number of circulations and its condition. Adopting a weeding schedule and procedures for weeding are also suggested.

The course then spends some time explaining solutions to avoid common weeding pitfalls such as "unweedable" gifts and donations, the fallacy of a recommended collection size, and the fear of admitting a selection error, as well as explaining to patrons and board members who may object to weeding why it needs to be done.

The importance of incorporating weeding into the library's collection management policy is then discussed, as well as tools associated with automated catalogs that can be used to assist in weeding, such as inventory reports and collection age reports.

The course ends by giving several example scenarios of problems associated with weeding and positive solutions for handling them, followed by a short quiz. They were informative but not very difficult.

I found this an interesting and well-explained course on the topic of weeding. As a bonus, throughout the course sample titles of weeded items are provided. Many are quite humorous, dealing with outdated topics such as gender roles of the 1950s, the Soviet Union as America's adversary, and the moon landing as science fiction. All-in-all, I would recommend this course to anyone who needs to know how to weed a library collection, and would consider it a valuable tool for both the novice and the expert.

Weedng the Collection

I took the “Weeding the Library Collection” on web junction. This class was interesting since we will be doing our “weeding project” soon and also gave some useful information for weeding the library I currently work in. The class emphasized the fact that weeding the library will save space and time, make the library more visually attractive, help you to know the strengths and weaknesses of your collection and help new materials stand out. It had great information and examples of what to weed. I am planning on using the tip to put a schedule for weeding as a weekly activity on my calendar.

Developing Motivating Messages

Hi Everyone,

I took the “Developing Motivating Messages” on web junction. This class is geared to helping people improve their communication skills. Whenever you meet with a person or a group of people take the time to learn a little background prior to your meeting or program. This may include demographics, group history and how much your group already knows about the topic you wish to discuss. They gave helpful tips on presenting your message including: keep it brief, avoid using jargon and don’t forget to let the audience know “what’s it in for them!” And lastly, don’t forget to practice your presentation several times so that you can effectively get your message across.

Dealing with Angry Patrons

Hi everyone,


I took the Dealing with Angry patrons course on web junction. As in the Description says no one enjoys dealing with angry patrons. This course went over the varies patrons angry patrons that you may encounter, the types of patrons, how to identify them. It is created to help find the most effective way to deal with the angry patrons. The course goes over understanding patrons feelings and then over helping deal with the patrons problem. This course can be used by anyone at a library no matter what desk they work at. I found this course very informative and would recommend it to my co-workers.

Developing Motivating Messages (LibraryU)

This course discussed the opportunities for library staff members to develop a wide variety of messages for any program or service. Three areas discussed were analyzing your audience, developing your message, and enhancing your message. These messages may be for outreach opportunities, dealing with the media, flyers, or Board Meeting presentations. The tools learned in this course are valuable in any situation where it will be necessary to clearly communicate the message to a specific audience.

WebJunction class: Ethics in the Real World: Library Case Studies (LE@D)

This course used case studies to discuss specific situations that can occur in the library. This helps to recognize and learn how to correctly respond to various situations of the patron or staff member. The course points out the importance of understanding and providing equitable services to all users. And recognizes, respects, and addresses the diverse nature of the library patrons and community it services.

Gifts for Libraries

The class that I chose to take was called Gifts for Libraries: Be Careful What You Wish For. There is both good news and bad news when it comes to gifts and libraries. The good news is that gifts are many. The bad news is that a small percentage of those gifts are what the library actually wants or needs. There are three types of gifts: monetary gifts, in-kind contributions, and something someone wants to get rid of. The course mainly focused on the third "gift" because these cause the most problems for librarians. The challenges when it comes to gifts are storage, staff time and space spent sorting and evaluating, environmental and health issues, disposal or disposition of gifts, and appropriate acknowledgment. The course also stated that gifts with strings should be avoided at all costs. An example of this would be if someone wants to restrict access to only the Garden Club. One other issue I had not thought of was that librarians cannot list the actual value of an item because it is considered beyond a librarian's knowledge and you can get into legal issues. It is a donor's responsibility to get an item appraised. There are many advantages to making a gift policy. For example, a policy designates who is responsible for making decisions, it provides rationales to justify what is and is not an acceptable gift, it can eliminate the problem of unwanted materials, it saves the cost of of staff time and disposing items, and it can educate the public. The course went though a lot more when it comes to legal issues and what is a good gift and what is not. Overall, I found it to be a great resource when it comes to deciding what is acceptable for your library and perhaps making a gift policy for your own library. It applies to our class because it compared choosing gifts to collection development and weeding.

Weeding the Library Collection

Hi all:

I took the "Weeding the Library Collection" course for my second Webjunction assignment. It further bolstered my knowledge of weeding from reading others' posts and our in-class discussions. Basically stated, weeding is a crucial but oft neglected part of collection development. I liked the statement that books "pay rent" within a collection by getting circulated and read. If they don't circulate, they take up prime real esate that newer or more in-demand books could use. Basically, the library will look better, the best materials for the patron will be more readily accessible, the patron's time will be saved because finding the right book will be easier, and your professional merit will increase.

Shelving With Dewey

Hi all:

I took the "Shelving with Dewey" Webjunction class to bolster my shelf reading skills. The tutorials were helpful in learning to accurately read shelves and fill materials by the DDC call numbers. As 95% of public and K-12 libraries use Dewey, this is a necessary skill to have. The tutorial went on to give the 10 general classes, (000, Generalities; 100, Philosophy; 200, Religion; 300, Social Sciences; 400, Languages; 500, Natural Sciences & Math; 600, Technology/Applied Science; 700, The Arts; 800, Literature & Rhetoric; 900, Geography and History) which can be further refined by 10's and decimals. A salient point worth noting was the statement "a mis-shelved book is a lost book".

Weeding the Library Collection

I also did the LibraryU course on Weeding.  I did find this very informative though somewhat repetetive.  I was most interested in the ways they suggested to "Eliminate the Unweedable" - meaning books that have been donated to the library in someone's name or gifted to the Library.  I guess we can't assume that the people who donate to our libraries are not going to come back some time and look for their donation.  I do agree that this should be something that is put into policy and be shared with the donors when they gift the library.  I think the point that they tried to stress the most was to make weeding a policy in your libary and to make it part of your regular procedures, just as much as collection development.

Cataloging

I took the course on Cataloging. It was a very informative course. I enjoyed it, as I realized, I needed to know all this iformation on the types of cataloging, because I was unfamilar.
The course was very understanding. It was basically read and take in the info and test to see what you just learned. Fun, easy, and interesting.

WebJunction homework

Hi everyone,
Are we supposed to write up summaries and find related articles for these WebJunction courses or do we just have to post the summary on the blog and print out the certificate? I wasn't sure if we had to do a class presentation for the WebJunction courses or just the Acquisitions Interview. Let me know, Thanks

Weeding the Library Collection

I took the WebJunction Course on Weeding the Library Collection. It stated the reasons for weeding such as making the library look better. Even though there may be less books, the quality of the books is higher. Weeding the collection also gives you an opportunity to see what materials are in your collection and what may be lacking. In this regard, weeding is part of the acquisitions process, allowing you to see what subjects areas need to be strengthened. Some barriers to weeding are that it is time-consuming and patrons may see all of the discards and feel that the library is throwing money away. It is necessary to have a Weeding Policy especially detailing how gifts and donations are processed. Weeding is done using the CREW method which incorporates how old the book is, how often it has circulated in a certain number of years, and MUSTIE criteria (misleading, ugly, superceded, trivial, irrelevant, and expeditiously available elsewhere). I know we are supposed to change the "ie" to "y", but in the course it used mustie with the "ie". I enjoyed this course because I am weeding the YA section now and it gave me some good insight, especially about "unweedable gifts".

Web Junction Login

I didn't get my links either, but I was able to take one of the courses that I signed up for. I noticed that the courses from LibraryU did not need a login, you could launch it from the website. If the course is a LE@D one from University of North Texas you will need that password.

I haven't gotten my links yet

Hi to all: I'm having the same problem Sarah Snyder is having...I'm still waiting on my links from Webjunction.

Shelving with Dewey

The WebJunction class that I took was called Shelving with Dewey. I thought this class was very informative and I enjoyed it a lot. I personally have always been familiar with Dewey, specifically the 000-900 major subject areas, but not as much on how to shelve with it. I’ve always been one to just ask a librarian for help, but I suppose if I’m going to be that helpful librarian someday, I should be a bit more knowledgeable about it. ;)

The course started out with a lot of background information on Melvil Dewey himself as well as how his classification system came to be. They then describe how it works, going into more detail about the call numbers and how they differentiate within each hundreds designation, tens designation, and into decimals. I thought they did an excellent job explaining how to shelve numerically with the call numbers and alphabetically by author’s last name. They even described how mentally adding 0’s to the end of a call number with a decimal can help you keep everything in order. The class also illustrated how to shelve fiction alphabetically by the author’s last name and special sections based on your library as well as shelving biographies, reference books, and juvenile books. What was really cool though was they had 5 different shelving simulations where they gave you 8 different call numbers to put in the correct order. I thought those were super helpful, as shelving is something you need to master through practice. Overall I thought this was a great course, especially for someone not as familiar with Dewey.

Cataloging

This week I took the course called Cataloging for Non-Catalogers. This was a pretty basic course, but it was informative. It started with the basics of the different types of libraries and the basics of card catalogs and OPACs. It mentioned the advantages and disadvantages of OPAC. One disadvantage mentioned was the inconsistency of the OPACs from library to library and that card catalogs were always the same no matter what library you went to. I personally feel that searching with an OPAC is far easier and quicker than a card catalog and any learning curve associated with it is worth it.

Next I learned about the three parts of cataloging. First was descriptive which is describing it so a patron can tell if they want to check it out. This will tell things like if is a paperback, large print, or if it comes with a cd or map. There is a book of rules called the AACR2R which stands for Anglo-American Cataloging Rules 2nd edition, 2003 Revision. The rules are important so that there is a consistency between libraries. The next part is Classification which is basically the call number, based on Dewey or Library of Congress. The last part is subject analysis, which uses fixed vocabulary for search terms. There are rules for these terms as well from Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) or Sears List of Subject Headings.

The last section was about the three types of cataloging, and they are add item, copy, and original. Add item is for adding an additional copy for a record already in the catalog. Copy cataloging would also be for an item already in the catalog but it may need editing. Original is when there is no record and an item has to be cataloged from the beginning. This is a time consuming and expensive process, since all access points and subject headings need to be verified.

Overall I think this course was helpful. I have a much better understanding about the parts and types of cataloging.

Retailing Methods and Techniques in Libraries: How to Market Your Services

The Web Junction course that I chose to take was Retailing Methods and Techniques in Libraries. The aim of the course was to teach the student how to market your library as you would a retail operation. The instructor claims that the mistake of many libraries is to not realize that they are in competition with other businesses for patronage, and lack a clear focus of the product that they provide.

He puts forth a narrow definition of the services that a library provides as a product (circulating material, programming, computer access, information [reference] services, and customer service) and goes on to stress how important it is to market those products to patrons as you would any other retail product. He highlights the mistakes that he claims that many libraries make, such as not keeping track of the exact dollar amount of fine transactions, lack of clear and effective advertising of the library's services, and not reacting swiftly to a community's changing information needs because "that's the way we've always done it".

He also stresses how a sense of urgency and a friendly and open attitude toward customer service is necessary, as is placing trained staff on the library floor outside of the circulation and reference desks to answer questions. He explains the importance of community involvement and creating a "tag line" associated with your library, as well as the necessity of making it known to "investors" how you are using their money to serve them. And he ends the course by showing how to use numbers to gauge productivity and efficiency, and how to set goals for constant improvement in the future.

Overall, I felt that this course did a fairly good job of highlighting the similarities between running a library and running a retail operation, and how to maintain a competitive mindset when it comes to organizing and marketing your collection to patrons. My only main complaint was that the introductory and ending videos the course featured were only able to stream sound, not images. Regardless, I still consider it a valuable course to take, especially as it relates to how we need to market our Special Collection projects to our respective communities.

Problems w/ webjunction

I still haven't received my password for my Webjunction classes. They aren't in my junk mail. I will take the class and post as soon as I can. I just didn't want anyone to think I was a slacker.

Technical Services: What they do, Why they do it, How it's changing

The webjunction class I took was titled: Technical Services: What they do, Why they do it, How it's changing. I found the course to be informative. It took the technical services area and broke it down into several sections like acquisitions, classification and collection maintenance. You looked at one section at a time which helped you focus on the topic. At the end of some of the sections there were activities. After the classification section the activity was to match Dewey numbers with the subject written on about 12 books. There was also an activity on collection maintenance where it gave you an item description and you had to say what you would do with it, like digitize it, destroy it, replace it etc... The course was in easy to understand language. I found it helpful as it reinforced what we learned on our "field trip" plus added some new information to the technical services area. It consisted of a pre-test, the lesson and then a post-test. I'm glad to say that my LTA knowledge helped me pass the pre-test and the lesson gave me new information to increase my grade on the post test. All in all an informative and fun course to take!

Blog article on weeding/MUSTY

I've added a new blog article on weeding that explains more about MUSTY.

Webjunction Issues and JJC Email FYI

Just discovered that the emails I've been waiting for from Webjunction have been going into my junk mail.  If you're waiting like I was make sure to check your Junk inbox.  I have no idea why it would go there, but it did.

Library Visit, Malta, IL

Hi all: Just wanted to post some pics of an adorable little library I found in a town of 1,000 people called Malta, IL (near DeKalb). In fact, the town was selling off a land parcel to help pay for a much needed library expansion. I was so tickled that such a small town had it's own public library (they are now part of PALS) that I had to stop and take pictures. The shelving units were handcrafted by a library patron and town member. It really is as adorable as it looks. The Director is Peggy Wogen, who graciously let me take the photos you see here. They have wi-fi, too!
Children's Section
Computers purchased through a technology grant

Plan to Weed

I took the Web Junction course called “Weeding the Library Collection.” The course emphasized the need to include weeding as part of any library’s collection development plan. If there is a plan in place, there will be less resistance to weeding. Some patrons, board members, and library staff have a hard time letting some items go. If a plan is in place it can always be referred to. A weeding plan should include a schedule, parameters for weeding, and what to do with special items such as gifts to the library. It should be clear to everyone that items will be eventually weeded. Books and other items need to earn their keep on the library’s shelves. We need to know they are “paying rent” by circulating. There are other parameters as well. Condition, relevancy, appearance, and content all need to be considered. Weeding does not need to be done in a marathon session. A weeding schedule can be made to stretch over the course of a year. It may be an overwhelming task for some but overall it will make the collection look more attractive and other items easier to find. There was a lot in this course including the CREW and MUSTIE methods for evaluating materials. I think this course was helpful for our weeding project coming up and for my job as well.