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.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
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.
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".
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.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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