Final Week

This is my final week doing my practicum with the Laurel-Jones County Library. Last week I read to the tots and provided a craft for them to create. Things went really well. I did a little ad libbing and had great participation, especially from the first group (day care) of kids. Jill said the things that I need to work on will come more naturally with time.

I got a little taste of cataloging when I went to technical services and watched one of the employees proofing DVDs. I did not get a chance to try my hand at it, but I got a look at how to do it.

Today, I helped Jessine with the magazines. She began by entering the issues of the magazines into the computer. She put stops on the magazines that will not circulate. She put barcodes and activated the magazines that will circulate. We switched out the old magazines for the newly processed ones on the magazine rack. The one's that were not going to be available for checkout were placed on the free rack. She also taught me how she processes new books.

Collection Development

http://www.baker-taylor.com/I got to work on some weeding for the library. I looked at the circulation logs for certain books and determined if they were MUSTIE and if they had circulated enough within a five year time period.

Today Jill explained how the library orders books. She began by having me read the article by Christie that was in the Laurel Leader Call (Sunday). She wrote about how the books go from receiving to the shelves and urged patrons to be patient when expecting books from their favorite authors and best seller lists. I read the Collection Development Policy of the Laurel-Jones County Library.

I was told that the distributor for the library is Baker and Taylor. They use standing orders for fiction and children's series books. The program is called Automatically Yours. The librarian selects which books on the master list to get. They must make sure books and audios are not duplicated. Jill had me check Polaris to check for duplicates. I only found one. Together, we filled the order online and printed a list for the acquisitions department.

Today, I brought my brand new copy of my book, Phenomenally Me to Ms. Carolyn and Mrs. Breland. They had me sign it and filled out a purchase order form for it. They purchased my copy from me and will cut me a check. I was impressed with the speed of which they began processing it. When it gets finished processing, we will put a plastic cover on it to keep it nice as long as possible. I am excited!

Jill gave me a procedure of package receiving and processing to look over. We will discuss this next week. I am glad to be learning about new things, but it seems like I had to wait till the end to get to this point. Collection development was the thing I was most interested in learning about from the beginning.

Jill also told me how she prepares the brochures on collection holdings in the library. She is changing how they do the brochures so that there are sub-genres included. This is designed to help the patrons better find something suited to their tastes. Alot to take in all at once.

Next week I will do my presentation of the Night to totally tots. I will be reading three books that I got from the curriculum materials center. I plan on practicing my delivery prior to that day.

Week after Summer Reading

The week after the Summer Reading Program ended, I resumed my work in the Reference section. I shifted the rest of the books. I made a cheat sheet for determining when files for internet usage would be pulled. When minors reach the age of 18, their files are pulled. I began creating my craft for my totally tots reading project. I decided the kids would create a night sky that can be hung on a door. It has a moon, foil and construction paper stars and is tied with yarn.

I can't wait to learn about other aspects of the library this month. I did not work Monday, due to the holiday. Jill was not at work today, so I just did the projects that we had been working on.

End of Summer Reading Program

Whew! Summer Reading is over. It culminated with a fun day for the kids that included prizes for reading throughout the month, a large blow up water slide, cookies, and bean bag toss. I was placed in charge of the grand prize for reading- which was choice of a brand new book. When we went outside, I was placed in charge of the bean bag toss. I had two girls helping me run this station. While Kerri was getting wet on the slide, I was giving prizes to those who won the bean bag toss. A problem came up when a huge gust of wind sent most things on my cart flying into the bushes. When people had finished helping me gather my things, I noticed that parents included- had helped themselves to the prizes. I reorganized the cart and continued with the tosses. But I had kids lying about winning and just trying to help themselves to the prizes. This was very disconcerting. Through the experience I learned that you have to be really strict with kids on rules. It was getting out of hand mainly because if no one was behind them, I allowed kids to continue to try to take turns at making the bean bags. We had a consolation prize, but the kids were getting confused by my helpers as to whether or not they were recieving a prize from the cart or a prize from the consolation treasure chest. The main thing to keep in mind is that the kids were there to have fun. So, I tried not to read too much into it.

The following day, we had an outdoor, water day for the tots. We had colored construction paper and paint brushes dipped in a water bowl that the kids could paint on. They also had a table where they mixed dyes to make different colors to use on their paintings. There were also two kiddie pools. Most of the kids belonged to a day care. The day was successful and I helped move chairs and tables.