Assignment #1

I came to this course with no library experience and started my learning straight out of the gate. I knew so little that I did not even know where to begin my inquiry. When we were directed to interview somebody in our district to understand how our specific district works, I had to go back a few times as I gradually began to better understand the questions I needed to ask – never mind getting the answers! I was lucky to have a very patient librarian at my disposal. I learned that we have a union catalogue (and what this is) and how books are processed. I also learned much more about the role of the teacher-librarian, and the t-l's relationship with administration and the other staff. It was very enlightening. It was here that I first heard of MARC records and Follett and the role they play in organization.

I came to understand that the theme of the course would be “access through organization” (so much more than just cataloguing) and it was a good way for me to frame my work. Having worked in a distributed learning school for the last number of years, the concept of access has been central to my work. How do you maximize access for a student who is not in front of you? I suppose this is much the same plight for the t-l: how do you create independent learners who are not sitting in rows in from of you for an hour and twenty minutes a day? Clearly it is a question to be perpetually posed.

I struggled mightily as we began to delve into the technical aspects of this course. The meta-data article made me think I was out of my league and my confusion about the ISBD frustrated me until I sorted it out. I suffered the same angst when first trying to create MARC records. It was not until I started creating MARC records of my own that things started to really come together. I have found that since completing Assignment #2, I cannot look at a verso page the same anymore. I depended heavily upon looking at GVPL website and VPL website throughout this project and they made me understand MARC records as well as how catalogues and websites can be structured in a clear, user-friendly way to increase access.

On the topic of the GVLP, as I have been on maternity leave I have not had easy access to my school library, but I have been taking my children to my local public library branch every Thursday morning for story time. The branch is located in a community centre and across the hall, kindergym runs in the hour before. Moms and tots first blow off steam (and drink coffee) there before crossing to mingle amongst the picture book stacks before going into the activity room for story time geared at children 18 months – 5 years. 30 minutes later there is another 15 minute break before baby time starts. Both family story time and baby time are gear towards engaging the children, but also educating the parents about children's literacy. As my husband takes the car to work, we take the bus for outings and unless I am going to get some real bang for my buck, I tend to stick close to home. The programming is done in such a way as to clearly target the desired audience and to make it workable. Through the morning's worth of activities, myself, my 3 year old and my 5 month old are all able to have our needs met: Access!

The other thing that I noticed on my weekly jaunts due to the learning that I was doing in this course were the renovations that were happening. When we first started going to that branch, patrons checked materials out with human help. Now there are self-serve machines. The reference desk used to be directly in front of the main entrance. This has recently been dismantled and instead the reference desk is facing away from the door and to the left. Even the desk itself is very different in design. It used to be a big solid half-wall in appearance from the patron's point of view. It is now very open. All of these changes seem to point to a change in philosophy. It feels like they have taken the gatekeeper away and replaced her with a patron-centred approach, where the user is the driver of the experience and the librarians are there to support and guide as needed. The redesign feels less like a place to do silent, solitary activities and more of a place intended for people to come together in their use of the space, much like is discussed in the learning commons article.

Lesson 11 Reflection

The degree to which a library catalogue can be consulted easily by teachers and students is of great significance if teacher-librarians wish to encourage user-independence. A flexible catalogue will allow broader use of the school library.

I think that a flexible, user-friendly catalogue is imperative to a modern library's success.  If one of the key signifiers of a successful library is access, the catalogue is a gateway to this.  Often library users will start with a catalogue (even before walking through the door) as a way to try to find information.  If they are faced with roadblocks at this point, they can be lost before they even get started.  

The term "user-independence" is very interesting.  Encouraging this is so important and being able to do this within the context of the library is a good place for learning this skill which can then be applied to learning in other environments, which is necessary for life-long learning.  

By offering a flexible catalogue, it is more likely that users will have successful experiences.  Technology at its best is seamless and responsive.  The structure of a program needs to be such that it is easily used by all.  If the use of the technology overshadows the information that the user is looking for, it risks distracting the user and limiting his or her ability to go forward.

de.li.cious

I am thrilled - I finally get the whole "tagging" thing.  I had always stopped myself from fully understanding it before.  There is always "something" it seems to figure out and it can be overwhelming so I certainly filter.  This was something I had filtered.  I had heard of de.li.cious before but had never got my head around really using it.  I can see how this would be a great tool now.  First of all, I can save my bookmarks remotely (no need to find them at work versus at home), I don't need to worry about losing them (I have had computers die on me before never to be brought back), and at a very personal level, I can tag the sites as a way of organizing them for my own retrieval (I have in the last few years invested a lot of time in digitally organizing my "stuff" and moving right away from paper).  I know get the whole tagging in twitter also.  Yes, there is an element of chaos, and not something you would want to base your library organization on, but at least it gives a way to access info from the masses that we would otherwise never knew existed.

Collection

I have continued to work a lot on the assignment #2.  It has been challenging and enlightening.  While it has been a real struggle to figure out the MARC records, it has been a very useful exercise as I now feel like i understand them in a way I did not when I started.  It has been a lot of work though.

Assignment 2

I have been busy working away at assignment 2.  I have primarily been collecting resources and starting to put the information in MARC records.  I think I am starting to "get" it.  Once I have all of the resources chosen and the records created, I will start adding them to the website.  I think it is a case of needing to work backwards.

Getting there

I think I might have just created my first MARC record.  I made it for a TED Talk for my resource collection.  Between the two web pages we are directed to for those making up their own records, and comparing this to records I looked up online, it seems that there is some room for decision making in creating these records.  How detailed are they?  I think I will try another while it is still somewhat fresh.

It was with great trepidation that I ventured into the section on MARC records, after my great confusion through the last lesson.  I have seen MARC records and they frightened me - all of those symbols... shudder, shudder!  To my great relief though, it actually seems pretty straight forward.  I flipped between the readings and sample MARC records for books at the GVPL.  I think it will take a bit of practice, but it seems to make sense.  I'm not sure about trying to make my own though.  Baby steps!

The Penny Drops!

Well after much angst, I had an "A-Ha!" moment.  After back and forth emails with Keith, reading and rereading, a hot bath and a good night's sleep, thinking, thinking, thinking and finally stopping thinking, giving up and turning on the Big Bang Theory, it hit me!  I had misunderstood what ISBD was and its purpose.  Yes, it is the catalogue, the big authoritative catalogue, but this is only part of the picture.  I had not been able to figure out why the information did not look like it was being describe when pulling up an item on the GVPL website.

I called my children's librarian friend and we talked about process a bit.  There is the screen the patron uses.  If she is looking for something, she too generally starts there.  Barring that, she moves to the staff page and looks up the MARC record.  While this is not covered until the next section, I am starting to understand more what this is.  The next level from there is the full catalogue (ISBD).  I had missed all of that.  I am starting to feel more optimistic.  I think that while I need to understand the ISBD, it will be the MARC records that will be more of my focus - I hope!  I was panicking that I needed to be able to create full ISBDs out of the gate.  I am starting to understand (I hope correctly), that that is really quite beyond the scope of this course.  Whew!

I had to add a note about the patron screen records though.  I can understand leaving information out from the ISBD, but I don't understand why these information systems reorganize the areas that are laid out in ISBD, but there you go.  Considering the love of order of the librarian profession as a whole, I can only assume that there is a reason for it and it is not just sloppiness.

Grrr...

Having spent a significant amount of time reading and rereading today, a few things are starting to become more clear, and other are becoming more confusing.  Looking at the Vancouver and Victoria public libraries' websites, the catalogues do not seem to match the format that is being explained with the areas.  I can't figure it out.  I keep thinking that I am understanding the whole concept of access points and then I read something that makes me think that I do not.  I also don't really understand the concept of just leaving an area out if there is no information for it.  Wouldn't it need to have some indication that it is empty?  I am thinking of this much as a form on the computer and I think that might be part of my problem.  I just know.  I think part of the challenge is that I am on leave right now so don't have ready access to the library.  I don't work in there, but it would perhaps give me the chance to ask some questions more easily.  I saw today on the RDA website that they hope to roll out next spring.  I sure hope I am not going to just finally figure this all out and then have them change it all next year.  I'm feeling rather pessimistic right now.

I'm scared

I have started into Module 2 and feel like I am getting a bit of a hang of it all but I just looked at Keith's post about Assignment 2 and I am fully lost.  I feel as though the assignment is coming soon but I do not know how to do what is required.

The Learning Process

Lesson three highlighted something I have noticed about distance learning.  Given an assignment and asked to comment on it, if you are not one of the first out of the box, it can feel like you are being repetitive, so one has three options:

• Get the work done first.
• Embrace it and accept it is part of the online experience.
• Either go drastically off topic or perhaps push yourself to think of something that you otherwise might not have got to.

This might not be that relevant for the TL aspect of this course, but as a DL teacher it means something to me.

I must say that I am a bit excited and anxious to move onto the next module.  I think we now have a foundation, including mostly that organization goes well beyond Dewey and cataloguing.  I think this might be an area of strength for me.  Nonetheless, it seems that it is that inevitable time to get down to the practical cataloguing part.  This I think will come less naturally, but perhaps is so much more important because of it.  Here we go!

Reflection to this point

We are just about finished the first module and I have thus far I think been given a good overview.  The initial talk about metadata was very confusing for me  - it was almost a different language.  It helped to go back and reread it a few times.  I needed to remind myself that the purpose of the article was to provide an overview (that I did not need to fully understand Dublin Core by the time I was done reading) helped.  It also gave me more direction so I was able to meet with my t-l again and ask more specific questions than I was before.  I am starting to know a bit of what it is I do not know!

The information about search engines was/is very insightful - I had no idea!  I am relieved to read that this is somewhat of an introduction for others also - I thought perhaps it was something I should have caught onto before!

What is a resource?

In "Creative Ways to Organize Library Resources" it says, "This raises questions about how this will change our traditional approaches to organizing learning resources and, in fact, what a learning resource really is."  This really caught my attention because when considering the question of accessibility for the assigned discussion post, what came to mind for me was students' opportunities for interactions and using one another as a resources.  I back-peddled, thinking that this being a library organization course, this clearly was not what was meant, but perhaps it can be.  I am feeling quite out of my depths right now.

Getting a Bit Deeper

It has felt like a general introduction thus far though it is clear that I am not in Kansas anymore.  I really do not know how this field works yet.  I feel as though I have been easing in though.  I think I need to find somebody in my district to sit down with and have a little chat because I am feeling a bit adrift in terms of how things are done here.  I like the question of access.  It certainly is something I have dealt with extensively in my current position.

What have I gotten myself into?!

Started to ask questions about library organization in our district - clearly this is an area I know nothing about!