Library Placement -Week 1

What a long time between posts - it is obvious that  blogging is not my preferred communication or reflection tool. What can I say, I prefer two-way reflection and bouncing of ideas. I'll have to work harder on this in the coming months.

I am half-way through my 2 week placement at the Hamra Community Library and I thought I better put down a few of my thoughts and ideas . . .

With whom have I worked?
Over the last week I have worked with a wide range of different people including the head of collection manager and some of the managers of particular areas - e.g. e-resources, children's library, youth library (teens), magazines, puzzles and games,mobile library, Book Club organiser. As the community workers also work alongside the library staff, I have also worked with a few while supporting the  holiday activity program.

Tasks
So far, while I have been reshelving resources everyday, I haven't actually worked on the main desk but am mainly working on tasks in the back area. These include:

• sorting and reducing the parenting packs from about 150 to 25. As they have not been reviewed in many years, they need to be checked for accuracy and relevancy. Each kit contains a picture book, parent reference book and DVD. The reason for so drastically reducing the number of kits available is that most are not being accessed and the space is to be used in other ways. I have weeded and then debited items through the library system, and am currently repackaging the remaining kits.
• working through problem items and matching resources, locating them in the collecting problem items where possible, and removing unmatched items from the library system.
• supporting the children's and youth holiday program. This has involved icing cupcakes, playing European handball and doing Hip Hop dance.
• going out with the Mobile Library and selecting new children's resources from the main collection to go go out in the bus.
• changing the GMD in catalogue records for Book Club resources to ensure consistency with other council libraries.
• processing board games before placing them in the main collection.
• discussing ideas with the children's librarian as to how the children's area can be rejuventated.

Ideas for my school library so far

• I really like the idea of placing a "New in 2013" label on the spine of new resources. I believe that this is will be good for people in terms of access, I believe it will also be extremely helpful when weeding.
• Further reduce the non-fiction area.
• Have a small amount of "For Sale" items that have been weeded from the collection. This money can go to the school in Senegal that we support.
• develop a selection team that can assist me when choosing new items for the library.

Other Comments

• It has been much easier to focus on and complete a task without interruptions - not everything to everyone like it seems to be at school.
• While people are responsible for set areas, there is still collaboration and bouncing of ideas between them.
• Far less flexibility in cataloguing. eg. the required changes made to the book club records have made them less identifiable but still needed to occur.
• The children's library have just created series boxes - much the same as the ones I introduced 3 years ago - nice to see I am on track!
• Reshelving books in non-fiction to 5 decimal places at times is a headache - I'm so glad we don't do this.
• They are far more ruthless with weeding resources than what I have been. While I am not going to go this far, I think I can afford to be more ruthless.
• Horizon seems a more flexible cataloguing system than Metamarc. However, with the introduction of the "one-card' public library system, they will be changing soon.

Let's see what next week brings.