Blog June Post 9 - Libraries Community Builders

This morning I shared this article on my other jobs FB page.  My other job is marking library student assessments for TAFE.  So I shared the article with students.

Along with the article, I asked the students this: Discussion about public libraries often leads to phrases like community hub etc. Do you think the same applies in academic, special, and school libraries?

The students must be busy people because as yet there have been no replies.  However, I am open for those reading my blog to discuss and perhaps share a comment on FB, twitter or here on the blog comments.

When I used to work in academic libraries, pre-child, the campus was my community.  My coworkers were my community.  Those that used the library were my community.  I put this down to the campus being the main place I was spending my time.

Yes I would do my shopping etc outside of the campus, back in the suburb I lived in.  But I never felt the suburb was my community until I had my daughter, went on maternity leave and started spending more time in my suburb.  I stared interacting with more than the check out person at the grocery store.  I attended the community nurse sessions, baby rhyme time, mother's group and the list goes on.  Suddenly, I was interacting, meeting and becoming friends with people who lived in my own suburb!!  In my community!!

This brings me back to the original question - do academic, special and school libraries build communities?  Or have their own communities?

They all provide spaces for people to gather.  They provide different programs for people to attend as groups or individuals.  But do they build communities and if so what sort of communities?

I will leave this open for some discussion (I hope)!

Today's mantra: Your body deserves the best

In my case lately, my body has been having the best chocolate!! 8-)

Blog June Post 5 - life is as sweet as a baby's sigh

It is cold. Well not cold by some people's definitions but I hate the cold and being a true Queenslander, anything in single figures may as well be considered freezing. In fact, make that anything under 25'C. So my poor little fingers are freezing as I type this and I have only just realised that I have been a bad librarian and not tagged my other posts.

Yesterday's trip to Grafton went well. We are trying a new way of book selecting where we are provided with the descriptions and order list instead of the physical item. This allows us to purchase more pre-published books then previously. We still do get to look at physical items but the majority of decisions are made going by the descriptions (they do have a picture of the book cover so we do use that when making selection decisions too). Which brings me to ask - how do you judge a book worth selecting for your library? Is it all based on the description? The gap in the collection? The community need? The book cover? Combination of all of these?

Would you be comfortable making selection decisions purely by being emailed lists with blurbs, book jacket and cost? Do you prefer to look and feel the physical item? I suppose with ebooks you do select from blurbs and book jackets - or does your ebook supplier provide you with whatever titles are in the subscription rather than you having to make any decision? How do you feel about the decision being taken from you?

I know that there are a number of libraries (especially public libraries) that have outsourced their purchasing. They provide the book vendors with lists of authors that they believe their community will like, as well as popular genres and subjects. The vendors select and process on their behalf. I'd be interested to hear from anyone working in a library that uses this process and how they feel about it? Does it work? Do you think your community is satisfied with the collection? Do you feel it takes away from the traditional role of the librarian?

Personally, I feel privileged to make selection decisions. I like to think that I know my community well enough to be able to select items that I know they will read and enjoy. While our library service does have a large standing order list, I don't think you are doing your community justice just ordering the popular authors. Sometimes I find a gem of a book come through the selection process. It is usually a debut author that you know someone in your community will enjoy. These are missed in standing orders. But perhaps they are picked up in genre lists??

What about non-fiction? Does anyone work in a library where they have a standing order for non-fiction or the vendor does the selecting for this collection? Our non-fiction use is dropping, as I think most public libraries are finding. Not in all areas. Subject areas such as craft, cooking, travel, sustainability and local studies are still popular. But certainly school children use of the collection for assignments has dropped dramatically.

We get the odd few children coming through looking for books for assignments. Well actually it's mainly the parents coming in for the children. But usually it is only because it has been specified on the assignment that they must use at least a certain number of books. I find this very sad because there are some really good junior non-fiction books out there. Although now because they are not being used in the libraries, we don't purchase them so the production of such books has dropped. When selecting we get to look at maybe 10-12 junior non-fiction titles, of which we may choose 1-2. Just because they don't get used.

I have been slowly going through and weeding my branches where and when possible. It is a hard slog when you are the one person doing it. But we are all short on space and we have some exciting collections coming through so we need the room for them.

I notice when weeding, especially the junior non-fiction that some of these books that are over 10 years old have only ever been loaned once, or worse, they have never been loaned at all. Have others noticed this trend?

I do think it is sad that by the time my daughter reaches the age of doing assignments/projects she will be finding the majority, if not all of her information online. While I know that I will be assisting her and teaching her proper search skills - because I know that the teacher librarian often does not get this opportunity - I feel she will still be missing out on using those wonderful junior non-fiction resources that I used when going through school.

I personally think it is much easier to find a book dealing with a particular subject - let's face it most junior non-fiction were developed to fit the needs of the school curriculum so you were hard pressed if you couldn't find a book that was about your topic - then to troll through cyberspace looking for the same information. While my daughter will be loaded with the skills to do this, not all children will have that opportunity and I worry for them.

Anyway, I had planned that this post be about my love of music and discuss my music tastes etc. But instead I went off tangent. I'll leave the music post for another time.

PS I am off to Grafton again tomorrow to divide up the stack collection - long story that I hope to share tomorrow time permitting.

Library Day in the Life - final post

Well it has come to an end of the week for Library Day in the Life - I look forward to my next blog challenge.

Again the day started with the local steiner school students inundating the library - they only stayed for 2 hours today.

I had one of my favourite library volunteers work with me today. She has almost completed her Cert IV in LIS and is a great help. It is a shame I don't have any open vacancies in my libraries for her to apply for as yet but she still enjoys giving us a hand.

I had a meeting with the Council finance manager but this proved to be false and as a means to get me to attend a morning tea to celebrate my birthday (which was on Monday) and another staff members departure - very tricky but a lovely surprise. I apologised for not staying longer but with the steiner students in the library and only my volunteer there to assist them, I had to rescue her!!

Once the steiner students left the library was very quiet. Although every computer was occupied there was few borrowing books. That was thankful as the boxes arrived and my volunteer and I concentrated on getting the books returned, reservations allocated and shelving done.

Lunch time - off to the pool to do laps and guess where the steiner students were!! There were a few "hello library lady" shouted at me while I was doing my laps. Only hit 44 instead of 50 due to lack of time but it was refreshing.

Back to work and a line up at the door - most wanting computers. Another quiet moment and I caught up with some emails, twitter posts and posted some items to our library facebook page.

The afternoon then flowed on without drama - a nice way to end the week.

Library Day in the Life - Post #4

Again I'm posting a bit late - sorry!!

Due to the flooding, our local steiner school booked the library to be used as makeshift classrooms. So approximately 30 odd (down a bit on yesterdays estimate) students and three teachers entered the library at 9.30am an hour before official opening. I also had to make a quick visit to our "web developer" to obtain an electronic copy of our Council logo to be sent to the company who is making our NYR12 pull up banners.

I got on with the opening duties - running notices, delivering mail, buying the newspaper, returning items and shelving. All I can say is thank goodness I had one of my volunteers with me today to assist with the shelving as it was a constant stream at the circulation desk.

Once the shelving was complete, I got my volunteer to start selecting books for the blind date books we are having during Library Lovers Day and the following weeks. These books are then wrapped in brown paper (with the accession number on the outside) and placed on display for selection from our brave borrowers who have no idea what they are selecting. It was successful last year and we hope again this year.

Some of the steiner students were looking for books on Rome - so I assisted them - and was happy to see their teacher teaching them the ins and outs of searching the catalogue. A few were lazy and went direct to me but the majority did it themselves.

At 12.30pm I closed the library for lunch (as there is only one staff member on and my volunteer finished for the day) and headed to the pool for my lunch time laps. I had to take it easy today due to a calf cramp I suffered on Tuesday seems to have resulted in a slightly pulled muscle - so I only managed 44 laps compared to my 50.

Back from lunch to a crowd of people waiting to get in to the library. Most wanting to use computers or wifi. I went back to returning, shelving and serving at the circulation desk. As I mentioned before - constant stream.

Later in the afternoon one of the organisers of the Bellingen Readers and Writers Festival came by with more programs and another room booking request for the library. The Library will be hosting a number of sessions leading up to and during the festival. I love supporting the festival as it not only means seeing a number of excellent presentations by authors, but many people enter the library who would not necessarily visit otherwise.

I then had a moment to catch up on emails, check some facebook and twitter updates and then it was time for closing. A quick check of the gate count revealed over 350 people passed through the door - no wonder I didn't stop!! It may not be much for a big branch but when there is only one person manning (womanning) the library then it's a big deal.

I packed up the books to take to the branch close to home and locked up. Once at the other branch I exchanged books and took the ones for our branch and headed home.