Final Reflection

            One of the things that has so impressed me in the Teacher-Librarian diploma program at UBC is the practical nature of the courses.  After 19 years of teaching I find my patience for “theory without practice” is very limited.  This does not mean that I don’t like reading about or discussing theories in education, however I appreciate learning the skills and information I need to make my library a better place to learn by actually doing those things.

            In reviewing the objectives for the course I feel confident that I have met the criteria.  I have learned about the organizational systems of my library, I have considered how I will improve these systems and how I will communicate the changes to my school community.  I have practiced and created records, created online resources, considered the how, not just the what, of improvements to my library, and I have taken steps to improve my library’s catalogue and access.  I have documented my learning in my digital library, in my discussion forum posts, in my plan to make my library a learning commons, and in my learning blog.

            In our first lesson we were asked “Can we truly have a strong Library Program in a poorly organized school library?”  On the page I wrote, “Yes! Just need to work toward that organization.”  My library was poorly organized in many ways, and I knew I had a huge task ahead of me before I became the TL this year, but I also felt I could begin the process of creating a strong library program and a positive environment for the staff and students of my school.  This course has given me many of the tools I need to make this happen. 

            We began by talking about organization and access – which interestingly is also what we were talking about in our last lessons.  I realized right away that the access to the resources of my library could use some significant improvement.  I needed to weed my collection, improve the catalogue entries for better search results, and I needed to better plan my budget to meet the needs of my library.  

            Our lesson on metadata and search engines was also invaluable to me.  I love that I can now actually explain to my students what happens when they try to search for something on Google.  I also appreciate that I now have search options and am a much better researcher because of it.

            In Module 2 we began our journey into cataloguing.  I was especially interested in these lessons because I knew this was an area where I had a lot to learn.  Cataloguing is one of those library functions that looks deceptively simple, especially now that our systems are computerized.  The problem is, and this was my experience, we follow along filling in the information in our catalogue system without really understanding the importance of the information we are inputting.  Before learning about cataloguing I had been blaming the librarian who preceded me for our catalogue issues, but I now realize that I was making many of the same errors, the biggest being not entering subjects and search terms.   Although our lessons on MARC made me a bit insane, I know that they were important in my learning experience.  I do all of my own cataloguing, and most of it is “copy cataloging,” but that does not mean that I don’t have to create some of my own records.  I also need to know how to read the records I am copying so that I can tailor them to the needs of my library. 

            One of my “AHA” moments was in lesson 4 when we were introduced to ODLIS.  This has been a tool that I have referred to often since this lesson.  I even included a link on my library web site for quick reference.

            Comparing the records of various library resources was very interesting.  Because I now knew what the information meant, I could compare with a more critical eye.  I realized the importance of the information that I had not been including when cataloguing, thanks to my new understanding of the ISBD areas.  I also liked seeing how other institutions, like the Vancouver Public Library, catalogued the resources I was comparing.

            And then there was MARC.  Let’s just say it’s a good thing I will not be having any more children and that my husband wasn’t set on the name “Marc” or “Mark” because we would have issues.  When we first began “playing” with MARC records I was frustrated and quite honestly, a little angry.  Why were we doing this?  My system creates these records.  When will I ever need to do this myself?  I still have these feelings but without the intense resentment.  Although I will probably never have to create my own records I can at least read them and actually understand what I am looking at.  I can also see what information is relevant to my school, or, if I am copy cataloguing, I can see where I might want to add information.

            When we added Dewey to our lessons I felt a bit more comfortable.  I really liked the “Classification Rules to Remember”:

1. Cataloguing can't be learned in a day.
2. Dewey is not a perfect system; not all books fit neatly into 1 number
3. Some books can legitimately be catalogued in several numbers; choose the one most appropriate to the curriculum and the conditions in your school
4. Always put a book in a number where it will get maximum usage; move good books if they don't seem to be used in your school library
5. Bend the rules to suit your local needs - Catalogue biographies based on district rules.
6. There are standard subdivisions that can be added to almost any number:
7. 03 = dictionaries, encyclopedias. ie. 503 for a dictionary of science; 610.3 dictionary of medical terms
8. 09 = history and criticism. ie. 809 = criticism of literature; 385.09 for a history of railways

These “rules” made me relax a little – and feel more confident about my decision to create a BIO section for biographies and move them out of the 920’s.

            In the last module we considered how our cataloguing is done and by whom, as well as the systems we use.  I do all of my own cataloguing (and much better now) and our system, Alexandria, needs to be upgraded for online access.  Our OPAC is working very well but if I want to improve access to resources we need to move it forward.  This also links to the importance of our library homepage and web site.  I am excited that I am moving the library forward through our website and I hope to add access to our OPAC for the fall.

            In our final lesson and in our third assignment, we considered how we can improve the access to our resources.  I love that I now have a vision and plan to make this vision a reality.  I also feel good about the progress I have made this year and that I now have the knowledge to back up the future changes I know will improve my library.

            Like all learning processes, there are some things I would have improved about my performance in this course.  I know I could have been more consistent in my discussion posts so that they more accurately reflected the continuous learning I was doing as a result of the lessons.  Often I would get caught up in reading others’ posts and working on the lesson activities that I would miss posting.  Sometimes I also struggled to find something to add to the discussion that hadn’t already been said 30 times.  Having said that, I learned so much from my classmates’ discussions – something that has held true for all of the courses I have taken toward my diploma.  I feel very comfortable with the VISTA platform and I like being able to share ideas and respond to the comments of others.

            I have amassed a considerable amount of knowledge and resources as a result of this course.  I know that it will help me make my library better organized so that I can have a strong library program.

Library Websites and Homepages

I too feel that a library homepage is essential for our school libraries regardless of the size of the school or our demographics. If we are to believe Valenza's statement that the homepage is "a second front door" we need to make that front door inviting. I watch my 3-year old daughter navigate our iPad with confidence every day. She can open apps, find videos on YouTube (we have created lists of safe videos for her to watch), listen to her audio books, and play a myriad of games without our help. By the time she is in kindergarten she will have the ability to access her school's library web site, but will there be one for her to access? I hope so.

We also have to remember that our homepages and web sites are not just for our students. They are a PR tool for our communities, prospective students/families, and tools for parents of our current students. At the elementary level our web sites/homepages can offer resources for parents to help their child with study skills or be a source of fun learning games. Things like contests or trivia can introduce the concept of homepages for libraries so that these students and families will have some prior knowledge as they move up through our systems into intermediate/middle and high school.

One of the things I think we can all see through our posts on this discussion topic is that we all have different ideas about what makes a great web site. A lot of that has to do with our personal tastes and styles. I did not like the Prince of Wales site at all. I think it is too text heavy and the list of resources on their Reference Desk page is overwhelming. I would like to have seen some groupings that perhaps led to another page or some visuals to address the needs of visual learners.

I do agree that access to the library's OPAC is key - and one of the areas that my library's web site is lacking. I do also think that the homepage needs to be fun. I like the sites that have photos on their homepage, bookshelves with new acquisitions, and the sites that have surveys and links to things like movie tie-ins is also a huge plus - and something I think will appeal to students. These things are all on my library homepage.

One of the things I learned while doing research for developing my library's web site is the "three click rule." Visitors to your site should be able to find what they are looking for in three clicks of the mouse or fewer. This is actually harder to do than we think, and can sometimes result in those busy pages that many of us say we don't like.

This is my first year as the TL at my school (an 8-12 high school of 390 students) and we did not have a library web site or homepage when I first became the TL. Fortunately, one of the courses I took this fall included an assignment of designing a web site so I got mine done. I chose to use Weebly and pay for a domain name. www.hopesecondarylibrary.com  I am very pleased with the platform. Although I see this as a work in progress, I am pleased with the results so far.

The main thing my site is missing is access to our catalogue. As part of my assignment 3 I looked into the possibility of adding this and am fairly confident I will be upgrading our system for the fall of 2012. The other thing my site is missing is visitors, LOL. The reason for this is awareness. The site was created after I had done the library orientations with our students, so hopefully I can improve our site usage in the fall. We also have a Facebook page that is starting to gain some popularity with our students so I hope this will also attract attention back to the web site.

The Library Catalogue

I think I actually get to be original as my school uses Alexandria for our cataloguing system and the version or system we pay for is not an actual OPAC system - meaning we do not have online access to the catalogue. The three elementary schools and my high school in Hope all use this system, however we are independent of each other. The system itself is excellent and based on my observations and research into Follett's Destiny, the two systems are very similar.

Students have access to our catalogue on one computer in the library - and honestly NO ONE uses it. One of the main obstacles is that the students have to log in to the computer and then access the catalogue, which just takes too long. I have considered making the catalogue computer accessible without a log in, but that means one fewer computer for student use and they are all used regularly.

As part of my assignment 3 I began investigating an upgrade to our system to allow for online access. I would need an initial outlay af about $1200 plus a yearly maintenance fee of $599. (Only 390 students in our school) This would give us the ability to have up to 10 concurrent users of the catalogue, which at this time, seems like more than enough. I have not compared this to what it would cost to change to Destiny - that is next on my "To Do" list for our catalogue.

In a previous course I did an extensive study of our system when analyzing one section of our non-fiction collection. I realized at that time that the catalogue is only as good as the information it is provided and that has only been confirmed in this course. In the student search feature they have several options - like some other students in the class, I find the visual of the search screen a bit dated, and in my case a bit "young" for my high school students. It is very easy to navigate and try different search parameters. The problem is, many of our resources have not been entered correctly. For example, a search for titles with the word "Canada" nets 6 results - really? We only have 6 books with the word "Canada" in the title? And a search of the subject "Canada" only gives 4 results - and 2 of them are not the same as the title search. Yikes!

Managing the system from the main library computer is not difficult. The system has a very clean visual look and now that I know most of the keyboard shortcuts, moving between different functions is even easier. Since starting this course we have significantly improved the cataloguing of our new resources, and once I have finished the weeding of the non-fiction, we will begin recataloguing other resources. (I feel your pain Beth!)

I think some of the discrepancies in the catalogue have been the result of going from a full time TL with a full time aide 20 years ago, to just a TL who had to teach 1 or sometimes 2 classes as well. There just wasn't time to maintain the collection or the catalogue the way it should be. This being my first year as the TL, I have tried to be the observer. How is the library being used? How is the catalogue being used? Which features do I like? Do I need to change? or just upgrade what I have.

Like some others, I have played with reports on my system as well. I like being able to print off my monthly circulation to show the increases since last year, and I also like that I can see things like the average age of the collection.

One of the problems I have with our system is finding students for overdue items. When we originally started using the system, our school had a daily homeroom so this was where the TL could hand out overdue notices or give the homeroom teacher a list of overdues. We no longer have homerooms and the students' schedules have not been entered into the system as part of their profile. To send overdue notices I have to pick one of our 8 blocks and then manually search for the location of each student. One of the features I will be looking for when considering an upgrade to our system is an easy way to import student data when creating "patrons" so that my overdue notices can indicate the student's location.

Tagging, Folksonomy, Delicious

Here is the link to my Delicious stacks lenorapoulin.
 
I had signed up for Delicious some time last year and spent quite a bit of time setting up links, etc.  I found I preferred my bookmarks bar as it was inconvenient to go to the Delicous site for my lists.  Since their redesign I cannot find my "stuff" on Delicious so I had to re-sign up.  This wasn't really a problem as honestly, I don't even remember what I had bookmarked last year.

I like the new format of the site.  The stacks remind me of the pin boards on Pinterest - my favourite bookmarking site.  I was also able to add a Delicious gadget to my iGoogle home page which will hopefully make access easier, and me more likely to use this tool.

I created stacks for Library, Scrapbooking, My Blogs, Teacher "stuff", and Web 2.0 and then added the links that I currently have on my blogs and bookmarks toolbar.  One thing I was having difficulty with was the image associated with the site.  Even when I selected "no image" an image would appear, sometimes one that was really too big and not identifying of the site.

The tags exercise was interesting.  I could see many of the issues mentioned in the Folksonomy article.  When linking some libraries suggested tags included catalogue, catalogues, cataloging... etc.  How do I know which is the most popular search term?  Obviously I don't really "care" that much about searching through my bookmarks, but when considering cataloging resources for staff and students, this is important.  These tag "clouds" are becoming our online library catalogues and so we need to have some vocabulary standards.

I didn't spend much time searching for other links for my stacks but I can see how this could become quite addictive.  I am trying, through Google reader, to subscribe to the sites I visit most and then receive notification when there is a new post or update.  I find this to be much more efficient than visiting a site that hasn't been updated for some time.

UPDATE:  Since writing this post (February 19th), I have become a huge fan of tags and am working on tagging previous blog posts and other online content that I follow.  I have added the Tag Cloud to my learning blogs so that I can find content easier and in my Google Reader RSS feed I use tags to sort and search for web content to follow.

Through this learning process I have become a better cataloger of my library materials.  I find that I can think about who might be searching for that material, and what kind of search terms they might use.  I am also trying to encourage my students, when they are doing their blog posts in class, to tag their posts.  I tell them it is like creating a filing system for their Web 2.0 material.  It might not seem important now, but when they continue their education or have a career, they will be thankful for this skill.

Cataloguing

I found this post in my "Drafts" folder from January 20, 2012.  Apparently I forgot to hit "publish."


According to Cutter (as referred to in Connors, 2008) "the objectives of the catalog were to:

• Enable the user to find a book of which the author, title, or subject is known.
• Show what works the library has by a given author, on a given subject, or in a given literature.
• Assist in the choice of book as to its edition or as to its character.

My problem here?  I don't think my catalogue or records do any of these.  Because so little information has been input over the last decade, the records are merely a list of titles - some of those not even entered correctly.  I am struggling with fixing things as I go, or waiting until I am done weeding, (which may not be until the end of the year) and then begin updating the catalogue.  Or do I bother?  Do I just make sure that new acquisitions are entered completely and not worry about older records?

Subject searches in our catalogue are even more pointless.  Resources with the word "Canada" in the title don't even come up under a subject search for "Canada."  I am now realizing my own errors in adding new items to our catalogue.  I was so eager to add books, especially fiction, that I was just providing author, title, call number, ISBN and publisher info.  Oh, how I wish I had "clicked" that "subject" tab at the bottom of the page.

 Sometimes I wonder if I should just start over or just make sure I create accurate records from now on?  Organizing this library, that has not been "looked after" for 15 years or more, is a bit overwhelming at times.  Baby steps, I keep telling myself, baby steps.

Getting to know MARC

Well, to say MARC and I are good friends would be a bit of an understatement.  When we first started looking at MARC records, comparing different data, and then creating our own MARC records, all I could think was WHY!  Why are we doing this?  Doesn't my computer system do this for me?  What am I supposed to learn from this?  Frustration?  And of course, the question students ask every day... When am I ever going to use this in my "real" life?

All kidding aside, I really did ask most of these questions.  I know that I should understand the information provided in a MARC record but it felt like such a waste of my time.  I had things to do, books to catalogue, a library to organize that hadn't been weeded in over 15 years...  But wait... what's this... the information I provide to my library catalogue system Alexandria turns my data into a MARC record.  Uh, oh, I don't think I have been giving "it" the data it needs.

This was an aha moment for me in learning about MARC records.  I had been "blaming" our previous librarian for poor cataloguing skills, for lack of subject search criteria in the catalogue, and for sloppy data entry, but it turns out I too was not doing a "good" job.  Through my analysis of different MARC records I realized that those inconspicuous tabs at the bottom of my "New Item" screen were actually important.  Literally, I was just inputting publishing information, ISBN, author, title, bar code and call number.  I had not been providing any subject key words, a summary, illustrators, no other key information - no wonder no one could find anything when they searched the catalogue.

Although I am grateful I do not have to create my own MARC records, I am also grateful for the experience.  I can now look at a record and "see" information.  I can also use the MARC records from other sources to "copy catalogue" my acquisitions.  The resources provided in this module were especially helpful.  I found I had the Library of Congress information up on my screen and a quick reference "cheat sheet" in front of me as I created each record.

Once we finished our digital libraries, I thought it was interesting to then compare MARC records from different sources.  Because I now understood the MARC record divisions I could "see" where records differed and could often notice small inconsistencies.  The comparisons also helped me to understand how important consistency is in my own data input.  I need to use consistent vocabulary so that my library catalogue users can find what they need.