Fun with Fermentation!

Daily Hours: 4
Total Hours: 133

Last Thursday night was the "grand finale" of my practicum, the "Fun with Fermentation" event I organized with Slow Food-UW Madison.  I am happy to report that everything went off without a hitch!  I started off the event by introducing the presenter and talking a little bit about the Slow Food movement in general, and the work that the campus club does within the community.  Bradley, the presenter, gave a brief background on fermentation, but the majority of the workshop ended up being hands-on (which fits perfectly with the whole Bubbler aesthetic).  Bradley went around between the different stations answering questions and giving tips, and participants went home with an instruction and resource handout he had put together. We brought cutting boards, knives, containers etc. from the Slow Food Kitchen and a cooler full of produce from that week's farmer's market.  Although we had budgeted $200, the produce was only $30 and the two cases of pint Mason Jars were $20.  It was so nice to be able to use all the resources Slow Food has at their disposal, definitely a good example of a successfully negotiated partnership!

Participants had the choice to go home with either a jar of kimchi or sauerkraut, and those few that stayed until the very end were able to go home with both!  Twenty people came to the event, nine of which had pre-registered in advance through the website.  As we were all chopping and then "massaging" and packing the ingredients, it was great to walk around and overhear people getting to know each other and connecting about other fermenting projects (there were multiple side conversations about the state of people's sourdough starters).  Bradley also had brought a jar of kimchi he had made a week prior that was ready to eat and we all got to have a sample. I took an informal poll while flitting between tables, seeing where everyone had heard about the program; here is a list of how a few people heard about it:

• "Madison on the Cheap," a Facebook group that shares information about free and inexpensive events around town, picked up the event and posted about it.
• One woman said she regularly checks the Bubbler website calendar for interesting events.
• A couple saw the poster I put up in College Library.
• Another woman's friend told her about the event since the friend knew she was interested in making sauerkraut. 
• By far the most interesting though, was the couple who are traveling across the country organic farming and living out of their van for the summer.  They were just passing through town and saw the poster I had put up at a coffee shop!  And they even said they are going to add a post to their blog about it!

Clean up ended up being surprisingly easy, just wiping down tables and giving the meeting room a light vacuum.  We even had a jar left over to leave for everyone at the library!  I am so happy with how it all turned out, and it's great to see that unique and quirky adult programming can be a success within the "modern" public library.  To think that there was once a time when everyone had to be quiet in the library and no food was allowed!  Look at us now, chopping and fermenting right in the meeting room!  It was a perfect last hurrah and final event to wrap up my practicum experience!

And finally, here are some pictures:

Packing kimchi.

Bradley Meillinger (in the grey shirt), the workshop leader.

"Massaging" the sauerkraut.

Workshop handout and kimchi.

Kimchi ready to ferment.

Sauekraut.

Eat, Play, Art!

Daily Hours: 4
Total Hours: 129

Today was the Eat, Play, Art Event, a collaboration between many South Madison organizations, but mainly run by the Urban League and the Library.  They shut down the parking lot in front of the library and brought in a dance floor and stage, booths, and food carts.  In the past, the Library had money from a different grant and was able to run four similar events through the course of the summer, calling them instead "Eat, Play, Bike."  I really like the whole idea behind the events, the concept of "place-making."  Communities used to "live" and interact more in outside communal spaces, but with changes in transportation infrastructure and city planning etc., we have moved away from those spaces.  So events like Eat, Play, Art seek to reconnect communities to their environments and bring neighbors together.

Many different organizations had booths and tables with fun activities set up like art projects, the MGE power station, face painting, the Bubbler screen printing station etc.  It was great to see the community and so many partner organizations out dancing, eating, making art, and just generally socializing.  And what a nice way for the library to extend it's presence in even further into the heart of the South Madison community!  I thought it was an especially nice touch that they had comfortable benches set up by the stage and dance floor where many of the older residents ended up sitting most of the night watching the children, dancing, and entertainment.  The library was in charge of handing out the free donated ice cream (not the worst task in the world!) and a frozen banana station.  Chris said turnout was good, similar to the events last year, although she was sad they could only do it once this summer.  I was happy to see that the Slow Food Table I helped organize turned out to be quite popular; it was great to see so many kids walking around with plates of fresh vegetables and hummus (either before or after their free ice cream, of course)!  Plus I gave them some of the flyers for the Fermentation program to hand out at the table to further bolster the collaborative relationship.

And finally, one more small moment of happiness: when looking for some sort of library name tag to identify myself, I found one that said "Future Librarian," a title I was proud and excited to take on for the first time!

Here are a few pictures.  Unfortunately, by the time I remembered to run inside and get my phone after rushing around most of the night, things had died down and bit.  It was much more hopping of an event than it looks like in these pictures!

Book Club: Gone Girl

Daily Hours: 2
Total Hours: 125

For this month’s book club we read the sensational and polarizing psychological thriller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  I had avoided reading the book up until now because I saw it as one of those hot new “I haven’t read a book in 15 years but I loved Girl with a Dragon Tattoo!” type of phenomena. 

I had the idea to start the discussion off by showing the two new trailers for the movie version, which comes out in October.  It was interesting to see how novel they thought the idea of showing the trailers was, something I hadn’t thought twice about.  On a related note, they weren’t really that open to the idea of meeting somewhere else  when Lori, the group leader, brought up maybe meeting at a near-by coffee shop, which goes to show that the recent trend of off-site book club meeting places doesn’t appeal to every group. 

I think Gone Girl was a good discussion pick because it was so polarizing.  There were a wide variety of opinions on the book, and we all got to have our say.  And speaking of everyone having their say, a great moment happened right at the end of the meeting, when one of the members specifically pointed out that Lori was one of the best book group leaders she had ever had, mentioning how good she was at letting everyone have their turn to talk.  We all clapped and you could tell Lori really appreciated the positive feedback.  And then another member agreed, adding that they all really like hearing what she has to say about the book, and that she should share that more!  Lori responded that she doesn’t usually like to impart too much because she feels like it is the group’s book club, not hers, which I thought was an interesting point of view.  I think striking a balance between facilitating and participating will be an interesting aspect of my (anticipated) future book club duties.

Job Mob!

Daily Hours: 2
Total Hours: 123

Chris had family in town today and so she took an actual day off (as Michael put it: "a day off in which she actually wouldn't come in to the library" because she comes always ends up at the branch on her off days to finish up one project or another), so I volunteered to be the library representative at Job Mob and go with out her.  Neither of us could make it last week and apparently they really could have used the extra help.

Today started out slow, as most people who came in were there for interviews with Diversified Personnel Services.  But I ended up spending a very enjoyable hour and a half helping an older Latina women one-on-one with basic computer skills.  She had been in Chris' Intro to Computers class earlier in the summer, and wanted to learn how to use a flash drive and better use email.  She doesn't have a computer at home so she has to come to the library or MATC to practice, which makes it difficult because she said she often forgets what she learns each time.  I would have enjoyed the interaction on any level, but it was especially great because I conducted the whole lesson in Spanish!  One interesting thing I realized right away: my "technology Spanish" was really lacking, there were so many specific vocabulary words I didn't know, so I sometimes I had to do a lot of circuitous explaining to get at the word I meant.  "Technology Spanish" goes hand in hand with "Library Spanish," important, specialized vocabularies that are so valuable in meeting the information needs of Spanish-language patrons!

Reference Shadow

Daily Hours: 3
Total Hours: 121

I spent the morning shadowing Michael on the reference desk.  In addition to the usual computer help questions (which make up the majority of reference interactions at the branch, rather than reader's advisory etc., says Michael), there were a few interactions of note:

• A man said he had heard that the new Edgewater Hotel was looking to hire a lot of positions.  We were able to find the listing for the open interviews they are putting on at MATC this week and print off the application from their website for him, but beyond that it felt good that we were able to refer him to Job Mob this Friday, where he will be able to get personalized help on his resume before the interviews.
• A man in suit walked in and Michael jumped up quickly and rushed over to him.  I soon realized that he was the director of the Goodman Foundation, which, as referenced in the name of the branch, has given a multiple grants to the Branch.  He was in the neighborhood for a meeting and decided to drop in and see how things were going at the Branch.  He also asked Michael if there were any pressing needs at the Branch since he was planning on meeting with the MPL Foundation next week.  Since I've been thinking about the library "elevator speech" for this week's class session, it was interesting to see it happening right in front of my eyes on a very professional level.  Michael thanked him again for all he had done for the library, and talked about the success of the iPad animation station and how the money from the foundation had partly led to the hiring of our new teen librarian.  Michael specifically mentioned the need for additional money in the collection budget, which was funny because he and I had just been talking about the dismal state of MPL's collection funding a few minutes before.  He then walked him around and showed the new interactive "end caps" in the children's area (the Goodman Foundation has a particular interest in children and education).  Goes to show, you never know when you'll have to give that stump speech!

Since it was a slow(er) morning than usual, we had some time to talk about reference usage trends, which lead to an interesting conversation about public library databases.  The main databases that get utilized are Consumer Reports, the business-related resources, and the homework help resources. But, that said, according to Michael, they hardly get used by patrons, which he thinks is partially due to the extremely clunky MPL website design.  We looked at the page, and I definitely am in agreement.  The main link to get the database page ("Research & Discovery") isn't a particularly intuitive name and the organization structure for the links is pretty poor information architecture as well, all of which doesn't bode well for patron self-exploration,  I'll be interested to see how these trends in database usage continue to evolve during the course of my career!

Fermentation Display and Job Advice

Daily Hours: 3
Total Hours: 118

I started off the morning by addressing the comments on my Spanish-services project that Chris had sent back to me.  She had suggested that I add a few other resources including additional Joining Forces for Families offices in the vicinity and Briarpatch (homeless youth services).  I have to say that I learned my lesson on one thing: I am embarrassed to say that I had only included Catholic church services, not thinking that other denominations would also offer Spanish-language ministries.  Once Chris mentioned that she thought there were a few other churches offering Spanish services, I found a handful more to add to the list.  How silly of me to have not thought outside the stereotype box, an important lesson in multi-cultural outreach!

Next I consolidated a job-seeking display in order to make room for a display for my fermentation program.  I requested a bunch of fermentation cookbooks etc. through LINKcat and will add them to the display as they come in, but for now there is a poster for the program and some general books on preserving food.  Then, when the day of the program comes along I can just move the display into the meeting room where it is being held and attendees can check out the items that catch their fancy!

The rest of the morning was spent in an impromptu meeting with Michael.  Since he was currently deep in the application review process for the hiring process for his current position, we got into an extended discussion about what he looks for in an application, in particular a cover letter and resume.  I was particularly interested to hear what he had to say from the other side of the interview table after Tanya's job search talk last week.  One tip that stuck out to me was to include the job code (if there was one) at the beginning of the cover letter, not just the title of the position.  And simple things like saving your related documents as .pdfs and with consistent and relevant titles like "Poletti Harp CV" and "Poletti Harp Cover Letter" etc.  Also he gave me the advice to start looking for jobs even earlier than December of next year (the timeline I had heard before), since even just applying is good practice.  With our cover letter exercise and this mini-mentoring session today, I've been thinking even more about going out into "the real world" of libraries soon and how that will all play out.  Always good to start thinking ahead!

Last Bilingual Storytime and Spanish-services Wrap Up

Daily Hours: 6
Total Hours: 115

Today was the fourth and final session of the Contando Cuentos Bilingual Storytime series.  But, as I mentioned before, the library will be contracting with Araceli again in the fall for an eight week session since the demand was clearly there!  We had to compile our attendance statistics for a report to Chris and they were as follows:

Week 1: 10
Week 2: 15
Week 3: 20
Week 4: 19

What's so great is that in addition to returning kids, there were new families each week!  For this final session, we made a display of José Luis Orozco's books and CDs and printed out our final resource list along with a reading list and bilingual summer reading program worksheet from the Latinas for Latino Lit organization.  Chris happened to have a stash of Spanish kids books to give away, so every child was able to take a book home as well!  Today focused on counting, since we read Se venden gorras, the Spanish translation of the classic Caps for Sale.  Afterwards the kids made bean bag caps from nylons filled with rice.

Reading Se venden gorras

Making our "gorras"

Araceli connected me with the resources she'll be using for the next series, the majority of which came from the curriculum that the King County Library system (which serves the Seattle Metropolitan area) uses. I kept coming across their name in my independent study work, and I already knew they were doing a good job with their Spanish-language services, but this program further proves that fact. The coordinator of the program has made a Pintrest page that highlights some of these early literacy "fiestas."

For the rest of my morning at the library I added and edited various events in the MPL calendar and met with Michael to catch up after his vacation. We both agreed that the area we will focus on for the rest of my time at the library will be spending time at the reference desk, since that is one of my learning outcomes that I have barely begun to meet, with only 2 hours shadowing last week. It has been so crazy at the library for most of the summer, with him downtown most of the time for interviews and the branch chronically understaffed, that it has been difficult to schedule effective shadowing time. We planned for two mornings next week, and he also gave me a brief lesson on ILL and using the World Cat Catalog. I look forward to getting more familiar with additional resources next week!

Then, in the afternoon I came home to work on the final part of my Spanish-language project: my recommendations. Here is a brief summary of what I came up with, drawn from all I have read in my independent study:

• Posting a sign on the door saying "Se habla Español"
• Posting a Spanish DDC chart by the non-fiction collection
• Considering adding Fotonovelas to the collection
• Offering English Conversation Clubs (ESL class needs are already well-met on the Southside)
• Collaborating with the Play and Read program at Centro Hispano for future Bilingual Storytime outreach
• Outreach at middle school and high school ESL classes
• Planing a Día de los Niños/Día de los Libros celebration
• Now I look forward to further distilling the knowledge I've gained over the summer in my final paper in a few weeks!

Spanish-Language Project

Daily Hours: 3+2.5

Total Hours: 109

Both yesterday afternoon and this afternoon I worked on my analysis of the branch's Spanish-language services and collection.  I spent my "shift" yesterday compiling all the services offered by other organizations in the area, to see if there were any gaps the library could be working to meet.  Going off of some of the environmental scanning tips that I've been picking up from my Independent Study readings, I compiled a list of key stakeholders in the Latino community: not just organizations offering services, but also churches offering Spanish-language masses and Spanish-language media outlets.  After going to the NRT meeting today and thinking about the library as a "community informational hub" I realized that I could format my environmental scan into an information resource for the library staff to have on hand.  When I brought this up to Chris she was excited about the idea: the problem with having so many organizations working on the Southside is that it can be hard to remember just what each one does!

Then, today I dug into the Adult World Language circ reports Michael had sent me.  After a more thorough Excel help search I figured out how to un-merge the cells and sort by total circulation numbers.  10.5% of the non-fiction collection has never circulated, while only 5.7% of the fiction collection has never been checked out (granted, the non-fiction section [2,230 items] is around three times larger than the fiction section [702 items]).  It was interesting to see how well the popular non-fiction topics matched up with what I have read about Spanish-language collection development for both my Independent Study and our project in 450: ESL, health, family, GED, self-help, and spirituality items were all among the most circulated.  On the fiction side of things, Latino authors and translated genre books (Romance, Thriller, Mystery) and Classics were the most popular, with translations of more "Mainstream Fiction" titles (Room, High Fidelity, The Help) proving significantly less popular.  It was rewarding to be able to think back to my collection development project for 450 and realize that I actually had done a pretty good job in my selection choices! 

Burr Oaks NRT Meeting

Daily Hours: 3
Total Hours: 103.5

This morning I joined Chris for the Neighborhood Resource Team meeting at Centro Hispano.  There are around 8 or so NRTs for neighborhoods in Madison that are considered "at risk," bringing together various community stakeholders to discuss issues facing the areas.  The Southside NRT meets every two months or so, and Chris represents the Library at the meetings. Michael goes to the NRT meetings for the Leopold Neighborhood, another area where our user-base lives.  Apparently attendance was "light" at this meeting because of summer vacations, but there were representatives from Joining Forces for Families, Brier Patch (Youth Services of Southern Wisconsin), and the City (Housing, Economic Development, Community Development, the Clerk's Office).  A police officer from the Southside Station and the director of Centro Hispano were also in attendance.

For me, the most interesting thing about the meeting was seeing how information was spread among the diverse stakeholders.  Each representative gave a brief summary of upcoming events relating to their organization or put out feelers about future opportunities etc.  It was great to see in-person networking in action; there sure was a lot of contact information being thrown around the room.  For example, the police office wanted to let everyone know that they had started a new video briefing system and were inviting organizations to send representatives down to the station to record video messages about upcoming events and other concerns that would then be shown at the officer briefings.  They have realized this is the best way to get the word out in the Force.  One thing I really liked was the fact that many of the representatives described their current programs, letting everyone know that they should refer any individuals in the community they felt could benefit (i.e. youth leadership development at Centro Hispano, transitional housing for youth at Briar Patch, diversification of electoral poll workers [especially more Hmong speakers]).  Chris highlighted our Eat, Play, Art place-making event happening in a few weeks.

At the end of the meeting there was some discussion about a lack of collaboration between organizations on the Southside, which really surprised me; As my journal entries have shown, I have been impressed with the collaboration I have seen so far this summer!  I asked Chris about this later and she said she doesn't have that same attitude.  Basically she said "It's all about showing up," which has definitely been her defining career motto as a librarian.  She said she felt like there have been some issues in the community regarding past collaborations: some of the smaller organizations feel like the bigger organizations with "stronger leadership" like the Girls and Boys Club get all the press and credit for events.  But that aside, after going to the meeting this morning, it is even more clear to me how libraries can play a pivotal role in the dissemination of information about community services, referring patrons to organizations that best meet their needs.  But in order to do that effectively, librarians need to know what is going on the community and exactly what services are out there, and collaborations like the NRT meetings are a great way to stay informed.  I'd be interested to know how involved librarians from other branches are within their own neighborhoods...

After the meeting I spent the rest of the morning catching up on business with the BadgerBOTS program, making the poster for the event and sending out contracts etc.  And now I plan on spending some more time on my Spanish-services project this afternoon, which I really dug into yesterday (another blog post will follow detailing those "shifts").

Building a Social Media Audience and a Bit of Environmental Scanning

Daily Hours: 4.5
Total Hours: 100.5

Today I worked from home, splitting my time between social media stuff and the beginnings of my Spanish Language services/collection project.  Tana had said that it would be a good idea to connect with our partner organizations to get the word out about our new social media presence.  I had already thought to search out and "like" our community partners, but since the "liking" process isn't reciprocal like the "friending" process, they wouldn't necessarily notice that the library had a page now.  Tana recommended that I write the text of an email for Chris to send out to her contacts at the organizations, so I started off the morning with that task.  I also created event pages for both Eat, Play, Art and my Fermentation workshop, which I figure will be a better way to advertise the events rather than linking to the MPL calendar descriptions in future posts.  One thing that has been frustrating for me with the Facebook page is the fact that we really don't have that many "likes" yet.  I thought that Tana's promotion post for the page would help, but we are still only at 9 likes (and one of them is me, and another my mom).  I remember specifically from readings from the social media course that building an audience takes time and patience.  Also, Facebook may just not be a very effective way of reaching the user population of the Goodman Branch: Tana said she usually uses the number of sign-ups for e-notification as a measure of whether social media would be an effective outreach tool, and she said the Goodman branch has the lowest number of all the branches, by far.  It's all an experiment!  So, today I also made a poster to put up in the library advertising our page.  We'll see if any of those efforts brings us a few more "likes!"

During the remainder of my shift I focused my time on thinking about my Spanish-language services project.  I started out by doing a bit of environmental scanning of the neighborhood, which I have learned through my outreach readings for my independent study, is the first step towards developing any sort of collection/services for a target population.  As with Job Mob, it doesn't make sense for organizations to "compete" with each other in terms of overlapping services.  So, I complied a list of the services currently being offered by Centro Hispano, the Literacy Network etc. and started thinking about the general recommendations I am going to make.  I also tried to play around with the Excel spreadsheets of the circ stats reports that Michael had run for me, but I ran into a bit of the proverbial Excel frustration and error messages when I was trying to sort things by total circulation numbers, so I will just have to sit down with the help manual when I work of the project again next week and go from there.

Salta, Ranita, Salta and Microsoft Publisher

Daily Hours: 5
Total Hours: 96

Today was our third session of "Contando Cuentos."  We had a mix of returning kids and new kids, but overall, we were pleased with the turnout.  The success of the program these past few weeks has led to the branch contracting with Araceli to do an 8 week session of bilingual storytimes in the fall as well!  I'm really happy to see the library directly responding to that success and actively working towards getting the need for a bilingual storytime met!  We read Salta, Ranita, Salta (Jump, Frog, Jump) and afterward, we painted frogs.  Surprisingly, it turned out to be the least messy children's painting activity I've ever helped with, so that was nice.  Since next week is our last session, I finalized our resource handout after the kids had left and then requested all the José Luis Orozco (the singer whose DVD we put on during the craft section of class) materials we had in the system for a display for next week.

I spent the rest of the shift working on publicity for my fermentation workshop.  I added the event to the MPL calendar  and designed and printed the posters.  It took some tinkering (even with the handy, basic template Trent designed) but I am pleased with the results and I feel like I learned some of the basics of Publisher in the process.  I know that Jenna Assmus has been talking to SLIS about putting on a Publisher Workshop in the Fall, which I definitely plan on taking; I feel like even the most basic graphic design skills will be really valuable in my future career.  I put out small flyers in the library and posted a big one on the bulletin board, but I now need to start thinking about where I want to strategically put up the rest, which will be on my list of things to do next week.

I can't believe I've reached the 90 hour mark already! And there's still so much on my plate!

Downtown "Fieldtrip"

Daily Hours: 3
Total Hours: 89

Today I took a trip downtown to the Central Branch to meet with both Tana Elias, the Digital Services & Marketing Manager for MPL, and Trent Miller, who is charge of the Bubbler Program.  Tana and I sat down with my Friends Facebook page open and talked about some of the inner-workings of social media at MPL.  She also gave me a quick primer on the MPL Flickr account and how to deal with permissions when taking photos etc.  Apparently, the city is moving towards a "verbal agreement" system; just offering the person being photographed (or their parent/guardian) the option to "opt out" is enough.  It's good to see that the majority of MPL's social media strategies match right up with much of what we discussed in the social media class I took earlier in the summer!  Tana also gave me a quick tour of the library.  It was especially nice since, I'm embarrassed to admit, I haven't spent too much time at the Central Branch (Monroe St. is my main branch).  I hadn't actually been down in the Children's area and seen the reading caves and wicker huts yet; they're great! 

Then I met with Trent about Bubbler Logistics.  It was interesting to talk to him about how much they have learned in the past year of the program; he said it was basically like starting up your own brand new art gallery/library from scratch.  Originally, they had wanted to do all the branding centrally, so they were asking branches to send their program information to the Bubbler, and then the team would produce all the media and PR for the event.  But they just didn't have enough staff to do it right, and sometimes branches would only get the advertising materials a few days before the event.  So now, with my program as one of the first impetuses, Trent has just shared a poster-making template in the Bubbler Google Doc Folder that all branches can use locally.  So it looks like I'll be learning a bit about Microsoft Publisher while I make up the poster this week! For the remainder of my "shift" I sent out logistical emails regarding the fermentation program to get everyone on the same page now that I met with Trent.  I am looking forward to getting the poster out there this week and really getting things rolling!

Reference!

Daily Hours: 4
Total Hours: 86

I spent my shift shadowing at the reference desk today.  I think the most important thing I came away with was the fact that you sure can learn a lot about the information needs of a library's user base in a short amount of time on that desk!  First of all, the reference staff at Goodman don't spend a lot of time physically sitting at the desk.  During my time at Goodman I have heard a ton of talk about the computer situation: they are in desperate need of more computers, but there is no space.  Currently, the computers are set up between the reference and circulation desk, an arrangement that works particularly well (multiple staff members have commented to me about it) because, in general, the computer users at the branch tend to have a lot of small questions or needs.  It's really interesting to see how the digital divide plays out within the branches...  A separate computer lab just wouldn't work in our branch, unless there was a staff person embedded there at all times.

Besides jumping up to provide computer help, I spent a some time helping group of kids and their teacher find books about Wisconsin and information about their local Alderman, who was coming to talk to them the next day.  I also was tasked with searching out Mo Willems books for a last minute display to fill up a space in the children's section.  Now, according to LINKcat, there were multiple Mo Willems books on the shelf at the branch, but it took me 15 minutes to find them since they were shelved in the "Favorites" section of the new organization system MPL has developed for children's books.  The books are supposed to be organized "generally" by author, but really you have to look through everything when searching for a particular title because they are so far out of order.  At first when I found out about the new system, I really liked the idea. It makes browsing a breeze for parents; the forward facing organization makes it easy to flip through and discover new books with interesting covers that you wouldn't necessarily just pick up if you only saw the spine.  I had a conversation with Chris about how the staff has felt about the change and she said that yes, it has been a source of frustration on many occasions because it has made things much more difficult for anyone looking for a certain title.  It's interesting to think about the ways libraries can choose to prioritize certain information-seeking needs. In my mind, the patron's needs should be foremost, but I feel like there are still some kinks that need to be worked out with the new organizational system that could strike a better balance between the needs of"browsers" and people looking for specific titles...

Another interesting interaction we had on the desk today was with a man came to us to ask for help about his bankruptcy filling process.  Chris tried to get a hold of both the State Law Library, as well as the County Law Library, but no one was available at either place.  We looked through his papers a bit more and noticed he needed to fill out another form online, but when Chis asked if he wanted to reserve a computer he said he would need someone to help him fill out everything because he wasn't very good with computers.  So after wrangling the schedule, Chris was able to book a time for him to come in later this afternoon and have an hour of one-on-one help with a staff person.  This interaction led to an interesting conversation about how the branch deals with situations like this.  It really shows the level of dedication to reference help many staff members have at the branch; no official one-on-one help is advertised, but many staff people make a concerted effort to make sure these kind of more in-depth information needs are met, even if it means going out of their way to do it.  Like I've said before, I've been continually impressed with the level of concern and effort that Chris puts into best serving the South Madison community, not to mention her patience and understanding;  it has already taught me a so much about how to be the best "community librarian" I can be in my future career!

Gardening with Kids

Daily Hours: 2
Total Hours: 82

This afternoon,  I was in charge of setting up for the "Gardening for Kids" workshop that was part of the educational series running throughout the summer in conjunction with the seed library.  Beth Hanna from Community Groundworks gave the presentation, talking about school gardening programs in WI and ending with a make-your-own newspaper pot activity.

Unfortunately, only a mother, her two small children, and an older gentleman, who happened to run the Horticulture Club at MATC, showed up for the program.  I had been nervous about attendance numbers all week since I called and left messages for the four people who had registered in advance through the e-vance calendar online.  Plus, today was Rhythm and Booms and all of John Nolen was closed.  There is just always so much going on in Madison!  It's become obvious to me now how much little things can affect attendance; for example, Chis offhandedly mentioned that storytime numbers are usually much lower when the parking lot is full; parents will just go home rather than park far away (obviously a downside of sharing parking with so many other businesses and organizations!).  We did manage to round up a few kids who were already in the library for the pot making activity, so that was good.

There's always a bright side to things though, and I was able to do a bit of seed library networking with both Beth and the older gent; both wanted information to bring back to their respective organizations.  Beth was even talking about doing a partnership mini-garden next season through their kids program where they would grow a plot with seeds from the library and then save them as an experiment.  We did a quick brainstorm of how things would work, possibly an outreach visit from us or a field trip to the library for them, a great opportunity to educate them on all the resources the library can provide beyond the seeds...

Job Mob!

Daily Hours: 4
Total Hours: 80

I spent most of the morning at the MATC campus located across the parking lot from Goodman, where every Friday, representatives from multiple neighborhood organizations (Joining Forces for Families, The Catholic Multicultural Center, Centro Hispano, the Nehemiah Center, Urban League, and of course, the Library) come together to offer drop-in job hunting assistance.  The program is only a year old, but they serve an average of 20 people a week.  Most of the organizations involved had been doing some sort of job help in their own right before, but recently they came together, realizing they could be much more efficient if they created a partnership.  MATC provides two rooms, where new job listings are printed out and organized each session, and a computer lab where job seekers can get help with online applications and resume creation/tweaking.  Representatives for local businesses and companies looking for employees will also often set up a table there and interview people right on the spot.  I know I mention how key these partnerships are in the South Madison area in just about every journal entry, but they really are on to something!  And the fact that the Library can function on the same level as these non-profits really shows how librarians can realize their full potential as community and social justice advocates.

Every few days or so,  I have one of those practicum moments that reminds me why I started down this career path to begin with.  My time helping at Job Mob was definitely one of those moments!  I helped a man format and edit his resume for an hour, and in the process I learned his life story,  and I was able to teach him some basic computer skills, as well as even do a bit of Reader's Advisory (he liked Legal Thrillers, so I was able to draw on some of my RA skills from Reading of Interests of Adults).  As I wished him luck as he went off to an interview, I realized just how rewarding the whole interaction had just been.  But that's not to say that there are not frustrating moments:  I was in awe of Chris' patience as she helped a man who couldn't remember his email or password for 15 minutes until they finally got it right.  And then they sat for the next hour and a half taking a detailed personality questionnaire for the job he was applying for.

I walked across the parking lot and finished my shift getting things ready for the Gardening with Kids workshop I will be organizing tomorrow afternoon, choosing some kids books about Gardening as well as parent resources for a display I'll have in the room.  A truly gratifying librarian day!

Social Media, Abolitionists, and Robots!

Daily Hours: 8.5+.5
Total Hours: 76

"Contando Cuentos" Bilingual Storytime
Crafts and dancing after reading Un beso en mi mano (The Kissing Hand)

Today was quite the busy one.  I started off by working on creating and organizing the Facebook google docs folder I will be leaving for the person who takes over social media at Goodman when I am gone, collecting posting ideas etc.  (who knew that July 1st-4th is celebrated each year as "Tom Sawyer Days"?).  Then I helped out with the second of our four session bilingual pre-literacy storytime.  We were pleased to have a great turnout this time, with multiple Spanish-speaking families wandering in because they heard Spanish being spoken.  One woman stayed after, thanking us profusely and commenting how frustrating it has been for her to always bring her children to library programming, but that none of it is in Spanish.  Judging by attendance at this storyhour, there is huge Spanish-language children's programming gap that Goodman could fill, which I will heartily recommend through both statistics and anecdotes in my upcoming analysis of Goodman's Spanish-language services.

In the afternoon I met with Michael to catch up in the moment he was back in the office between the conference he just went to and his upcoming vacation.  It was cool to hear about the conference, Next Library, which is all about library innovation and is usually held in Europe.  He said it was the best networking opportunity he had ever had; he was having dinner with the directors of storied library systems like San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, not to mention getting to benefit from all the forward-thinking initiatives brought to the table by the European libraries.  

In the evening I helped out with the first program in the four part Created Equal film series that the branch in running.  Tana Elias and Chris had written an National Endowment of the Humanities grant for the series, and MPL was was one 473 institutions across the country awarded funding for the program and showing rights for the films.  Local community members, including multiple UW professors are lecturing along with the films and facilitating the discussion afterwards.  Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara, a professor in the Afro-American studies department ran this program, and she made a point of thanking the library for inviting her, saying that she loves to get out into Madison and make those connections between community and academia.  It was great to see how well such a partnership can work, promoting connections between local institutions and providing valuable continuing education opportunities for community members who wouldn't necessarily get access to university resources.  After all, as we discussed at length in 450, and again in Public Libraries, a huge part of the mission of public libraries is the idea of continuing adult education and enrichment, and this program was a perfect example of that!  I also got to meet Tana and chat a bit about social media, a conversation that we will continue next week when I go downtown to Central to meet with her, which I already now will be a valuable opportunity!

Thursday update:  Today I finally was able to get in touch with Ben from BadgerBOTS to talk about the possibility of a Bubbler program in August.  It sounds like things will work out if he can find enough of their high school students who would be able to run a mechanical large-scale robot presentation and hands on Lego robot activity.  It was also good to make the connection for future programming ideas: they have an established 6 week "Robot Club" that they have started running at different locations around the community.  Ben said he'd be happy to collaborate again in the future for such a club during the school year if the Bubbler program proves popular enough this time!

More Seeds and Social Media

Daily Hours: 4+2
Total Hours: 67

After practicing my seed library power point presentation a few times and getting our outreach materials in order, I spent some working through logistics with our contacts at the UW-Master Gardeners.  It's especially difficult because they have one volunteer in charge of scheduling, so she ends up acting as an intermediary between us and the presenters, plus she just took over the position.  One thing this practicum has taught me pretty quickly off the bat was that while working closely with community organizations and services can be incredibly valuable, you are also relying on someone else, their schedules, motivations, interests etc.  You need to make it worth the time for both of you, and the logistics of everything alone takes a huge amount of time!  I've been calling, emailing, waiting for responses in regards to a handful of projects over the past few weeks, and just keeping up with how each contact is proceeding has taught me some important skills.  I was interested to know if there was a "professional timeline" for how to badger people if they haven't got back to you about something, so I asked Michael; he said his rule of thumb is generally email again after a week, call after three days.  I think I'll adopt with that rule as my own as well...

I spent the rest of Monday morning developing the Facebook page for the Goodman Friends Group.  Although I consider myself a pretty capable Facebook user, there was a bit of a learning curve for page creation and general maintenance, so that alone has been a good skill to acquire.  In addition to actually creating the basic page, I combed through my copious notes from the one credit Social Media course I took early in the summer, gleaning some guiding points and revisiting the library case-studies we did. I spent some time clicking around the Facebook pages of the case studies as well as the Friends pages for other branches of MPL.  This week I will draw upon those notes and create a mini-social media plan and guiding document following the tips from the readings, because obviously, for a social media campaign to be successful there needs to be a sense of sustainability.  I'll only be around for the summer, but I plan on leaving a google doc folder for whoever takes over the Facebook responsibility that would detail the inner workings of the page and also have a running list of posting ideas etc.

Today I went to Middleton to give a presentation on the Seed Library for the high school students from Growing Food and Sustainability, a hands-on environmental and leadership education program.  They run their own farm right at Clark St. Community School where they are based and they had contacted us because they are interested in saving their own seeds, along with the community aspect of the seed library.  I really enjoyed acting as a library ambassador out in the community; I can only hope that I get to connect people to library resources at similar events in my future career.  I made sure to plug MPL in general, taking a poll of who had library cards and encouraging those who didn't to get one.  It was also nice to get to connect with the Master Gardner who presented about the actual seed saving process after I gave my part of the talk.  He had given two of the past workshops in our series at the library and we both agreed that the partnership was working out great so far!

Juneteenth and Book Club

Daily Hours: 7

Total Hours: 61

Today was the annual Juneteenth Celebration in South Madison in honor of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.  Every year the event is organized by local community groups and activists, beginning with a parade from the Fountain of Life Church.  The rest of the event is celebrated all afternoon in Penn Park, just on the other side of Park St. from the Goodman Branch.  There are speeches, music and dance performances, and informational tables and activities run by local organizations.  Every year the library has a table at the event, as Chris makes it a seamless part of her work as a librarian to be embedded in the community.  This year we “served” an estimated 80 or so adults and children at the event, signing up kids for the summer reading program at our table in the children’s tent where we had a tick-tack-toe lawn game and an Easter egg musical shaker craft.  It really cool to see how many people Chris knew at the event: parents, children and organizers!

Part way through the afternoon I walked the short way back to the library to attend the monthly book club meeting.  And I have to say, more than anything I have done so far in my practicum, being able get a behind the scenes look at the club has reminded me the most why I wanted to be a librarian.  I love talking about books, and I can’t wait for the chance to organize and lead my own book club someday!  Even though I didn’t particularly connect with the book we read this month, I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion and it felt great that Lori (the book club leader) later told me that by the points I brought up and the questions I asked, she could tell I was a natural book club leader.  There were about 11 women there, all over the age of 50 or so.  It was really cool to realize that the conversation had flowed pretty seamlessly for an hour and a half, and Lori never had to do any awkward prompting to keep things going.  I was especially interested in the group dynamics after what Jim Ramsey, the head of Adult Services at Middleton Public Library, said when he came into our Reading Interests of Adults class last semester.  He talked about the different book club member characters like the “conversation derailer” or the “ranter.”   I saw a bit of those personalities and behaviors, and it was informative to see how Lori guided things back on track in a totally non-obtrusive way.  Also, it was cool that some members actually checked out more circus books from our display!  Afterwards Lori talked to me more about the dynamics of the group and how the group selects their books.  Next month we are reading Gone Girl, which from everything I’ve heard about the book, will make for quite an interesting discussion!