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!