July 30, 2015 (86 total)

Date: July 30, 2015

Time: 8am - 2pm

Hours Completed: 6 (86 total)

1000 Books Before Kindergarten:
Today I worked on some resources for the '1000 Books Before Kindergarten' program.  I made a suggested list of 100 book recommendations for children to hear before kindergarten.  I used several sources to make the list and looked at what books were on multiple lists.  I also tried to get a variety of classic and new books as well as books for different age levels.  The list of sources I looked at included:

• 1000 Books Foundation
• Cooperative CHidlren's Book Center
• New York Public Library
• New York Times
• Parenting Magazine
• School Library Journal
• Waukesha Public Library

The following is the list that I came up with:

jklj

July 28, 2015 (80 hours)

Date: July 28, 2015

Time: 10am - 5pm

Hours Completed: 7 (80 total)

Processing / Cataloging:
Today I worked with again with Janine on the adult fiction collection.  We went over some information on ordering books and then focused the remainder of our time on cataloging.  I was able to get a lot of practice cross referencing several lists of books for ordering and completing tasks in the Sirsi Dynx cataloging area of Workflows.  Below are my notes on the work that we did together:

Processing

• Unload books from the delivery on the table that are labeled "hot list" from Baker & Taylor (delivery usually comes once a week and Stephanie also orders from Baker & Taylor for children's)
• Place books on cart
• Check off books on packaging list and look at the status report for canceled / backordered
• Check the list for books that cannot go out on the shelf list
• Keep packaging list, return list, one copy of the invoice (one copy of invoice goes to Roberta) - stable together - hole punch and place in "Baker & Taylor Invoices and Returns" binder with the newest list on top and keep for 7-8 months after the book cycle is complete)
• Check off title on ordering list in black binder and write down the date that the book was received (once the list is all checked off the list can be thrown away)
• Check to see if any titles are fantasy, science fiction, mystery, western, short story and place genre sticker on the spine label

Cataloging

• Search "General / ALL" and scan ISBN
• Add call number for "Germantown" - FIC [full last name of author]
• Put barcode on back of book and scan in
• Type: BOOK28DAY / BOOK14DAY
• Item library: GERMANTOWN
• Home location: NEW-FIC
• Current location: AVAIL SOON
• Item cart: FICTION
• Item cart2: ADULTT
• Current Location: AVAIL SOON
• Price: round up
• Lease books - Add Item - Types LEASENEW / Staff: LEASE
• Sourse on versa (date 7-28-15, B&T, price
• Stamp top, versa, page 21
• Security / due date sticker
• Spine label on typewriter
• Reinforce the front and back cover with tape or clear tape
• For lease books - clear sticker over barcode, spine label and security / due date sticker

July 23, 2015 (73 hours)

Date: July 23, 2015

Time: 1pm - 5pm

Hours Completed: 4 (73 total)

1000 Books Before Kindergarten:
Today I work on creating resources for the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program that the Germantown Community Library will be starting.  I talked to Stephanie, the youth services librarian, more about what specifically she wanted out of the program.  We talked a lot about the Germantown community and how to make the program fit the parents and children that live in the area.  One thing that was mentioned was that there are a lot of "over achieving" parents that tend to try to finish programs as soon as possible.  We discussed ways to encourage parents to spread out the program and come to the library more than once to turn in their 1000 books progress.

We also talked about the lack of staff and budget in the children's area and looked at ways to make the program low-budget and easy for staff to do.  Staff usually work at the children's desk while the youth services librarian is busy answering reference questions and working on individual tasks so programs tend to work the best when there are few steps to signing up and continuing the program.

I worked on finding additonal resources for the program and made a brochure:

And bookmarks:

July 21, 2015 (69 total)

Date: July 21, 2015

Time: 9am - 5pm

Hours Completed: 8 (69 total)

Processing / Cataloging:
I spent most of the day working with Janine, the adult services librarian and administrative assistant at the library.  Janine is in charge of selection, processing, and cataloging of the adult fiction collection.  Janine went over with me her workflows on selection and processing.  I also got a chance to try most of the steps out myself and we completed the adult fiction order for September.  We are planning to focus on cataloging next week.  Below are my notes on the work that we did together:

Know the collection - keep workflows on Germantown open to check

Collection Development Resources

• Booklist 
• Publisher's Weekly
• Baker & Taylor Forecast
• Library Journal (pre-pub)
• bbol.com - Libraries - Public Libraries - Automatically Yours - Forthcoming Titles (open in excel and short by publication date, print, and go through list of authors to make sure nothing good was missed - especially sequels and authors to order list)
• esequels.com - what's new
• fantasticfiction.co.uk
• keeps a binder of personal books read

Using Baker & Taylor

• Create account - Adult Fiction
• Shows Qty ordered on right side
• Previous list alphabetized by title
• All books go in cart and them separate by buying and leasing items
• Select all books to order through the end of September
• Move items to another cart
• Default folder
• Create a new cart - "JLMFIC9-2015 / FICREL9-2015 / --726"
• Move items
• Check that Qty is at 1 and that there is no duplicate

Ordering Books & Lease Books

• Order books around the end of each month
• Go through cart list and compare with e-sequels list (forth coming titles that are part of a series) and order any books that were missed on the list that you want to order
• Delete items by checking the box and deleting it from the cart
• Adult fiction cart - sort by published release date - check books - move to another cart - select September cart - only select books published in September or earlier
• Carts - default folder - chick on folder and double check hardcover / quantity
• Makes a lease cart - carts - "JLM Lease 9-2015 / LEASE-9-2015" - select lease account - cart
• Look through titles with unfamiliar authors and then duplicates (Baldacci, Box, Brown, Child, Evanovich, Grisham, Grafton, Jance, Kellerman, Lagercrantz, Patterson x 2, Picoult, Steel) for books that you want for the lease books 
• Move items to lease cart
• Average of 20 lease books per month - check number on "Book Leasing Status Report" from Baker & Taylor
• Red marks are not returnable lease books
• Check lease cart for duplicates / paperbacks / media - sort by title 
• Print copy of cart and lease cart
• Submit order (make sure it is only for the specific cart and not the whole order) - check lease number and account number - submit order
• Only order outside of Baker & Taylor for replacement copies (Amazon / Ingram)
• Remaining items in cart will be for orders in future months

Tips & Tricks on Ordering Adult Fiction

• Don't usually order trade paperback
• Don't usually order books that have a past release date
• Watch for items that change the publication date
• Order 2-3 month ahead for publication date
• Order about once a month - towards the end of the month (7/28 for September release date)
• Orders about 60 titles a month
• Sometimes orders multiples of popular books/authors - check holds list from director

Baker & Taylor Lease Program

• About 20 titles a month 
• Usually includes unfamiliar authors and duplicate author
• Take off new books that haven't circulated - 3-5 times in 6 to 8 months, duplicate authors, science fiction/westerns do not circulate as much, check in core fiction directory at reference, keep author with several titles (7-10 circs in a year is good, 4-5 in a year is good for science fiction, fantasy or western)
• Keep 1 title everyone 4 are sent back
• Books are sent back each quarter
• Take off Baker & Taylor lease sticker and change record in catalog / add that book was previously from the lease program

Processing

• Spine labels -  mystery, story collection, western, science fiction, fantasy
• Check when book comes in and write date on the right side
• Check to make sure packing list is correct and keep the list in the binder 
• Keep until books come off of the shelf
• Print your own order list to keep track of when books come in that are ordered each month
• Source, stamps, stick, type writer for labels
• New sticker with date on shelf, 14-day sticker if less than 500 pages
• Thursday is processing day - give to Grace to cover and should be covered by Wednesday so you can put new stickers on and get the new list out
• Put in catalog record and then give Monica new series books to process with blue (fantasy) and green (science fiction) and orange (western)

New Book Lists

• New book list once a week on Wednesday
• New York Best Seller List once a week on Wednesday
• Running list of new books from 2000 with date added when the list went out of shelf

Trends of Adult Fiction Collection

• High popularity - suspense, thrillers, mystery/cozy mysteries, spy/adventures, romance, gentle reads, women's fiction
• Medium popularity - horror, historical fiction, christian fiction, science fiction, fantasy
• Low popularity - urban fiction, graphics novels
• Order includes - suspense, etc. - women's fiction - cozy mysteries - others

July 16, 2015 (61 total)

Date: July 16, 2015

Time: 1pm - 5pm

Hours Completed: 3 (61 total)

1000 Books:

Today I worked on research for the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program.  I sent out a survey last week through the wispub distribution list and worked compiled all of the answers.  I am still waiting for  more responses, but I created a response list and spreadsheet in excel to keep track of the information.

I created two pinterest pages to keep track of ideas and research for the program and resources for parents and caregivers:

1000 Books - Ideas

1000 Books - Resources

I also started a blog page where I will be keeping all of my research and ideas on the program, as well as actual documents that I created for the program.

While I was looking into different program and for information, I found a wide variety of articles, blog posts, resources on library websites, documents, and pictures of program.  I found that most libraries had a theme.  Some examples of themes included: road to reading, dogs, bumble bees, the circus, growing/flowers, caterpillars, trains, and reading or books.  

I also located this really neat Google Map that tracks each library that has an 1000 Books program:

After spending sometime looking for information on various programs, I visited several libraries around the area to get an idea of their 1000 Books program.  I took my 5-month old daughter along as well so we could sign up for the programs and so that I could get an idea of what each program was like both from the administration end and also from a parent's perspective.  I also was able to talk to someone at the children's desk about the program when we signed up.  I told them about the project that I was doing and asked how their program worked and how it was going.  Everyone was very helpful and offered a lot of suggestions on having a successful program!

The list of libraries I visited included:
Fond du Lac Public Library

West Bend Community Memorial Library
Slinger Community Library
Menomonee Falls Public Library

Waukesha Public Library

I am planning on getting together all of the registration information, reading logs, and handouts.

July 14, 2015 (57 total)

Date: July 14, 2015

Time: 10am - 12pm

Hours Completed: 3 (57 total)

Administration:

Today I had a quick session with the library director so that we could focus on discussing administration tasks.  Some of the things we talked about included scheduling staff members and assigning them various tasks in the library, the benefits of hiring staff with an MLS or equivalent, and the changes in staffing tasks that were implemented when technology began to become a bigger part of the daily operations of the library.  Examples of tasks that needed to be assigned were things like developing and updated the website, computer maintenance and trouble shooting, and assisting the public with basic computer use and printing.

We also spend sometime discussing program planning for adults.  I was very interested to find out what goes into adult programing since my experience has primarily been in planning and implementing programs for children birth through twelfth grade.  The library doesn't have as many adult program as they do for children, but some things they have done include participating in the big read, author visits, and an annual painting auction and fundraiser for the Friends of the Library group.  The library also has two book clubs, which I will be attending next month.

July 9, 2015 (55 total)

Date: July 9, 2015

Time: 9:30am - 12:30pm

Hours Completed: 3 (55 total)

Administration:

Today I attended meetings with the library director.  The Director's Council of the Mid-Wisconsin Federated Library System (a council made up all the library director's the in system) meets once a month with the system staff and board members.  The meeting consisted of staff member reports new business in the system and reports from individual libraries.  The was a lot of focus on the upcoming budget that needs to be approved.  Because of Jefferson county leaving the system at the end of the year, there were some changes in the system budget that affects the individual libraries.  The council also discussed a previous meeting with the Winnifox system and a strategic planning meeting that took place a few weeks ago.  Another change is that the system in no longer using Zinio for online magazine subscriptions and will instead use a service provided by Overdrive.  Many library directors were concerned about how the changes will influence patron usage and statistics.

After the Director's Council meeting, the director's in the Trio catalog meet.  I noticed that the meeting was conducted very differently because it was run by the director's themselves instead of the system staff and board members.  I was surprised by the number of additional committees that Trio has including the catalog and the circulation committee.  Since Jefferson county will be leaving at the end of the year, several chairs on Trio as well as the committees needed to be filled at this meeting and next meeting.

When the meetings were over, I went out to lunch with Roberta and several of the other library directors.  This was a great chance for me to meet the directors that I will be working with in the near future when I start my full hours at the library in Lomira.  I was able to see how the director's interacted with each other and heard how they felt about all of the changes taking place in the system.

July 7, 2015 (52 total)

Date: July 7, 2015

Time: 10am - 6pm

Hours Completed: 8 (52 total)

Reference Desk:

Today I spend the morning at the reference desk with the library director.  A lot of patrons had computer issues such as getting more than one page to print on a page, logging onto the Internet, and formatting emails to print.  I have been noticing that about half of the questions at the reference desk are actual "reference" questions and the other half usually have to do with technology, primarily printing, using the computers, or logging onto the library's wireless.

Roberta got an interesting phone call from a patron asking if we had the book "The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control" by Walter Mischel.  He was calling to see if we had the book and was angry that none of the libraries in our system (Dodge, Jefferson, and Washington counties).  He was very insistent that the library "has to have the book" because it is "the best book ever written."  We were interested to learn more about the book, so I spend some time researching reviews and looking at what libraries in Wisconsin owned a copy.

Children's Desk:

During the afternoon, I worked at the Children's Desk.  There was a program for elementary school kids going on and a lot of kids were turning in their summer reading logs.  I spent most of the time helping kids find books in the collection and putting books on hold.

Processing/Cataloging:

While at the Children's Desk, I also labeled and covered books.