Assignment #1 - Reflection of my Learning in LIBE 465

Reflection of my Learning

As I am now completing last assignment for my last course in the UBC library diploma, it is fitting that this assignment is a reflective one. Looking back where I was when I had been a teacher-librarian for close to two years, then fast forward three more years of work experience and 10 classes from UBC I feel like I am a far better teacher-librarian. I feel my lessons are much stronger. The lessons have more relevance and educational value. The organization of the library has drastically improved. I also feel that I am on the cutting edge of our industry and amongst the teacher-librarians I work with, I feel as though I am one of the more advanced in regards to the latest trends, issues, and use of technology.

With most of the courses I took with the UBC library diploma I often felt I did not have much more learn. I believe this is because I ended up not taking the classes ‘in order’. I took many of the electives first because of what was available. I ended up taking the core component classes in the end of my 10 classes. With each of the elective classes I felt I learned a couple things, but nothing that was major. Often it was lesson ideas. This created the situation where I started to expect the same for all the UBC classes. However, with each of the core component classes I feel like I was becoming a much better teacher-librarian by the end of the course. The core component classes all gave me something I could really use to change my library and I feel very grateful for having learned these things.

For LIBE 456 I had that same opinion entering the course. However, I do feel like I am leaving the course with some valuable lessons. The two most important pieces I feel I am leaving with are related to the two projects we handed in.

MARC Project

I know I did not do that great on this assignment, as there were not enough actual MARCs done by me. But the lesson learned from this project and the lessons #5-7 leading up to this assignment were very valuable to me. Right before these lessons one of the head librarians in the district sent an email on our discussion site asking if anyone wanted the Sears book she had. Someone grabbed it right away. I did not know what this book was about. With taking part in these lessons, asking questions with some colleges I learned about the book and about the MARC process. These few weeks also introduced me to the CIP part of the book. I have always seen these in the books and never knew why they were there. I only ever looked at the publication date.

This project turned into a very useful tool for me for a couple of reasons. I designed it for full use for my primary staff members. I have showed it to them and linked it into my library blog so when they study community helpers all the information on this topic will be there for them. It is in a format of a webpage, so I can change it as my materials change.

Finally, this project made me learn how to create a webpage. I found this to be a very important learning skill for me. I feel as though I could create for any topics in the future and I have already shared my knowledge with some staff members.

Things to Change in my Library Project

When I started this project, I felt as though I had done enough library changes. This is because I had recently finished such big projects in the library. However, after I completed this assignment I was so satisfied as I now had a plan for my library for the next couple of years. This project gave me life for my library! I have already started working on a number of the changes I said I would do in this project. I feel I cannot sit idle in my library and I’m always looking to change and improve it. I love making changes in the library and seeing the response from the users.

Postings

Throughout this entire course I have been making contributions with the postings online. I met all of the course requirements. I would read most of what was posted from other students and would take away some of their ideas. One example was with the Dewey lessons. Someone had posted making posters for each section. It was such a simple project that I cannot believe I had over looked it. I am starting some of those this week. Because of my experience in the library I would tend to read the postings and take what I could use. Mostly I was responding in discussion to what others had posted on my comments. I feel as though I have lots to offer and I think many saw that with what I shared with them. However, it is not in my personality so be constantly posting in discussion with strangers and ‘suggesting’ ways for them doing something better. If they want to ask them I’m more then happy to help.

Reflection

Reflection is important to me, as you have seen from each of my two projects. With this assignment you can see I was also reflecting as the lessons were being completed.  Each of the lessons has a posting of what I did that lesson and what I learned. I plan to keep this blog so I can continue to reference it (along with my two projects from this course for future use). Many of the items I learned from this course were put into my lessons right away or onto my library blog. Sharing things like Delicious.com with colleges and putting it into my blog. Using fun things like the Dewey Rap to introduce Dewey talks with my students. Some of my reflections discuss how much better I understand the behind the scenes part of being a librarian. Dealing with buying software and MARCs. Stuff my head librarians to. I have a great understanding for their jobs now. My weekly summaries are not perfect, there will be spelling and grammar errors, but what I have learned in this course is all in those postings. I also created a list of important links from the course or from people’s postings that I like and I will continue to use as I move forward in my career.

Conclusion and Where to Go From Here

Reflection is important, but it is only good if it prompt you to move forward. With holding onto what I have learned from this class via blogs and webpages I feel I will be able to use this information for the next couple of years. Having all this information in electronic form is a bonus as the information will always be there. The core components in the UBC diploma have given me these skills and ideas to move forward. I have a few courses with online blogs that I can use to help guide me in the future. The most important part is now that I am done, do not sit back and fall behind. Now that I have time, next year I am planning to join my district’s teacher association to help me stay in contact with others in the field and to help me continue to learn. 

Lesson 13

There was a lot of review for me in this lesson, but nonetheless, something that is always good to read and reinforce that I am doing a good job.

- Inventory - I did my first inventory on this library. This is my 4th year there and it was needed to be done. It hadn't been done in years. I found about 1,000 items unaccounted for. Most likely tossed out but not deleted from the system over the years.

- Overdues - yes, I don't fine, just remind them. Sometimes rewards to the class that gets all their books back first at the end of the school year.

- Lost books - yes I fine, if they have lost it or damaged it beyond use. I look at the MARC price and use that.

- Weeding - so far this year I have weeded 2,500 books from the Non-fic, fiction, novel sets, electronic area, and TR sections. I only have the Easy section to go. This was a big hurdle to over come. But my shelves are so great now. Many were over flowing and the users had troubles finding materials. Now when they go to a non-fic section all the materials there are usable, unlike before with the date materials. The students can browse easier and the little kids can move books about easier too.

-Shelves - all the shelves are at a great height for the users. The Easy section is lower to the ground. I couldn't ask for a better set-up library.

- Signs - not really needed with such a small library. It is not like it is a public library. But there are a few for Fiction, Easy, TR, Non-Fic. What I did change is full decorations and spiced up the place. People compare it to a sports pub which goes over so well with staff, students and parents. One staff member's kid said 'Mom, I want to go to this school because this library is awesome!" That told me I was doing the right job.

-Space - I have made many changes over the past few years:
1) The tables are now colour coded with chairs which makes it easier to communicate with the kids
2) Tables are marked on the ground, so staff can move them and know where to put them back too
3) Fiction book cases were 4 cases long and hard to move around with 30 grade 6/7s. So I split them in 2 sections of 2 and created another walkway.
4) Easy reader section - the paperbacks and hardcovers and little levelled readers were all mixed in together. The little kids could move the books around to find books. I put all the levelled readers into bins with level 1-5 and put stickers on the books. I put all the paperbacks into bins and colour coded them with stickers. This is a system they use in their classrooms, so keep it the same and it made browsing so much easier for the K-2s.

My library is in the centre of the school with 2 main access points for users to enter which is great. Plus there is a 3rd door connecting it to the computer lab which is great when I move my lesson over to the lab. Finally, there is a good size office for me to keep supplies and materials in that I can lock and a good size room for novel sets, dvds, and in-focus type items that can also be locked. The space it large. About 2 full classrooms size and there are good natural walking paths. I can sit 30 kids in the tables for work or 60 kids on the carpet in front of a white board for lessons, guest speakers etc. The flags and other things on the walls are great for all people to see when they walk by and they often walk in to check it out.

Future changes... smart board is to come!

Lesson 12

This week's lesson was all about creating a library webpage or blog. I have been very lucky in this regard. Over a year ago, one of the head librarians in my district offered to teach us about blogs and webpages. So I attended. I started out very very basic, but I have now worked it up into a place that has many uses:

- students use for resources
- we do projects on it
- teachers use it for resources
- I use it for UBC work
- I/teachers use for for computer classes (left over time play on the blog)
- I use for for music class projects
- Students love posting on it
- I've used it for pro-d stuff

Just over a year there have been over 7,000 visits. Impressive for a school with 220 kids and 15 teachers.

I liked how this week's lesson was still able to help me even though I have experience in the area. I posted the links to Prince of Wales and the webpages examples into this blog to keep them for future use. I will be going through those in greater detail over the spring as I am always looking to improve and add to my blog.

As I mentioned in my posting. Bogs/webpages for libraries are not needed. But some would argue that we are not needed either. My job is to make myself so valuable to the staff that they don't want me to leave or have my position cut. I wish more TLs thought this way.

My must have items for having a webpage were purely meant for me and my users, but I feel that they are these listed below:


1) link to the online collection and district resource centre

2) attractive photos that the kids can get a visual and be proud to see their library online

3) Links to basic databases 

4) Links to basic news sources

5) Links to help your staff - online sources for them

6) Fun element - for me that is online games, voting polls etc... stuff that keeps the kids coming back to the site. I don't want them to visit just once and that is it. I want them to save it in their browser and then they can get in the habit at a young age of going there and then by grade 6/7 they start using the databases. 

7) Keep is simple - confusing ones with too many pages on top of pages is too much for elementary kids.. the younger ones need it simple. The grade 6/7s need direct links to the databases as they are lazy/inexperienced searchers. 



With my blog I feel I have achieved this, however, like I said, it is a work in progress. The moment it becomes static that is when people stop using it. I'm always trying to add to it and improve it.


If you would like to view the blog google: Errington Library and it will pop up on the browser. 


What I loved about this lesson is it shows that I am on the right track for doing my job to the best that I can. I am helping my users in all possible ways I can. Giving them this blog and keeping up with IT or in some cases ahead of it makes me look very valuable to the staff at my school. 

Lesson 11

I agree with the lesson when talking about the OPAC. The function are:

Identify - to show what is in the library
Locate - to describe an item and say where to find it
Collocate - and put similar groupings together when needed

My school uses the Follett Destiny system, so much of this lesson is review for me, as it mentions in this lesson posting. I do like using Follett. I used another system in Delta when I was a TOC there, can't recall it, but I feel Destiny was much better. And Delta did switch to Destiny shortly after I started there. I find Destiny to be very user friendly. It is easy to teach to the users. Kids in grade 1/2 classes can use it for the basics and TLs can use it to the max with power searching. I find Destiny to be visually appealing. Easy to read the information that is needed and the tabs are there for more info, MARCs or Catalogue/Circulation etc.

In this week's lesson, I have to comment that I am very happy I don't have to deal with the setting up the webpage and talking to Follett when when have issues or need up grades or when we renew Titlepeak. From talking to some private school TLs they have to do all of this on their own. That could be a daunting task with the support network you have when you are part of a district. I have heard it is thousands of dollars to buy these programs and then to pay for upgrades each year or services such at Titlepeak. The first year our district had Titlepeak, each school had to pay for it as only about half wanted it. We paid about $200 each I recall. Times that by 20 schools. Now the district pays for the whole district to get Titlepeak each year.

As it is right now, our district gives us the high level for access. I can create stats, delete/edit books, do inventory, weed etc etc. There is a lot of freedom of use. We have a TOC password for then they come in that limits them for usage and then there is the basic level for users trying to search the system.

In looking at textbook circulation my school does not practice this. I do not believe this is part of the TLs job and I'm happy we do not do this. Most libraries do not have the space to store the entire school's textbooks, so it is easier that they stay with the teachers. In some subject areas, the classes have to share textbooks, so if we were using the checkout system, this would mean they have to sign in and out each time they moved the science books from one gr 6/7 to the other 6/7 class.

For circulation I allow my students to do the check out. From gr 1-7. I train many of them from grade 3-5, so by grade 6/7 I just pick 2 people that day and they know what to do. It is seen as a treat/reward for them, something they want to do and I'm happy for this. For the gr 1/2 class I only train a couple of them, they know what to do. For the gr 2/3 and 3/4 classes I only train a small group, maybe 8 in the class, the ones I know that can do it. Then the other kids like this, really want to do it, so by the time they are gr 4/5 they are eager to learn about the check out and about the Dewey system. The gr 4/5 class collects all the books in the morning and I scan them in, then they shelve them. I pick 8-10 kids per term and split of the days of the week, so the kids all get a chance. Plus they are learning the computer at this time too. It is a way to teach them about Dewey without using boring workbooks. They don't even know they are learning.

I posted about how I really like Destiny and I do think it is a good system. My only complaints were about spelling. Meaning, if you spell it wrong, Destiny won't pick it up. I teach my students from gr 1-7 about searching each year. So the only issues I ever have are students asking me how to spell something for their search or they say the book doesn't exist but they have seen it, meaning they spelt it wrong. Then I remind them of that. They are usually the younger kids. But I am always able to help them as I have set-up the circulation desk with kids that know how to do a check out, so I can help the searchers as there are no other teachers in the class with me (prep time).

I also like how we can use Destiny from anywhere in the world. I used to have teachers emailing me on the weekends. They were looking for books in the library or the district. No matter how many times I told them the address then never would remember, but they still liked to search on the weekends. So when I set up my library blog I put a link to the destiny page for our school and our district. Now the teachers only have to remember the school name, then the blog appears, then they can do their searching.

Lesson 10

This lesson was all about cataloguing and the various methods this can be done. I created a posting discussing how lucky I was to be working in a district that has a district wide processing system. When I first started in the library I did not have any course work or experience. The head librarians were there for me to answer my questions. Give me support and answer any of my questions. I could focus on the lessons and learning how to run the library. The head librarians did the processing. Over the past few years I have learned how the system works.

In my district it is a union based one using the Follett/Destiny system, where we can all see the materials at each school. I find this system to be excellent!! I love how I can borrow materials from other libraries. We use Titlepeak to show the book covers and get more indepth summaries.

This system is good too as the head librarians are importing the MARCs from Follett. Usually they can scan the barcodes/ISBN number or the book is already in their system. However, when discussing with my head librarians they said sometimes they have to go to other sources to get info, such as: LCC, CIP, etc.

I was discussing with a private school TL about this and often they have to do most of this themselves. That is a huge task to take on with not much experience. Plus they have to purchase the systems and have someone maintain the webpages for them. We have a resource centre to do the purchasing (group rate is cheaper) and maintaining the webpage.

I am very happy where I am and knowing that I can pass off this task to someone who is very experienced in this area. This way I can focus on creating excellent lessons and not worry about going to ULS or getting CDroms or copy cataloguing from somewhere.

The lesson discussed using Titlewave and ULS for looking at your collection. This was discussed in another class of mine. I posted comments on this too. However, I feel for me right now, this is not useful.   I have a great understanding of my users and my collection. I know the weak points and the strengths. By using these systems, you plug in your inventory to the webpage and they tell your where you can update you collection and make suggestions for you to but from them. So it is a money maker for them. However, I do feel this is a useful tool in the right time. For me it would be if I moved schools. It would be a much faster way of seeing the weaknesses of a new collection. Of course I would also be running historical stats for the collection age and usage via Follett to compliment this.

This lesson also talked about repairing books.... this was tough for me. When I started I wanted to mend/repair as much as I could. Then when I started weeding and learned how to get 'tough' on books and my collection I became much more brave and just deleted the copy and bought a new one. If it happened again, I would stay away from it if I could. The "Bone" books are good examples of that, they fall apart so easily. This is a time factor too. Time spent fixing the books vs re-ordering. I find it easier to buy a new one plus it looks nicer. Much like the time factor in importing MARCs... spend the money, and put the human time into people and not into data processing.

Finally, in dealing with donated materials, I will tell them upfront, that if I can use it I will, but I will look at my collection, the book condition, and the published date. If I cannot use it I tell them I will try to find a good home for that book. When I started I was tempted to take all donations, but with experience comes the knowledge.

Lesson 9

This lesson was not too much new for me considering I have been in the library for a few years now. How I did learn that the LCC system is being used in Winnipeg and some universities. I was not aware of this happening and it is a good thing to know. I thought I would cut and paste in the Dewey categories for this posting. This is taken right from the class notes. I often talk to the students about these sections and the Dewey system. I think I will copy and paste this into my library blog as another thing for the kids to look at when they log in.

I liked the rules to remember.... moving a good book if it is not being circulated where it is, bend the rules and that Dewey is not a perfect system. I often do this. There are some series for children's novels that have different authors and they are all over the library. In order to get the kids hooked on these books I created some bins for these books and put a sticker on the book so the students shelving know where it goes back. A good example would be the "My Story" historical fiction series. Graphic Novels also have their own bins too as it is much easier then sending the kids all over the library for their favourite GNs.

In reading the class postings for ideas I really liked some of them and I thought this was a great idea to share our activities. I have not done posters before. I think I might try that this year as the kids will love them and they will be learning more without even knowing it. I posted about a "library searching game" that the kids really love!! They often ask to play that game.

Main Classes and Divisions

Main classes	Divisions - 000's	Divisions - 100's
000 Computers, information and general reference 100 Philosophy and psychology 200 Religion 300 Social sciences 400 Language 500 Science and mathematics 600 Technology 700 Arts and recreation 800 Literature 900 History and geography	000 Generalities 010 Bibliography 020 Library & information science 030 General encyclopedias 040 Not used 050 General serial publications 060 Organizations 070 Journalism, publishing, media 080 General collections 090 Manuscripts & rare books	100 Philosophy & Psychology 110 Metaphysics 120 Epistemology, causation, humankind 130 Paranormal phenomenon 140 Specific philosophical schools 150 Psychology 160 Logic 170 Ethics 180 Ancient, medieval, Oriental philosophy 190 Modern western philosophy
Divisions - 200's	Divisions - 300's	Divisions - 400's
200 Religion 210 Philosophy & theory of religion 220 Bible 230 Christianity 240 Christian moral & devotional theology 250 Christian orders & local church 260 Social & ecclesiastical theology 270 History of Christianity & Christian sects 280 Christian denominations 290 Comparative religion & other religions	300 Social Sciences 310 Statistics 320 Political science 330 Economics 340 Law 350 Public administration & military science 360 Social programs & services 370 Education 380 Commerce 390 Customs, etiquette, folklore	400 Language 410 Linguisitics 420 English & Old English 430 Germanic 440 French 450 Italian, Romanian, Rhaeto-Romanic 460 Spanish & Portuguese 470 Latin 480 Greek 490 Other languages
Divisions - 500's	Divisions - 600's	Divisions - 700's
500 Natural Sciences & Math 510 Math 520 Astronomy 530 Physics 540 Chemistry 550 Earth sciences 560 Paleontology 570 Life sciences 580 Plants 590 Animals	600 Technology & Applied Sciences 610 Medicine 620 Engineering 630 Agriculture 640 Home economics (cooking) 650 Management 660 Chemical engineering 670 Manufacturing 680 Manufacture for specific uses 690 Building	700 Arts, Sports, Recreation 710 Civic & landscape art 720 Architecture 730 Plastic arts (sculpture) 740 Drawing & decorative art 750 Painting 760 Graphic arts 770 Photography 780 Music 790 Recreation, performing arts, sports
Divisions - 800's	Divisions - 900's
800 Literature & Rhetoric 810 American 820 English & Old English 830 Germanic 840 French 850 Italian, Romanian 860 Spanish, Portuguese 870 Latin 880 Greek 890 Other literatures	900 Geography, History, Biography 910 Geography, travel 920 Biography, genealogy, insignia 930 Ancient world 940 Europe 950 Asia 960 Africa 970 North America 980 South America 990 Other areas

Lesson 8

Delicious.com

I have heard of this site from another teacher that really enjoys it, but this was my first time viewing this webpage. When looking at delicious.com I found a number interesting findings when I was playing with the searches.

I started by searching:

1) "printables" - often this is a good way to see what can help me to help teachers by giving them something that is quick and easy to use. This took me in a direction of flash cards, printable games, links to "Enchanted Learning" (which we belong to and use). I found this to be useful and something I can suggest to my teachers. This was a quick and easy hit that worked very well and I was impressed.

2) "sharks" - I randomly picked an animal and I found this process to be frustrating at the start. I decided to pick something that kids would just type into the search engine and hope for answers. The results were all over the place. I then added the tag "information" to it and this did not help the process. So I deleted "information" and typed in "resources" to go with the "sharks" tag. This resulted in many more hits that would be useful. It took me to a link "Fiona's Shark Links" and there was lots of information here. I also used one of their suggested tags "science" and this resulted in a number of hits that could be useful, after that tag I used their suggested tag of "reference" and this narrowed the search to some sights that would actually be useful by some elementary students.

My reaction to this process was mixed. As an educator with a degree, knowledge in searching, patience in finding information I can see how this site would be useful and how the 'tags' button can change/help you in searching for information. I would be ok with spending time trying to find something that would enhance my lessons. However, there is no way I would expect an elementary student to have the skills to sift through all this information. This would be too much for them to take in and they would get frustrated as they want that information instantly. I'm not sure if a high school student would be able to do it.

Adding the tags is a nice awareness tip for me. This is helpful in working towards assignment #2 when I start adding tags to my MARC. The sharks tag was a little annoying trying to find something that would be readable for an elementary age student, it wasn't until I had these tags "shark, sharks, science, reference" was I able to get a quick hit that would work for elementary students. This makes me more aware of the word choices used in the MARC for the library catalogue when the students are trying to find the information books they need. However, this process was ok in finding information that a teacher could use in to help their lessons if they had too, they would just need to be aware that a little time would need to be spent in finding something they want.

Lesson 7

This lesson I learned all about Cataloguing in Publication (CIP). We learned how we can import the MARC information from other sites for when we have to do the cataloguing. It was an eye opening experience as we had to compare 3 books, look at their CIP on the inside cover and then compare this information to a MARC on the Canadian site AMICUS or with the American site the Library Congress.

I selected a few of my favourite books....

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Tuesday
Steal Back the Mona Lisa

What I found was interesting. I learned that both Meatballs and Tuesday had a CIP in the book that was taken right from the Library Congress. This is interesting as I have never once looked at this information before in a book. So I am much more aware of a book's background information. Almost as if I am admitted to a secret club with this knowledge as most regular readers wouldn't know (or maybe care) to look at this info. Mona Lisa did not have a CIP in the book at all. This was a learning experience because I realized that when a book does not have this information in it the head librarians in my district will have a much harder job to do when they are cataloguing. Learning this information makes me have a greater understanding of how hard the head librarians' jobs in my district can be.

This lesson also had me learn about the Library Congress and AMICUS. They are 2 new spots I can go for information on MARCs. I signed up to be a member of AMICUS.

Week 6 lesson

I know I have been calling them 'week' for the lessons but I should have been calling them lessons... so lesson 6.

This lesson was all about creating a MARC for a book of our choice. However, in order to do this, we had to learn all about MARC. Just when I think I know it all, I am totally surprised and pleasantly surprised. The MARC tab has been on my Follett system all this time and I have never used it. I have seen it a couple times here and there. Saw some of the info on it, but it looked to hard to read, so I would stick with the "title details"section. I am very happy to have learned all about what MARC is. With almost every lesson in the core courses of the UBC library diploma I feel I become a more competent librarian. After creating my own MARC for a Vampire Plagues book (that I plan to read next for my students) I looked ahead to the coming weeks of what is coming up and I did not feel to worried about assignment #2 anymore as this week's lesson has given me the knowledge and skills to make that assignment possible. So often the new TLs (including me) are so worried about only promoting literature and it isn't until you have been teaching for a few years that you learn about all these other important aspects of the job. Last summer in taking Libr 462 we spent a little time on weeding and had to weed some in your library for experience. That is when I realized how poor my non-fiction section really was and this past month I weeded 1500 books from the collection. So I'm looking forward to how knowing more about MARC and other skills I'm learning in this class will help improve my skills as a TL.

The actual creation of the MARC was not a hard one or tedious (even though I got some things wrong - it was a good learning experience) and.... it is probably not my type of work, however I can understand why it is important that we know this and see how it can be used. It is a system that is used all over and it is important to recognize this. It also gave me a much much higher appreation for what the head librarians do for me. I am already so thankful for how much they help me as is, but now I can understand their job so much better.

Week 5

In looking at cataloguing I thought I knew it all, link before. But I found I was learning new things, such at the word access points. It makes sense that we have a descriptive word to for this process. In looking at the mother goose example the first thing that stuck out for me was the image of the book. We have this at my library under a service called title peak. It is a great product as sometimes the information provided by Follett doesn't always help, but the image can tell you a lot about the book when accessing it on the net. I signed up for this service as soon as I could and then a year later our district signed up all the schools for us.

Part of this lesson talks about NAP (naming access points) in how you search one to find a book.... but my complaint about Follett is just this. If you spell the name wrong the search will come up empty. When I teach my students how to search on Follett, I show them with a visual in the lab (they watch me), I tell/show them how misspelled words don't work, give them a number of examples and then I give them a worksheet to do. I purposely put  the "." in Dr. Seuss as the computer doesn't like it and watch them struggle, so they learn. I wish Follett was more like Google with the spelling errors.

In reading the article on library cards I can't help but remember the days of being a kid trying to figure out the cards how they worked and how poorly the TLs of the the day were that never actually taught this skill. We were left to figure it out on our own and it wasn't until I was in university and the net was now doing this task that I understood how a library worked....

I liked the section about the principles of a catalogue (taken from the UBC online article)

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

The following is cut from this week's lesson but I found it to be interesting how the standards are provided for the information on each book. The standards come from ISBD (International Standards Bibliographic Description). I just assumed that is how Follett was giving the info to me.

Area	Description
Area 1	Title and statement of responsibility (for example: author, editor, artist)
Area 2	Edition
Area 3	Material-dependent information (for example, the scale of a map or the duration of a sound recording)
Area 4	Publication and distribution
Area 5	Physical description (for example: number of pages in a book or number of CDs in the same jewel case)
Area 6	Series
Area 7	Notes
Area 8	Standard number (ISBN, ISSN)

Week 4

This week's lesson involved learning about the online dictionary for librarians to use. I found this to be a useful link and I posted it into the links bar for future reference. I wish I had learned about that link at the start of my diploma, but better late then never. I find that every time I think I know something about the topic and still manage to learn more which makes me a better TL and helps to make me sound more professional when discussing the topics with co-workers.

Week 3

This week was all about how sites like google and yahoo go about sorting their searches for you. It was an eye opening read as I flipped through the webpages. I mostly focussed on google as this is the one I use for everything. I had not really considered what they deemed to be important when you had your search. I have learned how to search much better over the years in order to get the item I want. I teach this skill to my students too.

A recent example for me was looking up a guitar. Instead of typing in 'yamaha' or 'guitar' or 'acoustic-electric guitars' I used the model number to narrow the one I wanted to learn about. I searched 'yamaha cpx 500' and went straight to the info I needed. This is a skill that needs to be taught to our students to help them get though the information overload.

In reading the background on google I have forgotten how much they have taken on with maps, images, blogs, webpages and many other things. So they have a whole legal department and they discuss how things are found, they have FAQ sections, advertising sections and more.

Here is the info for how google does their searches:

Google
-uses crawlers that visit a page, copies the content on the page and then follows the links on that page to the pages linked to it
-processes these pages and makes an index
-uses a ranking algorithm called PageRank, which determines the importance of the page by viewing the other pages linked to it
-uses more than 200 signals to order websites and Google updates these algorithms weekly



It is all very tech wordy for me.....

Week 2

Access - This week there was a section on access to your library. It reminded me of the discussion in my summer library course where the idea was to open the library up for more access, not only for in person but online as well.

It made me think of how I started and the control freak I was in the library with the books and returns and who was helping how and doing what.... This would be because I was so green and had no idea about how to operate a library. As I learned I moved on, grew, opened up more and more in the library as I felt I could release. I am now at the point where the students run the check outs, shelve books, help with processing, stickers, labels, stamping, weeding..... I've learned how to become a manager in the library with great control. Teaching the students how to run the library with giving them lots of access and ownership. I have backed off on how many books get taken out and for how long as well. I have grown a lot over the past few years!

This week had a good read on how libraries need a revolution from the school library journal, looking to the future and having 24/7 access.

This week also had a nice webpage with all the library terms in an online library dictionary. It is a useful tool that I have put into the links bar for future use. There was some discussion with acquisition, organization, and circulation. These are all terms that come up in my daily life, so I am confident in them, however, with each course I take, I take home more and more. Each course had a different take on these terms that all apply to the job. So I am looking forward to what I learn from these topics in this course.

Week 1

In looking at the intro week for the course and the readings I learned a couple of interesting things already. I loved the bio article from the school library journal that gave an interesting background on Dewey. It was nice to read a little on what he was about so I can now discuss that in class if needed. I also liked the Dewy rap. I put both those links on my school library blog. Hopefully they get used as I do promote them.

In looking forward to the course outline I'm looking forward to learning some background for cataloguing as I feel this is a weakness for me. I heard the Sears book for the first time last week and I wasn't sure what it was and seeing that was also in the course outline will also be good.

Most of the diploma courses have been great. I've been able to take something away from each class. Often I was doing what was discussed but I didn't know the rational why and the proper terminology, so the courses have given me that ability to speak like a professional TL that knows the issues.

Learning how to create a webpage will also be a good skill too!