Archive for the 'Library School' Category

Updatin’

Published on January 1, 2010 in DailyGrind, Library School and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

It is New Year’s Eve and I’m hanging out at home, listening to Matokie on KALX, drinking wine, and making polenta in anticipation of having the Stones over for brunch tomorrow. I’m not up for going out tonight what with being pretty exhausted and feeling a bit pouty.

So I’ve been Little Miss Never Blogs again. Time for a quarterly update!

My semester ended a couple of weeks ago. I took courses in Metadata, Research Methods, and Records Management this semester. I just got around to looking at my grades. Straight As. Good times. I actually enjoyed every one of those classes, which was a little surprising and gratifying. I’d had such a difficult semester last Spring for a whole host of reasons that I’d started out the Fall feeling pretty crappy about school in general and my abilities as a student specifically. I’m pleased with how things have worked out this Fall.

I’d assumed that I wouldn’t find the Research Methods course to be very useful, but it turned out to be pretty awesome. I learned about how to put together a sociological research project and different methods for collecting and analyzing data. My semester long project was writing a research proposal, which involved defining a topic, variables that would effect the research, doing a short literature review, and putting together a questionnaire that could reasonably be sent out to study subjects.

In my Metadata class, I was introduced to different metadata standards used in the library and museum worlds. My end of the semester project was putting together an archival finding aid for my own photographs and then writing a tutorial about how to put one together yourself. Good, geeky times.

The Records Management class was less exciting. But I discovered a strange, yet true love for color coded file folders.

In other news, I’m still working at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. I’ve been working on a scanning project for them that involves scanning engineering drawings dating back to the 1920s, when San Francisco began construction on the Hetch Hetchy damn up in Yosemite. Engineering drawings from that time period are absolutely amazing. Seriously, they were hand drawing so the originals are basically one of a kind works of art. I’ve learned all kinds of random things, like how blueprints are made (They’re literally sun prints. Neat!) and about the development of standardized paper sizes.

So yeah. Life’s been mostly about weird, archival based geekdom.

This Spring is my last semester of school. I’m taking Vocabulary Design, and a culminating course wherein I create something called an E-portfolio. I think I’m going to spending my next few weeks off trying to learn XSLT and thinking about how to write coherently about my ideas about librarianship as a profession. So, more geeky good times to come.

Geekery

Published on August 30, 2008 in Library School and ResidentHipster. 2 Comments

Yesterday was my first cataloging class meeting. While sitting in class, I started thinking about how you’d organize someone’s private library. Like, if you just had a room full of books, how would you keep track of all of them? Find one that you were looking for? Prevent buying duplicates?

And then I realized that my future probably holds some kind of crazy book cataloging scheme for my home.

I actually don’t have very many books right now. I two small/medium book cases worth. I know what I own and where exactly everything is. But, you know, 10 years from now that probably won’t be the case. I’m not even a book fetish type person, but you pick up a few every year. Plus if Les and I ever manage to move into a place where we both have all of our possessions, there will suddenly be a lot more books around.

Right now I have all my books from my undergrad years organized by broad subject. My hisotry books are all grouped depending on region and time period covered. So all my European history books are grouped from ancient history through modern Europe. Then there’s American history from the colonies to now. Fiction is grouped by how good it is. And cooking and craft things are all on the same shelf.

My fiction groupings make no goddamn sense, let me tell you. But everything else, at least, appears to have some kind of method.

Anyway, for those of you have a decent sized collection, how do you organize & keep track of everything? Do you sort of know what you have from memory? Do you use a website like Good Reads or Library Thing? How do you display them?

School’s back in

Published on August 27, 2008 in DailyGrind, Library School and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

So it’s the early evening and I’m sitting at my dining room table reading the “introduce yourself” thread for one of my classes. My semester started yesterday and I’ve only just realized how much reading I’m going to need to be doing for my classes.

I decided on taking all four of the classes I signed up for. None of the classes have an excessive amount of assignments and they’re staggered in a way that will allow me to get things done without going too crazy. That’s the hope at least. Three of my classes are mostly off-line, which I think will help a lot. My problems with keeping up with my classes last semester wasn’t the work load as far as assignments or readings, it was keeping up with the class discussions. They were often a little boring for me and the irregular updating made it hard to keep on top of everything.

Right now I’m trying to figure out a decent organization system to help me keep track of my classes. The book for my Information Secrecy class hasn’t been printed yet. So my professor, who edited the book, is posting chapters for us. Which means that I need to print out pages and pages of articles and keep track of each of them by week. I cannot really deal with in-depth reading on my computer of anything longer than about 5 pages.

So! Anyone have suggestions for keeping track of school stuff? Right now that best I can come up with are huge binder clips and great big document folders.

Which class would you take?

Published on June 20, 2008 in 10th, 13th, Library School, Paris, Photo, PostsWithPictures and Travel. 0 Comments

I’m having a bit of a dilemma.

I signed up for classes this week. One of the classes that I wanted to take was full, so I got on the wait-list for the full class and picked a different one from the list of classes I wanted to take.

I just got noticed that I got into my wait-listed class. Now I don’t know which class I should actually take. I think y’all should give me your opinions.

Here’s the deal:
I’m planning on taking 3 classes this semester.
I’ve finished the program’s core classes so now I’m mostly planning on focusing on Archival Studies. Eventually I’d like to work at a University archive, at a museum, or for some kind of arts organization. I’d also be interested in working for a government organization.
The archives track includes classes in collection management, preservation, and cataloging.
The class I got wait-listed for is in this track, as is one of my other choices. The third choice isn’t in my rotation, really, but sounds really interesting.

This is the class that I know for sure I want to take:

LIBR 256. Archives and Manuscripts
An introduction to the theory and practice of managing archival documents, such as personal papers, institutional records, photographs, electronic records, and other unpublished material. Topics covered include manuscript and records acquisition and appraisal, arrangement and description, conservation and preservation, reference and access.

It meets on the UC Berkeley campus on Saturdays every other week.

These are my other choices:

  • LIBR 248. Beginning Cataloging and Classification
    Theory and practice of bibliographic control including the study of representative cataloging using AACR2, machine-based representation using MARC formats and other standards, subject analysis and classification using LCSH, Dewey and LCC with application to books, non-book materials and serials.

    This meets every Thursday at the UC Berkeley campus.

  • LIBR 259. Preservation Management
    An introduction to the philosophies and techniques used to preserve manuscript, printed, and electronic materials. Examination of different preservation techniques, and their attendant philosophies, used over the ages, from chaining materials to desks to the current practice of digital imaging.

    This meets a few times (about every 2 or 3 weeks) at the SJSU campus.

  • LIBR 281 Information Secrecy and Freedom of Information
    This course examines the political, legal, regulatory, historical, and social dimensions of secrecy and its relationship to freedom of information in the United States. Topics covered in this class will include the growth of the U.S. secrecy system, security classification of information, federal information policy, and attempts to control public, scientific, and technical information sources. Consideration will also be given to the homeland security issues that surround information access in libraries.

    This is all online. This class is an “advanced seminar” and this topic was last taught in Spring 2007.

So yeah. Do I drop Information Secrecy because it isn’t really part of my rotation? Do I keep it because it sounds interesting and I may not have a chance to take it later? If I keep 281, do I drop Cataloging because it isn’t an absolute core class in my specialization? Do I drop Preservation Management because it is slightly less convenient than the other classes?

Scheduling issues:

  • Archives and Manuscripts and Preservation Management conflict once during the semester. They meet on the same day, one in the morning and then the other right afterwards in the afternoon. This would be fine except that one is in San Jose and the other is in Berkeley.
  • I’d been thinking of taking a trip in October for my birthday. If I take a class that meets every Thursday, I won’t be able to do that.
  • 248 and 259 get taught every semester. I *think* that they’re even taught in this same format (in person meetings) with the same profs.

What do you think?

Stuff and Junk

Published on February 20, 2008 in Brkly, DailyGrind, Library School, Oakland and ResidentHipster. 0 Comments

It is rainy out and I have not felt like leaving the house all day. I could totally go for some hot chocolate, too. But I don’t have any vanilla here so I’d have to go brave the afterwork rush at Trader Joe’s to get some, I think. Bah.

Les left yesterday morning. I haven’t gotten any panicked calls from detention yet, so I guess immigration went ok. I hope that the bag I made held up to the plane ride.

Yesterday after I got home from the airport, Theresa and I went through the fridge and the cupboards and threw out everything we didn’t recognize. It was sort of odd that it was the two of us doing it since we’ve lived in that place the least amount of time. I ended up with three bags of groceries to take over to my place in Oakland. I only had room on my bike for two bag, though. So I’ll have to go back tomorrow and get the rest.

After cleaning out the kitchen, I sat down to look at what my readings are for the week. Between Les’s birthday and all the last-time-I’ll-see-you social stuff, and being busy with sewing that bag I made for him, I didn’t have much time for my classes. I made sure to do the biographical write up that was due for one of them and I’d sort of scanned the websites for my other classes a little but for the most part I just sort of skipped out on the week figuring that I could make up the readings and I’d be ok.

Turns out this was a bad idea. Apparently I had a seven page paper due in one of may classes last night. I totally didn’t realize that I had anything to do until around 4pm yesterday. I hadn’t done any research or thought about my topic! Ak!

I raced over to my place in Oakland and started working on the paper. I just barely finished with just about 6 1/4 pages written at 11:30pm. The paper was due at midnight. Phew.

I really need better time management skills. I’m having serious trouble getting motivated to do my homework in these classes. I’m finding the online format to be really difficult to get a handle on. Without interaction with my professors face to face and other students, I’m finding it to be really difficult to figure out what each professor really expects out of me. Also, I find text books to be deeply boring so it’s hard to stay focused. I knew there was a reason I was reluctant about taking any classes after I finished my BA. Bah.