Elisabeth Doucett "What They Don’t Teach You In Library School"

This book serves as a practical guide in going from theory to practice, namely from student life to that of a librarian. While a lot of it is common to any industry, such as how to handle unruly people or unrealistic expectations of your career, there are a few pockets of wisdom unique to the library industry.

Encouraging the reader to look beyond their own library and form a sisterhood with another library, the idea is to both take lessons from each other, for the betterment of your job and yourself. Through this relationship, you can improve your management, programs, and marketing, amongst other things, and it gives tips and tricks in how to achieve this.

The advanced chapter contains a healthy dosage of business-like attitudes, from networking to teamwork, which are important in practically any career, as well as how to analyse trends and handle figures.

Although I really enjoyed this book, I think a lot of it is common knowledge if you’ve worked before, whether it is the community, hospitality, retail, or another industry. It is rather hefty, at $38 on a Kindle, let alone a hard copy, and I’m not sure it earns the price-tag. Check it out at your local library, but a new-job guide and an ALIA journal probably cover the same amount of content, and would be just as digestible.

Organising Resources

School can be daunting.

As a student (not that teachers are exempt here), you are going to receive a lot of information throughout the year, for a variety of different subjects which can be further divided up into specific workloads. Arranging that inefficiently or inappropriately can often lead to trouble.

We're fortunate as modern students to see that a lot of (and sometimes all) our content is delivered through e-resources, which means that nothing can ever truly get lost, and there is always a back-up (or, there really should be!)

Before school even starts, decide on what format you will be arranging your hard copies by, and stick with it. Whether it is a folder and notepad, display folders and textbooks, have it all prepared from your very first lesson so you don't have to rearrange these things later.

Of course, there are a few simple rules that you should abide by. Use plastic sleeves on all printed work, or at the very least, for those handouts you will be referring to all throughout the term or semester. It only takes one sleepy morning of not putting your drink bottle lid on properly that has the potential to ruin things. Even if you have soft copies that you can print out the moment you get home, to have to print and rearrange things more than once is wasting valuable time that you could be revising the said information instead.

Remember that you probably aren't going to get a copy of every piece of information your teacher shows you, especially in regards to presentations, so take notes. Get down the main concepts, keywords, and links, so you also have something to further research later. Even if you do end up getting a soft or hard copy of it in the end, it is good practice to maintain your physical writing skills. It also makes sure that you are trying to comprehend the information as you receive it if you have to decipher it, and stops your mind from wandering too far from the given topic.

In regards to soft copies, it also pays to be dilligent in your organisation. If possible, have a dedicated USB for your course. At the end of every day, copy it to your private drive at school, your home computer, and a general storage external hard-drive. It also doesn't hurt to store copies online or in the cloud, i.e. in your email, or through a program like Dropbox. This makes sure that all your files are current, and that you will always have a back up in case of malfunctiong or lost hardware, not to mention damage of your home or school.

Create and label a folder with the name of your over-all course, and further make a folder for each unit. From there, I have found it best to arrange information in folders that are labelled according to the week, and the possible topic of that week, for example, "Week 7 MARC introduction". When you receive e-copies of some information, make sure that the file name is labelled accordingly. Teachers will often give you PDFs with a title like, "Introduction", so edit it to make sure it includes either the basic unit name or the specific topic or concept, where you can easily associate it with the over-all course unit.

It is also quite handy to rename the file including a brief status of what you have had or are going to do, i.e. "Introduction to cataloguing (print)", "Web Page Timetable (printed)", "Learning Presentation (summarised)".

Depending on how you learn, you won't necessarily have to print everything, but some people find it easier based on their learning styles. If you have found success with the VARK learning style analysis of yourself, then you'll be very aware of how you best learn. For read-writer learners and visual learners, it is often best to have a hard-copy of the work that you can interact with. However, if you have the money, it may be worth investing in a good tablet. Many programs allow you to highlight, mark, and scribble in the margins.

Revision is the act of going over your unit notes, and it excludes homework. Try to spend at least an hour a week revising each subject, and it is best if that isn't done in a huge chunk. Aim to revise at least six days a week, at least ten minutes a day. There are exceptions to this, of course, but this should be your basic weekly outline. If Monday is too hectic because you run from school to work, then try and make Tuesday a more intensive revision night.

Do your revision first, which can be as simple as rereading the latest handouts. After your allocated time for that unit is up, tackle the corresponding homework, weekly exercises, or assessment, which should hopefully enforce everything that you have just read through.

Best of luck for the new school year! To look at my resource format for this year, click here.

Posters

For great bookish posters, head over to Scholastic here. I also found some interesting other blogs through poster searching, including Forbidden Planet and Lost & Found Books.

Library Studies Update

One week until school starts!

To prepare, I am finishing off my little Dewey Decimal study notes (as of writing this, I am up to 710, which is Civic & Landscape Art. I am learning something new every single day!) I've been using a mixture of Wikipedia, the page here, and this site, as reference.

Our printer has a little bit of a temperment... It will print 100 pages fine for me, as long as I don't ask for colour or anything fancy, and for Peter, it will print barely half. I think it is a little bit spiteful. I am full of praise for it, and Pete prints something expecting it to fail. I think it is a living thing that doesn't want to be disrespected. (Magic Toaster, anyone?)

I was also browsing library books (that is, books ON libraries) on the web, somewhat disappointed that we don't actually have textbooks for this course. Don't worry though. I found something to amuse myself. Added to my order were these two books, links in order here and here. And I added this one to my wishlist.

 

Orientation

Today was finally orientation for the diploma course. I got there exactly one hour early, and hung around the library.

Orientation took quite a while, as we got a basic introduction to the course and its units before being divided up into groups based on type of study and timetables. There was some flexibility to the timetabling, but they were all pretty early starts, regardless, so I just took whatever was available. I'm in the Yellow group!

I was "last but not least" again, but all the time in the world makes up for the sight that greeted me when I left the elevator.

FREE BOOKS(!)(!!!!!!!)

I grabbed a stack of them, everything concerning the opera, economics, poetry, and interesting sounding fiction.

With my newly acquired books, I headed off to Student Association, were I signed up for a whole year at the gym, which works out amazingly cheap. It'll be the perfect thing to fill up one hour breaks, and early finishes. 

I am so excited for this school year!

 

My New (And Last) School

Ulitmo TAFE has the biggest library I have been to yet. Every subject possible has been fleshed out and explored. They have a dozen bookshelves (not just shelves) on programming and computers alone. Their section on libraries is comprehensive, to say the least. They also have more books on graphic design and illustration than I knew existed.

I settled down with an illustration book I'd never seen before, and thought about how I can expand my current portfolio (my deadline is the first day of school). I also checked out books on character design, Japanese patterns, and a set of massive graphic design textbooks.

When I needed a breather and a drink, I wandered aimlessly around the school. I discovered that there are two cafeterias, loads of fancy bathrooms, a really cool light, Student Association, and, to my huge delight, a gym!

Classes start in two weeks, and I can't wait. The atmosphere is positively lovely.

Bright Future

I only did two units from the Certificate III of Cultural & Information Studies, before I got bored. It is mainly about researching and citations, which I am quite adept at - regardless of what a certain coordinator implied. To do the Diploma, regardless of your previous courses, you had to take a general aptitude test at your selected college, which was Ultimo for me.

Pete had to go into the Conservatorium, so we caught the train into the city together. I got a bit lost from Central, as I am more used to the Market City-side, and it took me a while to realise I wasn't getting an accurate map as GPS was disabled on my mobile.

As soon as I got to the right building, I snapped a picture of the smart cobblestone path.

As you can see by my photos, I was a little over-excited. I was really happy to find out that library studies has its own level. It means I should be able to chat to anyone there, and have a common interest... (at least in theory!)

 

As I rode up in the elevator and the doors opened, this is the first thing I saw. My heart lit up instantly.

 

There are a lot of these all around the place. I wish I could have taken a photo of every single one, but I was trying not to make a scene since everyone was lined up in single file outside the meeting room.

There were a lot of applicants compared to the amount of places, so I was really nervous. This was intensified as we were divided into our previous completion of library studies: Cert IV completionists, Cert III completitionists, and those of us who hadn't completed either. I thought things were over at this point in time.

There were only four teachers conducting interviews, and dozens of students, so it was a pretty slow process. They asked if there was anyone who needed to hurry up and get going (it was around 2pm, so a lot of mothers were anxious about the school pick-ups). I volunteered to go last, with the opinion that I would only be reading at home, so indulging in my book while I waited wasn't that harsh a punishment for me (hehe).

"Patience is a virtue," I was told, so I patiently waited and was last to go in for both interviews. 

I was only a little nervous, and incredibly sleepy, but I did my best to remain calm and imply confidence during my interview.  They were impressed by my technology credentials and my history of working in childcare, so I think I charmed them enough to make up for my lack of library-related studies.

After that, I was sent into the computer room. Despite being the last in, I was one of the first out. It was just a simple comprehension test in a word-file, that you then had to email as an attachment with the appropriate name, as well as the stated body and subject text.

With that successfully completed, I was sent into the second waiting room, where I volunteered to be the last in line again. I read my book, and occasionally chatted with the fellow applicants about history, pub trivia, music, and, of course, books.

When my name was finally called, it was by the lovely lady who had interviewed me in the first place. As I stood up, she said that there was no need for a second interview, since she had done the first one, and everything looked fine.

Before I left, I had the audacity to ask about the posters all over the wall, and got the name Southern Scene at this address. I want them so badly! I am thinking of adding a few to the Christmas list.

As I walked away, I felt less and less confident. Maybe they weren't giving me an interview because I was so terrible in the first one!

All my fears went away the next day as I found out that I was in! I am so excited to start a new semester. I feel like saying something lame like, "Bring it on!"