My First Library Placement

Since September 2017, I have been a college student in a library and information technician program online through distance education. It is a two year program that I will be finished with at the end of May. Part of the program involves two library placement and I finished my first placement earlier this month. It was at an academic library that I had previously visited for an assignment so I already knew some of the staff. It was amazing and so much better than I could have ever hoped for. I went in with so much anxiety but left with so much confidence. The staff there were so nice and helpful. I had so many different experiences and tried so many different things. I got to see which parts of library work I like best and which parts I need to improve on. This placement made me see just how right library work is for me and made me want to pursue it even more.

Here's what I did during my placement:

Displays: I created posters with inspirational quotes for a positivity board, put up and took down event posters, set up a board for a smoke-free day at the college, and created two book displays including a Summer Romance fiction book display and a job-hunting non-fiction book display.

Cataloguing:I catalogued fiction books, non-fiction books, periodicals, and even supplies/tools (rulers, phone chargers), doing physical processing for them as well, and learned how DVDs and CDs are catalogued.

Weeding: I gathered books from a list that a staff member created, let the staff review them for books that might want to be kept, and then removed the rest from the catalogue.

Book selection: I looked through publications like Library Journal and BookList to understand some of the ways that libraries select items for their collections and I also added selections made by another staff member to the library's main selection list.

Front desk circulation/reference: I sat at the front desk and checked out items, returned items, booked study rooms, and helped students with computer/printer issues.

Book repair: I learned how to and helped replace the plastic protective book jacket for a book that needed a new one.

Archival: I digitized documents for the college's archive by scanning them and saving them to a USB memory drive and then named each one with information that would make it easy for searching.

Computers and printers/photocopiers: I helped students with issues on the computer as well as with printing and photocopying.

Library policies and practices: I read documents about the library's collection development policy and weeding practices as well as a list of reference definitions. I also read some library technician job descriptions.

Along with controlling my anxiety, the most difficult part of the placement was dealing with computer and printing issues. However, it was a bit out of my control because there were some computer/printing issues that were not the norm and were specific to the computers in that library. The highlights of my placement were helping a staff member that I was with help some students who spoke French since she did not speak enough French to be able to help them, cataloguing one of my favourite fiction books to add to the library's collection, and getting to practice my readers' advisory skills to suggest a specific book for a birthday present for a staff member's wife.

As I said before, this was such an amazing experience and I look forward to my next library placement!

Cheers,

Kaylie