Day 2, Hour 10

It is Day 2 of my practicum at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library, and I did some great research and other basic work toward my end experience.

I started today by creating a working list of notes, which is really just a collection of questions I come up with as I think about what the user experience will look like from start to finish. Today, I was mostly considering membership and who that would be extended to. For instance, Andy and I discussed that students would be able to use the library, and I was assuming he meant Tri-C students, since the library is on their campus. However, I was thinking that membership should be extended to all Northeast Ohio college students. Could we also include other regional college and high school students, faculty, and staff?

This is not to say that the library will not be open to the public, which it will. However, there is a question of membership and whether or not the library will charge for it. I think a good policy would be to offer membership for free or at a discounted rate for students, faculty, and staff of regional institutions. This would allow for the fostering of great research skills in an interesting and important subject field.

I also began researching information on libraries that allow for lending of materials to patrons on-site, but do not all borrowing off-site. It seems as though this is the policy for many academic research libraries, and for university libraries who allow "unaffiliated users" to utilize their facilities (in many universities, unaffiliated users--such as those who do not fall into the category of students, faculty, or staff--are allowed to utilize materials in the library but cannot check them out). I gathered citations and abstracts from several articles that expound on this subject, and I have begun to analyze the information to come up with a policy on lending for the Rock Hall Library.

Lastly, I created a wiki that I will share with my practicum supervisors and advisor that will contain pertinent information about the work I complete this semester. I made a calendar with dates of deadlines and created spaces to publish my notes and research bibliographies, and a place to keep track of my practicum hours, as well. All in all, I feel like I accomplished quite a bit today!

Coming up next: I will continue to work on my wishlist for inductees next Tuesday. I am finding that through my research for that, I am able to add some titles to my DVD wishlist, as well. Sometimes going off on a tangent can be a good thing!

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 1, Hour 5

Today was the first official day of my practicum at the new (and not yet open to the public) Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archives, though I volunteered here this summer. After a grueling one hour and forty-five minute commute (thanks, I-77 construction!), I sat down with library director Andy Leach (check out his Rock Hall blog posts here) to discuss opportunities for my practicum experience.

As I mentioned earlier, I volunteered at the library this summer. During that time, I got some collection development experience while compiling a basic list of DVDs that should be a part of the library's collection. Andy and I decided that it would be a good experience to continue this work, but to now focus on biographies and other books related to and about the inductees of all years past.

We also talked about my practicum having a second focus: Policy and procedure. Andy has asked me to come up with information to help them decide what their patron experience will look like; we discussed things like membership, borrowing, and organization, just to name a few.

For my day today, I spent my time compiling lists of biographies for the inductees, starting with inductees from the first ceremony in 1986. I began by looking in the bibliographies of two books, and expanded my search with Wikipedia and other informational websites. For some artists, it is difficult to weed through the massive amounts of biographies--books about Elvis are surely in the hundreds--so I tried to narrow my search with recommendations from the authors of the bibliographies and ratings on Amazon. If I determine any other ways to limit those searches, I will surely list them here.

Coming up next: After today, I am really excited to begin research on policy and procedure. That is how I will spend my day here next time I am in, which is Thursday.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura