Day 19, Hour 95

As you may know, in addition to policy and procedure, I have been working on some collection development for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library + Archives. This is not exactly what you might have in mind when it comes to collection development, as there is no collection yet to analyze; rather, this is the building of a collection. This is my first experience with this, and I think it's been a great experience. I have gotten the opportunity to work on my research and selection skills, which are vitally important to the education of the future librarian. Here are some things I have learned so far:

1. It is very easy to go off on a tangent when searching for materials. In the instance of building a collection, though, tangents can be great! For example, I was searching for some books on The Rolling Stones and came across quite a few Beatles books that I had not yet discovered. I wrote down the titles to go back to later. The danger with tangents, though, is that you can lose your place or forget where you were going. This is why it's so important to keep a notepad in front of you at all times! Do not drop what you are doing; simply jot yourself a note, finish your task, and then revisit your new and interesting find.

2. There is no point at which you are finished with collection development. This can be a tough concept to wrap your head around, especially if you are a goal-oriented person. I could work for countless hours on the books and DVDs lists I am compiling, and as long as materials continue to be created and released and reviewed, I would never be done. As someone who, in the past, has relied on goals in her professional career, I have come up with a solution to this: Create small goals for yourself within a larger project. For instance, each day I hope to find at least three books for each inductee. Sometimes there are less, often there are many more. But at least I know that I have accomplished something I set out to do. Plus, I'll have this awesome list of titles to show for all my work in the end!

(Sidenote: I should have heeded my own warning about losing track of your place after a tangent. Now where was I? The Temptations? But what about that other Beatles book I read about? Did I finish looking into Rolling Stones DVDs?...)

3. Use multiple sources when searching for materials. This is something I have learned from experience. When there are bands that have hundreds of titles related to them, there must be some way of determining which materials are valuable and which are junk. The process I use begins with researching the inductee in The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Omnibus Press, 2007) and The Mojo Collection: the Ultimate Music Companion (Canongate, 2003). These books have suggested "further reading" lists for most of the individuals with entries. Sometimes The Encyclopedia of Popular Music will have a very long list of titles, but will suggest four or five of the best (according to the editor). After this initial inquiry, I conduct a search for the inductee on Amazon.com (narrowing by "books" or "movies and TV," depending on what I am looking for) and on WorldCat.org. I cross-reference the lists from the two books and from the websites and see which titles seem really valuable. Amazon.com has reviews, and I take these into consideration. I also search reviews on LibraryJournal.com and on GoodReads.com. After weighing all of these factors, I create the list of books or DVDs I would suggest for addition to the collection. (As I compile the Excel spreadsheets, I make sure to record title, author [with authority control from the Library of Congress], publisher, release date, copyright date, ISBN, OCLC record number, series, edition, notes, URL [usually to Amazon.com], and price. This is all in the hopes that the catalogers will be able to purchase and create records for these items quickly and efficiently.)

I am going to end the list here for now. I am sure I will come up with other things I have learned about collection development during my time at the Rock Hall Library, so if you are interested, stay tuned.

Coming up next: Since collection development is my focus for the next couple of weeks, I will possibly not create another blog entry any time soon. Of course, if I come across something interesting or learn something that I think adds value to my practicum experience, I will blog about it.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 18, Hour 90

Today I did most of my work in collection development. Since most of my policy research has been collected and compiled, and can start to focus on a great monograph and video collection for the library. I am going to continue working diligently on this until my final hours here!

My policy wiki has been graded, and though the content was thorough (for the most part) I seem to have missed the mark on the tone of the entire document. Many of the writing choices I made were not particularly what my professor was looking for, and I understand that. I wish I had thought more about this before I completed it. However, Andy is still interested in the wiki, so I will make some changes to give the document more of a professional tone. In general, however, it is mostly finished.

I think I will soon email my off-site practicum adviser, Dr. Roland, about my final project. I want to inform him of all of the research and collection development I have been doing, and to ask him how exactly it would be best to submit the work. As of now, documents of my work are included in the wiki I created for this practicum. Hopefully this will be a sufficient record of all of my work here.

Coming up next: I would like to continue with collection development (I have moved on to 1989, when there were only 9 inductees), to revise my policy wiki, and to begin work on the "Assessment of Learning Experience" paper, which is a reflection of my practicum that is due as part of the final project. Time is winding down...

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura