Day 17, Hour 85

Thanks for hanging tight while I had another at-home work day on Tuesday. I have been feeling a bit under the weather lately and decided it might be best to work on collection development and my final practicum project at home.

With only 25 on-site hours left here, I have begun to look at my practicum folder and what will be involved. I have also been compiling all of the documents, reports, and research I have worked on so that I will be able to submit it in my final report. I have broken my practicum project into two parts: Collection development and policy/procedure. This will be the final project combination that I will submit at the end of the semester. It is amazing to look back at all the work I have done in what seems like only a short period of time.

I received one more survey response this week, and added important information into my survey response report. I also submitted a new report to Andy on the research I have been conducting since we last met. The new report focuses on survey responses, membership/registration options, in-house use tracking options, and collection development. Hopefully we will be able to meet and discuss the report; I am especially interested to hear Andy's thoughts on Clevnet and whether joining the consortium would be a good option for the Rock Hall Library.

I finished out my day with some collection development. I have been using more tools for comparison of resources (like reading reviews from critics and other readers), and I feel like this is helping with the quality of materials I have chosen. I am also including more titles for each inductee as Andy expressed that he would like to have as many options as possible. In order to differentiate stand-out materials from materials with less-remarkable reviews, I am including much more bibliographic information for the sources I really recommend. This way, the library will have more options and will be able to make its own decisions.

Coming up next: Now that I have a pretty solid idea of what my final projects will look like, I would like to be able to complete a lot more in the way of collection development. I am really interested in trying to create great go-to title lists for the inductees and videos. I am imagining the lists as a sort of "thank you" to the Rock Hall Library and Andy for allowing me to complete such an interesting practicum here!

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 14, Hour 70

Today was the day I finally sent out my policy survey...and I was nervous! I must have checked, double-checked, and triple-checked each email I sent out, making sure that I cc'd Andy, I attached the survey, and I spelled the person's name correctly. It is both nerve-wracking and exhilarating to know that your name is going to be out in front of experts in your field. The shocking and pleasant part of the whole experience is that within an hour and a half, I had already received four responses!

Since last week, I have also been doing a lot of work at home on the policy and procedure wiki that I created. I decided to scrap the mock website I was working on, since wikis are so much more accessible; I can work on a wiki from any computer with an internet connection, and I can send access permissions out to anyone I choose to. Since I also have a wiki for this practicum (through Wikispaces.com), which I have a paid subscription for, I am able to control the security of my pages. These are all reasons why I am so in favor of wikis! (You can check out a post I wrote for another blog on wikis here.)

I finished up my day by working on some collection development. I was happy to discover that the list of inductees for 1988 is much shorter than the previous years, so hopefully I will be able to get a lot more of the inductees list finished than I thought. I also was able to search more effectively thanks to a site I found called GoodReads.com that offers a wealth of user reviews.

Coming up next: I will be continuing with collection development, and hopefully--if more responses keep coming in--will start compiling the results of my survey. With each day I spend here, the time seems as though it is moving faster and faster...

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 13, Hour 65

Sorry if you've missed me; I worked from home on the collection development policy on Tuesday. It is going quite well, and I hope it will be helpful for both my Selection and Acquisitions class and the Rock Hall Library.

I have a pretty good policy and procedure survey drafted, and Andy agrees that it will be quite helpful. He provided me with an amazing list of contacts to present the survey to, and hopefully they will be generous enough with their time to participate. I have drafted an email to send out along with the survey and have submitted it to Andy for comments and suggestions. I'm not entirely sure why, but it makes me a little nervous to be sending out a survey to such important professionals!

I have also been continuing with collection development, and have gathered books and videos representing all of the inductees from 1986 and 1987. I am anxious to keep working on this, and would like to hopefully finish another 3-5 years of inductions before my time is up here. Thankfully, the inductees list grows shorter as the years progress; I may be able to finish more than I think I can.

Coming up next: I will hopefully be sending out the survey within the next couple of days or so. I do not want to wait until next week as I want to be sure to compile and review the results very soon. On a side note, if you or someone you know has any comments or suggestions on library policy or would like to participate in the survey, please contact me through this blog. I would graciously accept any input you can offer!

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 7, Hour 35

Just as I had hoped, I was able to meet with Andy today to narrow down some details for policy and procedure. I asked a lot of questions, got some really helpful answers, and was able to implement these new findings into my policy draft.

I also looked into some public research libraries--like the Newberry in Chicago and the Boston Public Library Research Libraries--to get a better idea of how they interpret their policies. I am hoping that the next time I am in I can find some other research libraries that are public and not affiliated with a university or other private institution. In the mean time, if you have any suggestions, I would be happy to take them!

I did not work on the mock policy website today at all, as I was more concerned with the details of the policy itself. I have a really great working policy going so far, though, so I should be able to put it into the site on Thursday. The only basic component of policy (using other institutions' websites as a guideline) I have not yet touched on is collection development. It's a pretty big undertaking to write a collection development policy, so I am going to put that off for a bit longer. Luckily, this is something we will be working on in my Selection and Acquisitions course, so I will get some great experience.

Coming up next: Like I said earlier, I will be working on getting the policy I have created so far into the mock website I have created. I am also interested in doing some research on internet filters, as this is a topic that Andy and I spoke about. Neither of us is really in favor of filtering in general, but we did agree that this is a research library--not a public institution--that should be used mainly for research purposes. Thus, it may be worth looking into a mild filtering program, just to make sure the library is being used in the correct fashion.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 6, Hour 30

This is really starting to feel official! The practicum, I mean. I submitted my first report to my SLIS advisor (to be completed after 25 hours) regarding my final paper/project for this experience. We have a choice, so I've decided to do a combination of the two.

I think that the nature of my practicum, which involves both collection development and policy/procedure development, lends itself well to the combination of a paper and a project. I have already gathered some great research on policy and procedure, which will lend itself well to a discussion paper. I will also include this blog and the wiki I have created in the project portion, as well as a mock website containing my final ideas for policy and procedure. As for the collection development portion, I will have several Excel documents that include the items I have suggested to the library for purchase, as well as a reflection paper on the collection development process.

After three weeks, I can say that I am really enjoying my time here. The topics I am dealing with are interesting and compelling, and I am getting a sneak peek into what goes into the opening of a brand new library. I have met some great people so far, and I look forward to learning all that I can from them.

Up next: I submitted some suggestions and questions to Andy, and I am hoping speak with him next week about policy. Once I get some more concrete ideas, I will be able to put that information into my mock website!

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 5, Hour 25

Not content to simply offer Andy a list of rules and regulations, I set my sights today on creating a mock website--not unlike other institutions'--to house my workup of policies and procedures. I was delighted to see that the laptop I work on here has a copy of the Microsoft Publisher program. I have never used the program before, so it was exciting to try it out in a practical way without any instruction. I like learning in hands-on ways and figuring things out for myself, so I had a lot of fun today.

I was able to find more information on similar libraries' policies and procedure, like BGSU's Browne Popular Culture Library and The Cleveland Institute of Art's Gund Library. Many of the libraries have a similar structure where the "university community" is allowed borrowing privileges for circulating materials and can browse freely in the non-circulating materials, like reference collections. The policy for those outside of the community usually states that those members may browse materials but not check them out, may browse or check out items for a yearly membership fee, or may only access certain areas of the library, like the main stacks. The Rock Hall's library will differ, however, in that it does not have a clearly defined membership community. While the library is located on the Tri-C campus and is directly affiliated with the school, browsing privileges will not be permitted solely to faculty and staff. This may simplify our policy and procedures by allowing the rules to apply to all who visit the library, not just a specified community.

On an interesting side note, I found some great articles on the Library + Archives through my research that I'd like to share with you here. One was written by Library Director Andy Leach himself, and they all provide a really exciting idea of what the library is going to be all about. (Keep in mind that the library's original opening date of December 2010, which you will read in all of the articles, has been moved to May 2011.)

The Library and Archives at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Andy Leach (Ohio Archivist's Spring 2010 Newsletter, p. 4.).

Music History Finds a New Home Inside Rock Hall's Library and Archives at Tri-C's Center for Creative Arts, John Soeder (The Plain Dealer, February 28, 2010).

Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Anastasia Pantsios (Cleveland Scene, March 10, 2010).

Coming up next: I spoke with Dr. Belinda Boon, who teaches Selection and Acquisition of Library Materials at Kent, about getting some ideas for good resources for biographies and reference books that would fit into the library's collection. She said she will try to get back to me later on this week with some ideas, so I am going to put any collection development on hold until I can pick her brain a bit.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

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