Day 15, Hour 75

It has been really interesting and enjoyable to read the responses I've received from my survey. I have compiled all the responses I have gotten so far, and each one has been valuable to my research in some way. For instance, the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill has a Search Room that seems similar to what will be the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library's Archives Reading Room; I took some time to look at their policies on using the room and got some good ideas. Also, I learned from Beth Farrell at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library that there is a Greater Access card provided to patrons by Clevnet that allows members to use all libraries that belong to the Clevnet consortium. This is definitely something to look into.

Something else that Beth shared with me is that the Innovative Millennium program (an integrated library system that the Rock Hall Library will be using, which is also used by the Kent State University Libraries) has a "Count Use" function in its system that could help the Rock Hall Library to track the usage of items in-house. It seems that the function keeps track of usage when a librarian scans into the system items that she/he sees have been used. This would be great, since there will be no information gathered by circulation records (since items here will not circulate).

I finished out my day by continuing with collection development. I found it interesting and reassuring that when I looked into starred reviews on Overbooked.com for Elvis books, the top two books selections were the two titles I recommended for addition to the collection. (On a quite unrelated yet interesting note, I just realized that the web address for Overbooked.com is www.overbooked.org. How curious...)

Coming up next: The survey responses have slowed, but I am hoping I will continue to receive at least 5 or so more in the next two weeks. I am also looking into other local institutions I can send the survey to, since I received such great information from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Library. As always, if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

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 11, Hour 55

Today was another great research day, and I found some interesting and helpful articles. One article I liked in particular--"The Use of Registration Forms in Special Collections Libraries" (Kristina Southwell, 2006 in Collections Management, Volume 31, Issue 4)--made a really strong argument for obtaining registration information from patrons, regardless of whether items circulate or there is a fee for membership. I think this is quite important to the library to protect the integrity of the library's materials and policies and to keep accurate records of patrons' information needs. It is also a great way to track any items that are used in an environment where none of the materials will ever be checked out. This process helps to solve questions about collection development, as the library staff is constantly being made aware of the kinds of information their patrons are seeking. It also helps with security, as a certain amount of responsibility comes with membership when a registration process is involved.

I also compiled a second report for Andy that contains the research and questions I have come up with regarding some of my focuses lately. The report covers web filtering, the registration and membership process, and a survey I have been working on. I would like to submit the survey to librarians at similar institutions to find out some information on their policies and procedures. I do not have a solid idea of libraries to send this survey out to, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to contact me through this blog.

Coming up next: I want to make sure I have ironed out all the kinks in my survey by the end of the day next Tuesday, as I feel I should be sending it out soon. I would also like to continue researching, and maybe spend some more time on collection development. Now that I am past the midway point in my hours, time seems to be moving much more quickly.

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura

Day 10, Hour 50

It's amazing how invigorating a break can be! I took some time off from collection development since I've been working on policy, and I am back with an energy you would not believe. As you may remember, before I began my practicum here, I was volunteering by developing a list of videos that would complete the library's collection. For my practicum, I decided to expand this collection development to include books about past inductees. After all, the Rock Hall would not be the Rock Hall without its inductees. Since I now have both lists going, I can work on them simultaneously, which is helping me to fill in holes in each.

When I began to compile the videos list this summer, I had absolutely no experience in collection development. I decided to break down my search into categories, so I started by looking for concert footage. I then moved on to biopics and dramas centered around rock (fictional artists, great soundtracks, etc.). Documentaries were easiest, so I left those for last; interestingly enough, many of the documentary titles I found fell into my lap through looking for the other types of films. I did most of my searching through four sources: WorldCat.org (which is a great site that allows you to search libraries around the world for all kinds of materials), Amazon.com, The Rock & Roll Film Encyclopedia (Applause Theatre and Cinema Books, 2007), and bibliographies in two books (The Encyclopedia of Popular Music [Omnibus Press, 2007] and The Mojo Collection: the Ultimate Music Companion [Canongate, 2000]). I particularly enjoyed browsing through The Rock & Roll Film Encyclopedia because the author gave great depictions of the films and included some of my favorites. Unfortunately, I sometimes have difficulty deciding which films to include, especially in cases where the artist or inductee is in or is the subject of a long list of titles (such as Elvis). In those cases, I tried to look into the films' ratings through Amazon.com and the Internet Movie Database.

Since I was focusing mainly on books based on inductees, I put off the list of videos for quite a while. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to find that I was able to fill in some empty slots in my videos list with films about inductees. This had not been a category that I was previously searching, so I have been able to find a vast amount of films to add to my list. It is really coming along quite well!

It is possible that some of you would like to see what books and films are on my lists, for personal interest reasons, so I would be happy to provide them to anyone who contacts me through my blog. I know that I, personally, have been adding a lot of titles to my Netflix.com list as I go!

Coming up next: As of today, I have reached the half-way point for my required on-site hours. This means that it is time for me to re-evaluate my practicum wiki, to make sure I have tracked all of my logged hours correctly, and to contact my off-site practicum advisor to inform him that I have complete 50 hours. I think we are supposed to discuss my project at that time, as well. I have been really enjoying my experience here, and I cannot wait to continue with policy and collection development for the Rock Hall Library!

Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Laura