Today has been a long day so maybe this can be a short entry so I can
go to sleep. I would like some sleep.
I got to sleep in an hour but I was up late so that didn't help that
much. After getting ready I headed down to the public library for
the beginning of our day of library tours. I haven't been to the
public library much outside of books sales and book clubs so it was
cool to get a tour. I got to see the new children's room which was
really cool. We got to go up to the third floor, which I didn't know
existed, and that is where they do all the technical things, like
order books and catalog them. There is also a volunteer who comes in
and fixes books. He's apparently well over ninety years old but
logged over 700 hours last year. I really liked the quiet and
subdued atmosphere of the third floor but the children's area felt
more natural with all the noise thanks to working in a grade school.
The next tour was for a library system which covers our area of the
state. Conveniently, they are located in the basement of the public
library. Something else I didn't know existed. That was pretty
interesting but it involves a lot of travel and generally didn't
sound like something I would be that interested in.
We broke for lunch and I ended up heading home. I needed a little
break and the lunch I made myself was free-ish. At least cheaper
than eating out. Interestingly, I turned on the History Channel and
the episode of Modern Marvels on was about the Library of
Congress. I need to go there sometime. It is just so freaking
massive.
After lunch we went to the historical museum and I haven't been there
since I was a little kid. We got to go back into the research area
and into the back archives which looked just like what I would
imagine those areas looked like. I got there early, which was good
because I got a chance to wander around the exhibits. The group that
went to lunch was late which cut the exhibit tour short and we didn't
get to go over to the historical house. I live in the same town so I
really have no excuse not to go myself.
From there we carpooled to the university to tour the academic
library. The main lady giving the tour was actually the lady I
talked to several years ago when I first had the idea of going to
library school. And the guy was the person I interviewed via email
during my first semester last year, so it was cool being able to put
a face to the name. During the tool we went into a study room that
is called the Great Room but is nicknamed the Harry Potter Room.
Both are fitting titles because it is both great and looks like it
was pulled out of Harry Potter. Maybe a year ago I saw it in a video
but didn't realize it was in the library because I had never seen it
before. Yet another thing I didn't know existed, despite going to
college there and spending quite a bit of time in the library. At
the end of the tour we had the chance to break into groups depending
on our interest and talk to librarians who do those things. I ended
up going with the public services group because that's where I'm
leaning. People make work more interesting. I've learned that
dealing with patrons at the movie theater and kids at school. One of
the librarians in that group was the librarian I interviewed this
semester via email. Also good to put a face to the name. I talked a
little bit but I mostly sat and listened to the librarians talk about
what they do and the random tangents they went off on. I can see
myself fitting into that kind of group. And they said they have some
job openings coming up next Spring or Fall so I need to look into
that. I would have liked the academic library tour to have been a
full day thing because it felt like we were just scraping the
surface.
The goal was to leave town by four o'clock but that didn't happen,
which isn't surprising. We maybe left the university at four
o'clock, and after driving back to the historical museum I gave
directions on how to get out of town to one of our group. I didn't
actually get to the edge of town until 4:20PM. I got really lucky
with the drive though, and didn't really hit any traffic until the
very end, and it was only for a little bit. I ended up pulling into
the parking lot a couple minutes after 5:30PM. That seems really
fast.
Class tonight was rough. I usually don't feel the best because I
don't drink enough water on the days I have to come down for class.
There aren't a lot of bathroom opportunities on the drive down. On
top of that, all the walking around for the tours today really hit
me. My knees were aching and I just had a general feeling of
exhaustion. It made collection development that much better.
Class started with a guest speaker, who was a salesman who works for
a serials vendor. Vendors make life easier for libraries by handling
all of their subscriptions. Rather than writing twenty or
one-hundred or however many checks to different publishers, you can
write one check to a vendor, who then does all the purchasing. They
also act as the go-between, so if something is wrong they deal with
the publisher. After working on the collection development project
and having to read hundreds of book reviews, I wouldn't mind handing
over some of that responsibility to a vendor.
The rest of the class involved analyzing a spreadsheet of the data
collected from the accessibility assignment we did several weeks ago
where we checked to see if we could find resources online through the
library website. That was rough. I wanted to fall asleep. But I
held in there. After class we had a brief group meeting to make sure
we were all on the same page for the presentation tomorrow.
And now I'm in my hotel room. Waiting for myself to stop writing
this so I can go to sleep. I'm going to do that now.
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