Internship Log: July 30 (Day 20)

9:30 AM-5:00 PM: I got in early because I had to drop off my awesome parking pass to Mickey in the Library Administrative Office on the 3rd floor. I'd also made a thank you chocolate bouquet for the Dean, and a red rose for Mickey (better than cards right?). Then I wound my way up to the fourth floor, to my last day at TS.

Today's meeting was scheduled with Luiz and Dianne, who head the Electronic Resources. Luiz teaches at UCLA and I know that he always comes in late, so I decided to nip things in the bud and went to see Dianne first thing in the morning to see how they wanted to proceed. Dianne said that they'd discussed it, and since Luiz wanted to meet with me first, it would be better if I continued with y cataloging project until he came to "get" me. This was fine, since I was still working on the United States code congressional and administrative news, and had the American law reports annotated, second series (Digest), American law reports annotated, second series. Later case service, the Supreme Court reporter (you need to click view additional copies to see my work. Vols. 1-59 never made it up to TS), and the Federal energy guidelines (FERC Reports) waiting. I wanted to complete my project.

Luiz came in around 10:30 AM, and said he was ready for me. He wanted to straighten some things up and he'd come back and get me in 5 minutes. 5 minutes turned to well over an hour. When he came back, he asked when I usually went to lunch, which was at 12PM. Since it was almost lunch time, we decided to just meet up after lunch (anyone surprised?). While waiting for Luiz and Dianne, I did manage to finish updating the records of all the law books, and was glad I was able to complete my final project for Helen. Plus, I got a chance to pass out the thank you chocolates I'd made for the people who spent the day with me. The TS Chair, M. Helfer got a chocolate bouquet of daisies and a butterfly, Gina got a bouquet with a chocolate frog and tulips, Helen got a bouquet of white daisies, and everyone else got a white or dark chocolate pansy. It was a nice way to say thank you and good-bye.

After lunch, I went to my cubicle to check my mail before heading over to Luiz's office. To my surprise, Luiz walked in with one of the science bibliographers, and invited me into his office. As head of electronic resources, Luiz has a lot of work to do. He discussed a lot of things, and much of it was overwhleming, considering it was my last day. We discussed the kinds of electronic resources (e-books, databases, journals), Open URL, and ONIX. He stressed the importance of learning about metadata, and showed me a presentation he'd made that succinctly decsribed electronic resources and their importance in libraries. I must admit most of it didn't sink in, cause it was so theoretical. When I met with Dianne, she showed me more constructive things. Without Dianne, no one will have access to all the e-resources the library pays for. For example, with databases and journal aggregators, Dianne has to ensure an item is subscribed and paid for. She then activates the account, sets parameters such as specific journal titles and dates, and sets up the Find(Get) Link, which will connect the user to the article. If she misses a step, or the publisher changes something, the information can't be found. Becasue there are so many titles, it is impossible for one person to keep up with everything, so she relies on other librarians and the patrons to let her know when there's a dead link. While this seemed complicated, I realized it wasn't once Dianne "did" one. You just need to remember the steps.

There wasn't much else for her to show me, and we chatted for a while. The main topic of the day were the campus-wide furloughs that were being instigated as part of budget cuts. The furloughs are basically unpaid vacation days, and equal a 10% salary cut. While everyone was pessimistic, Dianne chose to look at the bright side, and use the days to get to things and run errands she wouldn't have time for otherwise. Oh well...

I still had a little over an hour until my internship came to an end, so I took up Christina's offer to help her find more open source science journals. Christina is one of the science bibliographer, and she asked me to cross-reference the open source journals available through the Directory of Open Access Journals with the ones already in the library OPAC. She was working towards finding more resources for sustainability, and I was able to find multiple websites for environmental organizations, and universities. Wikipedia also had a good article.

Internship Log: July 28 (Day 19)

9:30 AM-5:00 PM: Here we go again...I was meeting with Donna, the Accounting Supervisor. I got to the library early, and had enough time to check my email and the CSUN listservs. Donna's cubicle is only two away from mine, so it took me less than a second to swing around and see that she wasn't there. I went back to my desk, and got to work updating the bib records for the law books. I plugged away at Corpus Juris Secundum and waited for Donna to come in, which didn't take much effort since I sit by the door and can see all who enter and leave. Donna walked in around 10:30 AM. I'd already sent her a reminder email about our meeting, and she quickly came over to me, I guess as soon as she read my email. She had me down for Thursday, the 31st, and went to check with Doris. So, here's what happened... Donna never received the revised schedule, so she still had me down for July 31st, which is Thursday. She'd been told by Doris and Gina not to worry, that I had a sizable project I could work on if she wasn't prepared. Since she didn't have any money to pay for anything and couldn't show me some hands-on things anyway, we decided to get together after lunch.

When I walked over to Donna's cubicle at 1:00 PM, she was reading a book. That's how busy accounting is during the summer. OK, so the library accounting is pretty complicated, but also straightforward. Donna reports to Doris, the TS chair, and also to campus accounting, who technically cuts the checks. The in-house accounting basically makes sure the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted, thus reducing the paperwork and man hours of the main campus financial office. Donna can only spend the money they give her. Also, since campus accounting uses a different software, Donna must do double work, using the campus system and also the library's ILS, Innovative Millennium. On top of this, because CSUN is a CSU campus, and there are constant audits, Donna needs to keep almost every scrap of paper as a physical back up. There are file cabinets full of invoices from years past, and there's also a master, fire-proof lock box. Donna showed me how the different funds Meredith went over look in both systems. While Millennium has each different book fund labeled, all campus cares about is total money spent on books (or monographs). I was surprised that up to a few years ago, library's needed to "hide" evidence of some of the creative accounting they did with deposit accounts. Most institutions frowned upon giving a vendor large amounts of money without seeing a return. However, for a library, this was one of the few ways to ensure that unspent money wouldn't be lost in the new fiscal year. Now, deposit accounts act like savings accounts, and actually earn a tiny bit of interest, which, apparently, appeases the parent institution and makes everything OK. Of course, Donna stressed that the library wouldn't deposit a large chunk with just anyone, especially now that there's a fear that some vendors may go under.

All I know is that Donna must spend more than half her workday making charts and spreadsheets. Everyone wants to know where the money is going, and each time she has a meeting with someone (the Library Dean, the TS Chair, the accounting office, the Collection Development Coordinator, etc.), she needs to make a report. Since everyone is looking for something different, she must tailor each report to that specific person or group. It's a lot of work, but she said she enjoyed doing them, and would often be on the phone with people to find out exactly what they wanted the report to show. She'd email them a copy, ask if it's what they had in mind, and then tweak it.

We chatted for a while, discussing things like library school and job opportunities. Donna recently got her MLS, and was looking for a change. Because I have a background in art history, she also showed me some examples of the XML schema, Categories for the Description of Works of Art (CDWA). Interesting, specialized stuff, developed by the Getty.

Once we were chatted out, I thanked Donna and returned to my cubicle to finish the Corpus Juris Secundum. That done, I began updating the United States Code Congressional and Administrative News. As I shut down my computer at 5:00 PM, all I could think was that Thursday was my last day. The internship flew by.

Internship Log: July 23 (Day 18)

9:30 AM-12:00 PM: I had cataloging for the first part of the day, and a meeting with Mary, head of Collection Development at 1:00PM. I got to my desk a tiny smidgen after 9:30, and noticed that the trucks I'd left out on Tuesday had not been picked up by Circ yet. I finished another truck, and halfway through my second of the day, emailed Gina to let her know the trucks were going to take over the entrance, at which point, she notified Circ that they could come by and take them away. When the guys finally arrived, I directed them to the trucks, and instructed them to return our trucks. By the time the first guy cam back with the trucks, I'd finished another one. This one, lucky for them, was on a Circ truck, so they didn't have to return it. I must say, the Circ trucks are TOO HEAVY. They are made of solid wood and hard to maneuver. I'm so glad we have the light metal ones. (When the librarians have those truck dancing contests at conferences and conventions, which ones do they use? I hope it's metal.)

Here's a list of the titles I'd finished by lunch (including what I did Tuesday). I'll include the permanent Oviatt Library links so you can see what a busy beaver I've been :)

1. The statutes, from the twentieth year of King Henry the Third to the [tenth chapter of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years of King George the Sixth] A. D. 1235-[1948. Prepared under the editorship of Sir Robert Drayton]
2. The United States law week.
3. West's Federal practice digest 3d.
4. West's federal practice digest 4th.
   

12:30-5:00PM: Since I was a little late in the morning, I came back from lunch early, and got some cataloging in before my 1:00PM meeting with Mary. As 1:00PM neared, I heard Mary announce to someone that she was leaving for lunch. OK, she forgot about me last time too, and I figured she'd just pick up a sandwich again and get back quickly. I had enough to keep me busy anyway. I drove by her office occasionally, but she didn't return until a little after 2:00PM. I'd already sent her an email reminding her of our appointment, and told her we could play it be ear and just to let me know when she wanted me to pop in. When Mary came back to the office, she walked by my desk and informed me that she had a major project that was due tomorrow, and had spoken to Doris (Helfern the TS Chair) about rescheduling me. Doris was supposed to let me know, but had not. No big thing, except she'd seen me multiple times that day and I doubt it would have taken too long to get me up to date. Besides, I'd brought a bunch of art catalogs and artist monographs that I had, and was going to offer them to Mary for the collection. Those suckers were heavy and I had to carry them all the way (while juggling my morning coffee and handbag, which is much larger than my hand). Now I'm second guessing the donation 'cause I already had misgivings about parting with them.

Oh well, back to making the collection more accessible for the user. I will now begin work on the Corpus Juris Secundum: a complete restatement of the entire American law as developed by all reported cases. (technically complete up to 1991.)

Internship Log: July 21 (Day 17)

9:30 AM-5:00 PM: Hello :) Well, you won't believe it. I was scheduled to spend the day with Meredith Lyon, the Order and Receiving Specialist. Meredith lasted much longer than the other people I met with, most of whom averaged 30 minutes. I spent over 2 hours with Meredith, as she walked me through the order process. While Paula deals with approvals (ie Yankee and Blackwell deposit accounts), Meredith does firm orders, and also has more pots from which she can allocate or appropriate funds. OMG, the acquisitions budget is one of the most confusing things I've ever encountered. There's the funds from the university (or I guess the CSU gives the campus a "huge" sum and the President dishes it out to whoever). Out of approx. $400,000.00, monographs get $40,000.00. The rest goes for subscriptions and e-databases. WOW!!!!!!!!! Then there are state funds, theoretically. They also get lottery funds, sometimes. Actually, Meredith said they got this year's lottery funds last year, so they were able to dump a lot into deposit funds. So, then, they get money from donations and trusts, and also endowments, of which they use the interest. Sounds like a lot, but Meredith and Paula ordered a little over 10,000 books last year. For a medium-sized university library, that's so not a lot.

OK, how are all the funds kept straight? That's Meredith's job. Each bibliographer has a subject code (actually they have multiple subject codes since they cover multiple subjects), and each code gets a designator. For example ####d, is deposit fund, ####l is lottery, etc. There are a total of 240 funds from which Meredith can pull money. Paula is stuck with the deposit funds, but her job is much simpler than Meredith's. Meredith has to shop around and figure out which funds to use. Paula doesn't have any choices. I liked how Meredith thought of her job as a game. At the end of the year, if most of the funds are near $0, she wins, and by default, so does the library.

Oh, Gina just popped her head in and asked if I was busy, since they have a new project for me. I just finished Mary's replacement project so the timing is perfect. So, for now, I am AFK.

I am back. I think I've mentioned the shift project. Books with low use are moving into storage and high use storage items are getting placed on shelves. A lot of law related books are going down to storage. The bibliographer, Eric, decided that prior to the shift, the catalog should reflect more information than just a volume number, so that users aren't forced to have every volume pulled. When these books are on the shelf, it's a simple process to scan the spines to find the volume you want. Dates, and beginning and ending letters/words are right there. So Eric brought a print sheet by, in which he designated how each title will be amended. That's where I come in. My new project is to add the information. It's pretty easy once you figure out what Eric wants, and find it on the spine or tp. Then you call up the record and plug in the information next to the volume number. Oh, and don't forget to save. The ones with dates went by very quickly actually, since I copied and pasted and just changed beginning and ending dates. I did 3 trucks in 2 hours. Woo hoo, only 7 more to go.

Actually, I really liked this idea, since it shows that the librarians are thinking about the users and making it easier for them to find the items they need. Here's an example of how this change will look on the OPAC. Let's take The statutes, from the twentieth year of King Henry the Third to the [tenth chapter of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth years of King George the Sixth] A. D. 1235-[1948., which I just finished. If you click here, you will directed to the OPAC entry. Notice how each volume also contains date information, versus just a volume number, which provides little content identifying info. If you click on view additional copies, you'll get a list of the entire title holdings. (A very interesting title that any history buff should peruse.) This is much more useful than the Encyclopædia britannica entry, for example, which doesn't provide any info other than volume number. Of course, these are on the shelf, so patrons can browse the spines. However, I do have to say that having the ID info on the OPAC would be helpful to students who are finishing a paper late at night and realize that they failed to include the volume number of their source. I've had instances where I've had to do a virtual reference chat and ask the librarian to get me the volume info and number.

Internship Log: July 16 (Day 16)

9:30 AM-5:00 PM: I was scheduled to spend the day with Philip, who is in charge of Periodicals and Bindery. Philip has also taken over the management of the student workers. They used to be Del's responsibility. I actually thought Philip would have some projects lined up for me, and that I'd get some hands on experience checking the periodicals, and maybe even doing some processing. He did have me for the entire day, which is why I had hesitated to RSVP to the summer party (which, as you guessed it, is today). Alas (too much HP lately), I was mistaken. My session with Philip lasted close to half an hour. I could have stretched it if I had more questions, but everything is pretty self-explanatory. OK, so basically, Philip does a lot of delegating to the student workers. He has 5 this summer, and will probably have 6 or 7 in the Fall and Spring Semesters. This sounds like a lot, but considering the work these kids do, they need more hands. The student workers process everything and make them shelf-ready. Granted, some of the books come somewhat shelf-ready, but they still have to make sure all items have the property stamp, check in/out card, barcode, call number, and tattle tape. Some items arrive complete, others semi-complete, while most firm orders require total processing. On top of that, they are the ones who check in the periodicals, which can be a full time job in and of itself. They also have to keep track of which titles/issues need to be pulled and prepared for binding. For example, the weekly or monthly issued periodicals stay loose on the shelves for 3 months, and then get bound, with three months worth of issues in one volume (I think that's how it works). All this info is in the item record in the Integrated system (ie Millennium). It seemed like Philip, himself, had a lot of busy work to do. He had to double check the students' work, ensuring that the correct issues were in the packet bound to be bound. He also did the claiming for missing issues. He showed me the LARS bounding software. This software lets him print the binding order according to CSUN specifications. He includes that with the material, or he can send it directly to the bindery, so they know what they are doing. For issues that have yet to be received, before he claims them, Philip will sign in to Ebsco and check the title by ISSN, to see when/if the issue in question was published and sent out. He'll then decide to claim it or make a note in Millennium to claim at a later date. Basically, he went back and forth a lot, inputting things into Millennium, and then looking at the patron side of the OPAC to ensure the information was presented correctly, and clean it up if it wasn't. He also showed me how he checks in newly bound items, which get added to the catalog like any new item. This was similar to what Yvonne showed me, and also to what I was doing with the gift books.

So, after my session with Philip, I went back to my desk and continued to work on the missing art books, my project from Mary. I wonder how much time the bibs actually spend on these. It would also be easier to make decisions if I knew what classes were being offered. For example, Mary told me that the European Art History instructor (and my thesis advisor, Jean-Luc Bordeaux) recently retired, and they haven't hired any FTEs to replace him. Therefore, should I pass on Romanesque and Rococo art books, which are pretty expensive anyway?

I shot over to my sister's house for lunch. She lives across the street, but it took me 3 minutes to drive back to campus because of the long light and all the pedestrians. I spent some time with my niece, and borrowed a pair of shoes, since my slippers were proving difficult to walk in.

We are now up to date. I'm back from lunch, and the summer party is scheduled to start at 2:00. The party just ended, and it is 4:00. We walked in, and everyone got a raffle ticket for showing up. Then you had the choice of buying more when you were in the ice cream line. Here's how the summer ice cream party went...you stood in line to get a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream. They had tables set up with napkins, spoons, water, and toppings already laid out. The topping choices were fudge, caramel, sprinkles, nuts, whipped cream, brownie bites, and cherries. I sat with Gina and the TS gang. It was OK. They also had a sheet of beach (?) lingo. Did you know that a Queenie is the Queen Bee, or that Nectar refers to someone who looks good in a bikini? Anyway, we played beach bingo, which took forever. There was also a white elephant auction, and they had items that were to be raffled off. All you did was put your ticket in the corresponding bucket of whatever it was you oped to win (of course, you had to keep the stub). Most were gift cards, all worth $10.00 each. I had my 2 door tickets, bought 10 tickets for a total of $2.00, and was given three more by the Library Dean, who was passing them out at random. I "bid" on 2 Trader Joe's cards, and 3 iTunes cards. OMG, I won 2 of the 3 iTunes cards. Not bad. Everyone kept joking that my internship finally paid off. Overall, the party was fun, but took too long. Plus, since the tables were set up, you couldn't mingle that much.

Back to working on the missing books...

Web site of the day

I've been pretty steady with this lately. Will wonders never cease? Here's a fun site for all you art lovers. At Warholizer, you can upload your own images and the program will morph the color and apply the silkscreen effect that made Warhol famous (for more than 15 minutes BTW). There are some Photoshop tutorials out there too, but you need more patience and a steady hand (check out my posts from Nov. 4, 2008, to see those results).

Gift Books update

I recently ran my session stats for my first month, and I cataloged 318 gift books.

The modified records are for the 440/490 Series project I worked on.

Internship Log: July 14 (Day 15)

9:30 AM-5:00 PM: I was scheduled to meet with Geneva in Serials this morning, and Paula in Acquisitions this afternoon. When I went into Geneva's cubicle, she didn't even invite me to sit down. We spoke for ten minutes or so, during which time she told me that she didn't know what Doris (Helfer, TS Chair), expected of her, since I'd already met with Yvonne, and the two did the exact same thing. Geneva asked if I had any questions from my session with Yvonne, and I did. Since most of the serials were subscriptions, and Yvonne or Geneva processed the items when they were received, I wanted to know where Marivic, the serials cataloger, came in. Writing things up now, I wish Doris had replaced Yvonne or Geneva with a session with Marivic. Oh well. So, after our ten minutes of conversation, Geneva informed me that she'd spoken to Paula, who'd asked to meet with me in the morning, instead of her scheduled time of 1:00-5:00PM. That was fine by me, and (gasp) Geneva walked me to Paula's cubicle on the cataloging side of TS.

Yes, I noted that Paula is in Acquisitions. She is the Approvals Specialist. But she's also an LAII cataloger. Basically, Paula works with two vendors, Blackwell and Yankee (GOBI). Once the budget is set and Mary applies her formula to see who gets how much money, Donna (in accounting), deposits the money into each bibliographer's vendor deposit fund. The bibliographers then select the items they want purchased and add them to their selection carts on the vendors' web sites. Paula then goes in, double checks that the items aren't already owned, and then goes through the ordering process. She checks the notes that the bibliographers write, and orders rush or circ notify items first. There is this complicated process of ordering from each fund, going back to the integrated catalog and encumbering funds, paying funds, posting and exporting records, sending them back to the vendor, getting them back, etc. Since she didn't have any money to buy something, it was hard to really get it, but I was assured that Meredith (firm orders) would have money and hopefully show me the exact process when I meet with her next Tuesday. Paula and I chatted for a while, and I returned to my cubicle to work on the list of missing books Mary had given me. FYI, Paula purchased over 8,000 books last year.

After surfing the net for a bit, I dove into my bibliographer's project. If you remember, Mary gave me a list of the missing art books and asked me to use resources like WorldCat to decide whether I, the bibliographer, would replace the missing copies, purchase other titles, or leave things alone. I already went through the Oviatt catalog and checked for multiple copies, newer editions, and comparable titles, so all I had left to do was check WorldCat for the number of holdings. WorldCat is kind of like an aggregator, and it keeps track of ALL library holdings worldwide. It's part of OCLC, so every time a library uploads an OCLC record, WorldCat is updated too. This is useful for InterLibrary Loan, and also to see which libraries in your neighborhood have the book you want. Sometimes it's faster to go there yourself, instead of wait for the ILL to get through. Now that everyone knows what we're talking about, we can get back to the missing list. There are only 116 missing art books, and I went through 90 of them today. WorldCat also shows which vendors (ie Baker & Taylor or Yankee) have the item, as well as the price. As of now, I (the bibliographer) have decided to purchase 12 books (out of 90), costing an estimated total of $350.00. Some of these are new editions. I could make a better decision if I knew what the budget was, but nothing is certain yet.