| Sara B. Metcalfe |
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Special Project
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Special Project Having worked in a library for several years prior to starting library school, I thought I knew it all. However, the first week of ILS503-Foundations of Librarianship, I realized that my knowledge of the library world was very small, and that there was more to being a librarian that having a tight bun and horn rimmed glasses. This class gave me the basics I would need to continue through my degree, and into my professional life as a librarian. We discussed issues such as the Library Bill of Rights and its interpretations Certainly, the one class that had the biggest impact on me was ILS680-Evaluation and Research. Having read several library journals, I was well aware that research was constant in the library world, and was an important resource for all librarians. It also became clear to me that to continue to work in an academic setting would require more research and journal submissions on my part. This I found very overwhelming, and never dreamed that I could write a research paper of that magnitude. Where does one even begin to come up with a research topic. My quest began after overhearing librarians around me worrying that because their traditional gate counts were low, that they may begin to loose a percentage of their budget. No one was really sure why the patron traffic had slowed down, but suspected that the online resources may have something to do with it. The library needed to come up with other ways to count use. I came to realize that the concepts and theories I learned in this class would guide me through the rest of my academic and professional life. Working with doctoral candidates on research for their dissertation, I now had a better understanding of what information they required, and how it should be documented and cited. Currently, as the head of a small academic library, I have taken on the task of trying to determine and document just how the library is being used. Though I have my suspicions, nothing can be done without the raw data. The first step in justifying the changes that need to be made, is to survey the library's population and compile these results into a format that can be easily understood. I thoroughly enjoy working in an academic setting, and hope to continue on that track. For that very reason, I took ILS560-College and Research Libraries. I was enrolled in this class the same semester I was working on my research paper. Though it took a lot to balance the workload for both courses, they seemed to complement each other, as my research was based around academic libraries. Through the creation of a website, I was better able to understand the inner workings of an academic library. |
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