On-Site Day #2

This week, I was able to spend another day on-site with the Marin County Free Library for my internship. I was able to be there for longer than my first on-site day, but unforeseen consequences added some chaos to my site supervisor's "master plan" of my activities.

One of the goals for me this visit was to meet and do some collaboration with a member of the Technical Services department that I hadn't yet met, but who is highly involved in the management of the Drupal library and staff sites. Unfortunately, she was out because of illness, so my collaboration with her was deferred to a future date (probably via WebEx or some other teleconferencing medium). It is her input that I will need to finalize the design for the Online Book Clubs page I created. Another smaller goal was to review and finalize the controlled vocabulary that I had drafted and submitted early this week. My site supervisor and I sat down and looked over the terminology together, and the feedback I got was overall positive--there were only a few changes that needed to be made. The list has been updated to reflect those changes and the finalized list submitted for approval by the library's Leadership Team. Once their approval has been given, I will be able to create a new taxonomy on the staff intranet with the controlled vocabulary that will be used for forms, procedures, and policies. It will also mean that I will need to update the vocabulary for all those that already exist. But I'm glad to see concrete results from this part of my work so soon.

A major goal that I was able to accomplish during my on-site day was being able to sit in and participate during the Webmasters Team meeting (of which four people were out due to vacation, personal illness or a child being ill). My site supervisor is the chair of the committee, and so my attendance was easily arranged. I appreciated being able to see how a committee addresses issues and see the practical topics that this particular committee is in charge of. We discussed the library's social media; several library-wide (as opposed to branch-specific) web-related issues, including a new site vendor; and the staff survey that I had put together. I was able to provide some feedback and suggestions for the social media topic; I was actually at a social media panel at November's CLA conference, and so remembered a few ideas that were mentioned there--and I did come up with one or two ideas of my own that seemed to be received well. However, my time in the spotlight was really during the discussion of the staff survey. I explained the research process and how I created the survey, as well as the logic behind several of the questions. There were some changes that the members of the committee suggested, but overall the committee was pleased and felt that the questions will be able to tell them about how the staff uses the intranet and what staff would like added to the intranet. So all the hours I put into this project really paid off. I've already made the requested changes, and now that too will head to the Leadership Team for final approval before going live.

During my lunch break (when I was introduced to a really good restaurant that I want to go back to), I got to speak with another person (the cataloger I first met on my last on-site visit) in the Technical Services department at great length. From her, I learned a bit more about cataloging and records--the kind of stuff that was not really addressed in my cataloging class. Then again, the issues she mentioned may not be universal to all libraries but may be a specific issue with this particular library system. I was able to share with her some of my own library experiences, and she very kindly offered her advice whenever I get stuck with cataloging/classifying materials for the collection of the library where I work. She's a very sharp lady and I'm glad I was able to connect with her. Hopefully I will be able to see her and talk more "shop" on my last on-site day in May.

So all in all, a productive site visit despite not going quite the way my site supervisor planned. I also talked with my site supervisor about continuing my work as a volunteer after my internship is over. I would like to see some of the projects I am involved in through to the end, but for the sake of my sanity my hours would need to be drastically reduced (I'm thinking like 10 hours/month). We shall see if things will work out as I hope.