Last Week

This is the final week of the semester. The library is preparing to have our entire phone system replaced, so we have had training on using the new phones and such.
I am happy to say that PCC now has a link resolver that allows students to use Google Scholar and link to the resources in our databases and catalogs, as well as any other scholarly materials available for free on the web.
I demonstrated the use of Google Scholar during my interview for my job here, and pushed for its integration. After some initial research, another librarian, Leslie, went through the proper channels to acquire a link resolver service so that our library could participate using Google Scholar. Now it is partially my job to make certain that students are aware of this service, what it does, how it might help them, and its limitations so that it does not go unused.

Spring Semester winds down.

As the Spring Semester winds down, I begin to prepare for the projects I would like to complete this summer prior to the Fall Semester beginning. Diana and Jared, the two library technicians here, will help to weed through our Reserve Textbooks. Diana will lead this project due to her familiarity with this area and being that she has been in charge of the Reserve textbooks. Jared will continue to learn from Diana and will maintain the Instructor Reserves that I recently completed weeding.
We will also need to hire 3-4 Student Assistants this summer and promote one Assistant to a Supervisor position. I hope to train all of these candidates prior to the Fall Semester.
I will use the summer to complete my lesson planning for LIB 103, which I will teach in the Fall, and to perfect and improve the Social Networking pages that I have created with the goal of sharing and advertising them to students in the Fall. One setback may be our network, but hopefully all upgrades will be complete and we will be able to open up the broadband restrictions here so that Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and other Web 2.0 applications can be used to their full capabilities.

ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award

This week, the Shatford Library celebrated our winning of the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award. The celebration was short and tailored to thank those who helped the library receive the award as well as the students of PCC. This is a prestigious award and solidifies my certainty of being in the right place.
As far as work goes, I have been learning how to run Voyager reports using Microsoft Access. This will be a large part of my work when Dan is on sabbatical next year. I have also started examining my personnel in order to determine how many people I must hire for next year.
Things are looking good for the Fall semester, although I need to get to work on preparing the Circulation course that I will teach. I also continue to work on specific rubrics for Information Literacy competency to be used by PCC when examined for accreditation.

Professional Development and Involvment Note

I need to take a moment to recap some of the other things that I have done on campus. (This is afterall a blog to help me remember when I come up for tenure.)
I have been participating in the Faculty Technology Committee since my start at PCC. I have presented information to the committee on Podcasting, Facebook, and MySpace. We meet once a month to discuss the Technology needs of faculty members.

I recently served on a panel that examined the libraries self study for the WASC visitation that is coming up to assess PCC's accreditation. As a group, we read, examined, and suggested changes to what will be the official document presented to WASC. I then acted as Secretary and compiled the notes and suggestions in order to present them to the writer of the document.

Finally, I have currently been asked to serve on the SLO (Student Learning Outcomes) Committee. We are examining different rubrics for assessing student's Information Literacy ability, in order to create our own. This too, is in preparation for the Accreditation visits coming to PCC.

Meanwhile, I continue to teach one hour sessions to various classes, prepare to teach LIB 103 (Circulation Procedures), manage the circulation desk and instructor reserves, prepare to hire new student assistants, create the summer schedule, and perform my standard reference and collection development duties. I am also serving on the hiring committee that is working to fill the Library Technician II position that will assist me at the circulation desk.
Well, enough of that, I think that I am all caught up.

Spring Break

I have just enjoyed my first Spring Break at Pasadena City College. Before leaving, I completed my cleansing of the instructor reserves, and must now begin on our text book reserves. I will also be planning another meeting for my circulation staff to discuss privacy issues and fire alarm procedures. It will give us a chance to celebrate getting through the toughest part of the semester as well, with a little pizza. Who doesn't like pizza every now and then.
I must also begin preparing to teach Circulation in the Fall. This will be a 4 credit, full semester course, and will require some serious planning and preparation. Should be fun as well.

Finished teaching my 2nd class.

Well, I just finished grading all of my final projects and final exams for the Library 10A (Internet and Web research) class I was teaching for the Spring semester. Again, some of the students really surprised me with the quality of their work, where others did not. I do enjoy grading these research projects, because students are allowed to research any topic of interest to them. This exposes me to all sorts of interesting subjects and topics I may never have thought of, for example, the Manananggal, Gothic Lolita fashion, and Alan Moore Page, to name a few. You can learn about these yourself by exploring the Wiki pages created by my students at http://lib10aspring.pbwiki.com/ , then click the sidebar and exam the pages of the different students.
As to my project to clean up the instructor reserves, it continues. I have sorted through all professors from A-L, and now must embark on those from M-Z. I think this will help greatly with finding materials quickly and getting more materials into the hands of the students who need them.

Instructor Reserves

Over the past week, I have been working to update the PCC Instructor Reserves behind our circulation desk. I had noticed several items that did not seem to be getting any use and many Professor's names that I did not recognize. Upon further investigation, there were many materials on reserve for professors who no longer teach here and many materials that had not been checked out in the past 5 years. Many of these items are library items that I feel might get more use if they were out in the circulating collection where students might stumble upon them browsing. I have returned what items I can discern have been forgotten, and written a letter to many other professors asking them to examine the materials they have on reserve and determine whether or not they must be on reserve.
Through this process, I have cleaned up and organized the reserves in preparation for next Fall, and hope to hear back from some of the professors on campus in order to complete this project and have only relevant, highly sought after materials, at the circulation desk.