Week 6 Blog 3

This is it, my final blog post of my high school career. After this post I will only have my presentation to do. It feels pretty surreal that I am actually finishing my internship. It is a bittersweet moment because I loved interning at the library but am happy to move on with life. Anyways, I will be talking about the second revelation I had that came to me because of the internship. Without further ado, the second one is that libraries constantly have jobs to be done. Although on the outside libraries do not seem to have a lot of activity going on, do not be fooled. Libraries are full of activities and jobs that need to be competed. There is no down time at a library as books are constantly being found, put on shelves, registered into the system and withdrawn from the system. All of these jobs are never ending and take time to finish. Well those are my two reflections about my time at the library. In closing, I would like to thank everyone who helped me have a wonderful time at the library.  Special thanks goes out to Mrs. Dumont, Mrs. Kelly, Dot, Sarah Collins, and Rachel. If I missed anyone at the library and you happen to read this I apologize for not mentioning you. I would like to thank my advisor, Mr. Koughan, and the head of SCORE, Mr. Jewett. I am very thankful for the opportunity to spend my time at a place outside of school, and it gave me real work experience.

Week 6 Post 2

Well now that I have explained what I do on a day-to-day basis, I am pretty much running out of stuff to write about. Unlike other internships, each day is pretty much the same old ritual. Anyways, I have decided to use this post as a way to reflect on my internship. When contemplating it, I have come to a few major conclusions. The first one being that I do not want to have a job like this. I found out that I rather detest jobs that do not differ very much. Jobs that follow a set schedule everyday are not appealing to me, as I find that it does not require a lot of energy or brainpower. Now, I am not dissing librarians because they do a lot more than I did during my internship. I only scratched the surface of managing a library, and I am sure that it is a lot more exciting than what I did; however, this was a nice awakening moment for me. I realized that I do not like boring jobs. I did do a lot of the grunt work at the library, which contributed to the boringness of the jobs I did while interning at the library. I am in no means saying that I did not enjoy myself at the library, but I am saying that the tasks that I performed were not really too taxing on the brain. Most of them were rather repetitive and tedious. The second reflection will be talked about in my final blog post.

Week 6 Post 1

Well I lied when I said last time when I stated that it was going to be a three part series. I did not realize that a summary of a normal day at the library would span across four journal entries. Man am I surprised. Anyways, this journal entry should be my last post about what I do during an average day at the library. Well picking up where I left off, I was talking about how I look for books that were previously mentioned as lost. After I finish this job I go back to Rachel to ask what else she has that needs to be done. Around this time she offers to give me a break because it is around noon. I accept her offer so that I am able to go eat lunch. I take my lunch box from behind the front desk, and I go upstairs to the archive room. I do this because it is the warmest room in the library. Although the weather is normally hot, the room is like a lukewarm temperature that makes me want to go to sleep. I have always found this temperature to be pleasing, so I eat lunch there. I normally bring a sandwich, an apple, some type of chip, and chocolate milk. My lunch break takes around thirty minutes, and after that I go back down to Rachel to check in with her. After lunch the tasks can be anything from sorting DVDs to changing books circulation modifier to unset. That pretty much sums up a regular day at the library for me.

Week 5 Post 3

This is the final part of my three journal commentary about what I do pretty much everyday at the library. In lieu of writing every post about what I did that day, I decided to do a three part series summarizing each day. If I were to do the other option it would get pretty repetitive and boring so I chose to do this. Well, picking up where I last left off I had just ended checking in the books that arrived from other libraries. After I finished the three to four containers, I start shelving the books that I had previously placed on the shelf behind my chair. Yet again, I am racing around the library searching for the right place to put the book, CD, or DVD. I actually have quite some fun with this task because I challenge myself to finish the task as quickly as possible. As I have stated before, familiarity with the library is very important when putting books back on their shelves. As soon as I finish this job, I look for Rachel, the closest thing I have to a boss, and ask what needs to be done in the library. Usually she has me find books that are presumed lost in the system. The books have been missing for long enough that the computer recognizes them as permanently lost. My job is to try to find the book and check it back into the system. Once I do this, the computer sees that the book is no longer missing and takes it off of the list. Usually I only find four or five of the books on the list, which totals over twenty per list. I guess this is going to continue on to my next blog post.

Week 5 Post 2

This is a continuation from my last journal entry because I pretty much do this everyday.

Anyways, once I locate all of the books I put them in the container and wait for the deliveryman to come. After he arrives, I begin to take the books out of the container and check them in to the computer system. There are three possible options that happen once I check them in. The first is that someone requested the book, and this means that a little message pops up on the screen that notifies me that someone put it on “hold.” I then print out a slip and write and “e” on it if the person is notified via email. If a librarian needs to call them then nothing is written on the slip. The second option is that it is a book returning to the public library. I take that book and put it on a shelf behind me in the appropriate spot. The book genre dictates where it is put. Once I put it on the shelf people after me move it from the shelf behind me to the correct place in the library. The third option is that it is a book in transit. I take that book and put it in the container that is designated for outgoing books. That usually concludes my morning from nine to ten thirty and after that I have different tasks that I normally do, which will be summarized in my final post for this week.

Week 5 Post 1

Well this kicked fifth week of SCORE and I am finally started doing six-hour days.  I am becoming very important to the system because I arrive early at the library. Since only one or two other librarians arrive at the library early in the morning, I perform some necessary functions that need to be done before the library is open to the public. I make sure that all the newspapers are in their correct spots, which means that I take the newspapers and put them in the correct spot for the people to read. After that, I check the places where people are supposed to return books, so I can check them into the library. This is important because it makes sure that all the people returning books are accurately entered into the computer. If someone messes this up then it will show up the person still has a book checked out, and then they will not be able to check out a book until they find the book. After I do this important task I get all the books on the pull list that people from other libraries have requested. This usually has my running across the library in search of everything from DVDs to children books and everything in between. This takes up a good half hour of my time, and I am racing across the clock, as I have to find all the books before the deliveryman shows up. The deliveryman is in charge of picking up the books that are in transit, meaning they are meant for other libraries. Because people are looking forward to these books, it is imperative that I find all the books before he arrives. He also comes bearing containers that contain books that people from Manchester have requested.