Whitney hammond Blog 15

Well, today was my last day at the library! I was able to get a lot done on my last day which felt really gratifying. I started out the day by helping out Anne again with some young adult books. She just had me and Colin process them first. It didn't take long to put all the stickers on a barcodes. We also had to catalog them which means writing in the books how much the cost, their call number, the company they were ordered from, and the date they were processed. After we finished that I went back to finishing the shifting the adult fiction section. Dot's main goal is to the get the fiction on one side of the stacks and the adult non-fiction on the other side of the stacks. In order to do this every month or so there has to be shifting which is moving the books around to make more shelf space. It's kind of hard to explain but all you need to know it's a lot of work which includes heavy lifting and some thinking. I am never going to underestimate the strength of librarians again after lifting all of those books off the shelves. Anyway, this has been a three day project and finally today I finished! When I finished that, Rachel had some more kids books to delete from the catalog. That didn't take me too long so when I finished I worked on a task Anne left for me which was inputting the books we processed earlier into the computer. When I was finished with that I took the kids books I deleted down to the basement and put them on the shelves down there. When I came back up Sarah had me make some copies for her and cut some things up for when she goes to talk about summer reading at the elementary school. Overall, it was a really busy last day! But I really enjoyed working at the library!

Whitney Hammond Blog 14

Yesterday I went into the library later than usual because Dot wanted me to attend the community long rage library plan meeting. I went in at two and had a lot to do before the meeting started. I started off by organizing the DVDs some more. They always seem to become the most disorganized thing in the library. When I was finished with that Rachel had another list of missing and lost books for me to try and find. I really do enjoy these lists because it feels good to find missing or lost books that haven’t been around for a while. These books were all non-fiction and were in the 300s, which meant that they were upstairs. There are many reasons why some books become missing in the library. One reason is that shelvers sometimes do not put the book back in the right place, another reason could be that the books call number could be wrong. However, another reason could simply be that the book is just lost because someone forgot to check it out or a librarian forgot to check the book back in. When I was finished with the list Rachel set me up with another big project: shifting. Dot’s main goal for the adult section is to have fiction on one side of the library and non-fiction on the other. Rachel has had me working on this ever since I started by weeding out books as well as finding missing books. But instead of pulling books I just had to move them to left so that eventually all the fiction will be on the left side of the adult section. I was only able to get through to the H’s but I think I’ll be able to finish this week at some point. Later on I attended the meeting and found it actually really interesting. I was able to pull together  a lot of information for my paper as well because of the meeting! 

Whitney Hammond Blog 13

I started off my day at the library by putting letters in envelopes that need to be sent to people who have very, very overdue books and DVDs. I wouldn’t want to be them! After I finished with that I had to do some more work with editing the information in our patron’s accounts. I had to make sure that there birthdate and whether the person is male or female was on our record. I also had to write it down on a piece of paper with a chart on it. I only did a page of this because after awhile it gets really boring and tedious, but Rachael had something else for me to do. She gave me another list of some DVDs that are either missing or lost.  There were a lot of DVDs missing but I personally went through each and every DVD in the library and found only two of the missing DVDs on that list. It’s annoying that I found only two but it’s better than zero! When I came back from my lunch break I finished up with the DVDs and then processed some new children’s DVDs again. That didn’t take too much time so when I was finished with that Sara asked me to make some copies of some flyers. I’ll have to post them around town sometime this week. After I gave her the copies, Rachael gave me another missing books list. This one was for non-fiction in the 600 section of the library.  I’d say non-fiction is the worst to work with when trying to find missing books because it’s in order by number rather than alphabetical order making it not as neat and orderly. 

Whitney: Blog 12

Today at the library I did a lot of different tasks. I started the day by again taking yesterday’s newspapers off of their holders and put the new ones on. I’m actually getting the hang of it and starting to do it quicker. While I was doing that Rachel came over to me and gave me another weeding list for the adult fiction books. I actually really enjoy doing the weeding; it’s interesting to see how popular and unpopular some books are. Weeding is also something that has to do with my research paper so it’s good that I have first-hand experience. It wasn’t a huge list, only two and half pages. I found a good amount of the books but some of them were missing. When I finished with that, I gave the list back to Rachel and she gave me a couple of DVDs to process. I finished the DVDs and then Rachel told me that there was a lot of deleting that had to be done. We went to book cart that all the librarians put books that they weeded out and want to be deleted. That’s where I put the books I find when I weed. Anyway, there were a lot of books so we had to fill an entire cart. I then took the cart to the back office and proceeded to check them in and then delete them. Once I deleted them in the computer I got to stamp each book with the “withdrawn” stamp and then put them back on the cart. Once I was done with that I took the cart and took it near the stairs to the basement. I then had to carry all the books down there. I got some great exercise going up and down with all of those books! 

Whitney Hammond Blog 11

Yesterday at the library I started the day by working out at the front desk checking in books from other libraries that had to be put on the hold shelf. Although, there were only two boxes there were still a lot of books. I also had check in some books from the drop off box. There were a lot of books in it from the weekend, mostly children’s books. When I was finished with that, Anne needed my help with some weeding in the storage section upstairs. She gave me a list of all the books that she wanted taken out of storage. Some of the books were circled which meant there was only one copy of the book and that I shouldn’t pull it. The books that did have more than copy, I was allowed to pull. Most of these books will be deleted at some point and will probably be put in the summer book sale. When I was finished with this, I had to package up some old National Geographic’s for Rachel. She told me they get to some company in Massachusetts to be catalogued in their own system. When I as done packaging, I had to go on a very long book hunt! Mrs. Dumont gave me a list of books that had been accidently shelved that should have been put in the box to be sent to other libraries. I found a couple of the books but definitely not all of them. A lot of the items are missing.

SCORE Paper Whitney Hammond

Whitney Hammond

May 10, 2013

The Evolution of the Library

Throughout history libraries have been an instrumental part in the history of the world. Many may question this, however, for thousands of years libraries have been apart of everyday society and will continue to be as long as there are books. However, today the world is seeing a drastic cut back in the world of books as well as the institutions that carry them, libraries. What is to blame for this cut back? There are many answers to this: the growing amounts of technology, the Internet, and of course the disinterest in books. Libraries still continue to muddle through these trials through the help of their community. The community is the thing that keeps libraries alive and without it the library would be a thing of the past. The relationship between the libraries and their communities have changed drastically in the last century because of new technology, the internet, and many other variables that will continue to change the way libraries are used and looked at today.

            Since the earliest of times libraries have been an influential part in human society. The origin of the first library is unknown, however, it is believed that first either came from Egypt or Mesopotamia. There are many reasons why libraries exist in the first place, one of these reasons is the protection of writings. Library science professor, Michael H. Harris, explains the necessity of writing, he says:

One of the purposes for the development of writing was to preserve human communication [and to] extend its duration beyond the sound of the human voice and beyond the memory of mortal persons, and it probable that written communications were kept almost from the beginning of writing (3). 

Due to the creation of writing, this created a need for a type of establishment within society for the writing to be protected, a library. A common way for very early writings to be protected was for them to be kept in a person’s own private libraries, for example, the Old English epic poem, Beowulf. This is one of the earliest and oldest surviving epic poems in the English language and has survived this long because of its protection within many libraries for hundreds and thousands of years. However, it seems that the mission of the library has changed since the days of only having a purpose of protecting writing. Of course, libraries still contain books, writings, and everything else that makes a library a library. But the purpose of the library has changed. It has changed from protecting books to distributing books.

            Although libraries have changed a lot since ancient times, they also have drastically changed in the last twenty to thirty years. Instead of it being the first place to go for research, it has become second to the powerful and still-growing Internet. Many teenagers and adults can access commercial search engines to do their research for them right from home, instead of taking a visit to the library. Libraries try to fix this by making their database online as well, however, this still keeps the patron away from the library and in the comfort of their own home and on their own computer. Now that nearly ninety percent of Americans own at least one computerized item such as a computer, the need to go to the library at all is much less than it was years ago. However, there are many libraries that are trying to keep up with this technological revolution.

            Today, the library is used for much different things than how it was used in the past for the purpose of keeping up with modern times and technology. According to librarian, Jason Kuhl, “[a librarian] has to think of [the library] as a store, and stock it with things that people want” (Cullotta 1). When it comes to what people want today, it mostly had to do with electronics. Libraries have now come to carry countless numbers of DVDs, video games, CDs, and any other sort of entertainment that may draw people into their walls once again. However, there is another thing people want just as bad: best sellers and other very popular books. This demand has recently been discovered because of the rising prices of books. Many patrons want books as soon as they are released causing libraries to come up waiting lists for only one book. Due to the high demand, libraries will either purchase more than one copy or send out a request to another library for the book. Most of the time, however, the library will be prepared and buy more than one copy. But then later on this will cause space problems within the shelves of the library and result in the books being weeded out in about two years.

            New technology such as kindles and e-books have greatly impacted the way libraries function. Alternate ways of reading have become more popular because of how easy and inexpensive it is to purchase reading material on these new gadgets. Another point people have to buying e-books is that it supports the green movement. Some consumers believe that it is much better for the environment to but e-books rather than actual books because the amount of paper and trees that have been cut down for a couple of books. Libraries have now started to purchase their own kindles and nooks for their patrons as well because of the high demand. Instead of building new space and shelves for books, libraries are creating more space for the new technology that are starting to offer to their patrons. Although e-books amount to less than two percent in the catalogs of most libraries in the United States, they seem to be the most popular item in the library. It is believed that this percent will continue to increase within years to come. It has also recently been proven that more people use e-books to read rather than actual printed books (see chart).

 

Without a community of people, a library would not be able to exist in today’s world. Libraries have been known to bring people together through events and clubs that are sponsored by the library. From a young age, children are taken to their local library for either the weekly “story time” in the children’s room or just to pick out a book to read with their parents. Children are able to socialize for the first time with other kids as well as their parents. Just as children are able to socialize for the first time, the elderly are also able to socialize more with the help of book clubs and even volunteering at the library. Rather than being a building with the only purpose of providing information, the current-day library has become a warm, welcoming, environment where the community can come together. Many public libraries are able to embrace their community, while others have trouble embracing. Those who have trouble are not open for long.

            All libraries are apart of the American Library Association, the oldest and largest library association in the world. Their main mission is to

Provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all. (American Library Association)

The ALA comes up with the basic guidelines that all libraries must abide by within their own walls. One of their main goals is to educate the public about the importance of libraries to society because of all the necessary tools that libraries provide to their communities. Another association within the ALA is the Friends of the Library. All libraries have the Friends of the Library organization, which is made up mostly of all volunteers. Their main mission is to raise money for their library by hosting events such as book sales, memberships, and other types of events that contribute to the library.  Due to the fact that libraries do not run on a money income system, they rely mostly on the friends for their funds.

            Many people are unaware of the decline of public libraries in the United States. Many people see that libraries are still filled with books but what they don’t see is how many people are not actually checking these books out. One of the main reasons for this is the Internet. It is so much easier for a teenager to open up Google and research a topic than go to the library and find books to use as their research. The only way a teacher can get their students to use books is if they make it a requirement. Only about a decade ago, all kids had were books for their research. The Internet and technology as a whole has moved too quickly in such a short amount of time causing books to almost be a thing of the past. The next generation is often called the “digital generation” because the now young adults of this generation grew up learning how to use computers and other technological devices more than that of their parents. They were the first to write book reports with computers rather than using a typewriter or just a pencil and some paper.

            The idea of libraries being an institute of the past is a scary and unthinkable thought to both librarians and bibliophiles. Many debates have been sparked, especially in the United States, about whether libraries are just not as important as they once were years ago. According to Michael Harris in his novel History of Libraries in the Western World,  “some librarians have embraced the notion of totally ‘paperless’ library systems, and others have labeled such a development as cultural suicide” (294). Although many librarians would agree with Harris’ “cultural suicide” reference, he goes on to say that:

Most librarians, however, have quietly gone about the business of deploying the new information technology where it appears feasible while constantly attending to the still role of libraries: the preservation of cultural record, most of it in the form of records inscribed on paper, of some 3000 years of human history. (294)

Harris is trying to say that although many librarians do not agree with the new changes with technology occurring within libraries, they really do not have a choice to ignore it. Although there hasn’t been a drastic change in the number of libraries in the United States there has bee n a change (see graph).

This graph shows that from 2002 to 2007 there have been a steady number of libraries within the United States. Although there hasn’t been a drastic change yet, it is possible if libraries keep up with the current technological revolution.

            Libraries are one of the most important institutes that the world still has left. They teach people to read, to appreciate literature, and to provide as much information about a topic as possible. Some may argue that there is no longer a purpose for libraries in this new age, however, there will always be people to argue this statement. Although libraries continue to change and morph as the future approach’s, they will always be a place of tranquility and endless amounts of information available to each and every person in this world. 

Citations

ALA, ed. I Love Libraries. ALA, 1997. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

American Library Association. ALA, 1997. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Battles, Matthew. Library: An Unquiet History. New York City: W. W. Norton &

     Company, 2004. Print.

Blanton, Brigitte, et al., comps. Monkeyshines on Libraries. Greensboro: North

     Carolina Learning Institute for Fitness and Education, 2004. Monkeyshines.

     Digital file.

Cullotta, Karen Ann. "Libraries See Opening as Bookstores Close." The New York

     Times [New York City] 27 Dec. 2012: n. pag. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Farkas, Meredith G. Social Software in Libraries: Building Collaboration,

     Communication, and Community Online. N.p.: Information Today, 2007. Print.

Farrington, Joshua. "CIPFA statistics: 200 libraries closed in 2011/12." The Bookseller 14 Dec. 2012: 13. General OneFile. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Harris, Michael H. History of Libraries of the Western World. 4th ed. Lanham:

     Scarecrow Press, 1999. Print.

Heverly, W. Gerald. "From Scroll to Database: What Do Classics Librarians Do?"

     New York University Libraries. New York University, 2004. Web. 14 Mar.

     2013.

Simmons, ed. Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science.

     Simmons, 1995. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.