“Adulting” 101: 50+ Program Ideas for Libraries

What are “Traditional” Library Programs?

Not that long ago I wrote about #DataRescueDavis, a library program that I helped with at the UC Davis Peter J. Shields Library. I also recapped my participation in my weekly journal for my class instructor; in it, I asked “what are “traditional” library programs anyway? Do academic libraries have a “typical” set of events that they’d usually participate in, and I’m just not aware of them?” Can I come up with any unique or useful program ideas?

My professor commented:

Somehow, I don’t believe that ‘traditional’ programming for libraries exists any longer – in any type of library.

Program Ideas for Every Library

Here’s a case in point: one librarian on the ALA Think Tank group on Facebook posted about ideas for some “Adulting 101” workshops at her career college library. These workshops could work just as well at a public library, a school library (especially high school!), an academic library at a university, and perhaps even some special libraries!

Rather than comb through the comments, here are the ideas in a handy list for you to think about, adapt, and use at your library! I’ve sorted them by general category and added some helpful notes. Continue reading ““Adulting” 101: 50+ Program Ideas for Libraries”

What I’ve Learned Thus Far

As this is my first post, I’ll make a quick introduction. My name is Samantha and I’m currently interning at a local museum library.  It’s an organization that runs on the back of volunteers and interns like myself because it is a state run museum that is dreadfully underfunded.   In my short time there I’v become aware of the great personal rewards and severe limitations that are part of that job.

For example, anyone who has a shred of interest in history can spend their whole day just combing through the collection and countless items of interest.  Since I’m in Las Vegas, there is no end of information available on the early history of the town and the Mob Era.  Personally, I think this is some of the most fascinating local history I’ve ever read.  On a personal note I was able to locate my husband’s grandfather listed in a phone book from 1962.  He was in the U.S. Air Force and stationed here at Nellis Air Force Base for a few years.  It’s not much but it’s fun on a personal level only because no-one keeps old phone books.

On the flip side, there are huge staffing and budgetary limitations that must be dealt with on a daily basis.  My current project revolves around reorganizing the publication collection at the library.  This collection houses magazines and periodicals specifically relating to Las Vegas or the local era going as far back as the 1950’s.  Previous volunteers and interns had taken matters into their own hands with the collection, rather than consulting with the Curator, and now we are trying to fix items that are out of order, mislabeled, and (more worrisome) becoming damaged due to improper storage.  It’s very hard to contend with that kind of chaos when there are limited hands to help.  I very much admire my site supervisor for her dedication to the collection in the face of this frustration.

I hope to make this line of work my career as I find historical archives fascinating so I’m very glad for the option to work in a museum such as this. It’s given me great perspective on the pitfalls and rewards I will encounter on a daily basis. I would like to think the situation might be better were I to work at an organization that is not publicly funded.  I’m under no delusion that a private organization wouldn’t have their own issues with which to contend.  Had I not taken this internship, I wouldn’t have been as forewarned as I am now and I’m so grateful that I am.  At least now I have an idea of what it takes to fight the good fight.

 

Save That Data! Unexpected Adventures in Academic Library Programming

Library programming: just what is it that librarians do all day? - Girl with glasses looking over an open book in her hands
PublicDomainPictures / Pixabay

Library Programs a.k.a. Events For You and Me

What exactly is library programming? Well, to answer that question, you might first ask yourself, just what is it that librarians do all day? There’s a myth that librarians just sit around and read books all day, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Librarians tend to be people who love books,  but that doesn’t mean they get paid to read them!

One thing that librarians have to do is organize events. In information science parlance this is called “library programming.” It’s one thing to expect there to be programs of some sort at your local public library branch, e.g. craft events, story time for babies and toddlers, or special speaker events, but what about at academic libraries?

Library Programming at UC Davis: What is #DataRescueDavis?

I recently had the privilege of participating in one such library program at the UC Davis Peter J. Shields Library. The event, #DataRescueDavis, took place on February 2nd. It is part of the national Data Refuge project that the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Program in the Environmental Humanities (PPEH) Lab organized and is part of the End of Term Web Archiving project.

You can read more about the #DataRescueDavis event in this Sacramento Bee article.  I want to talk about what led up to the event, and how the skills used at the event could translate later on down the line, during other programs at an academic library or similar institution. Continue reading “Save That Data! Unexpected Adventures in Academic Library Programming”

Collection Processing and You: We Are All Librarians

We Are All Librarians

Just over three weeks ago,  I started an internship at the University of California at Davis’ Peter J. Shields Library with the university archivist. It wasn’t until earlier this week that it hit me: we are all librarians. No, really. Many librarians do something called “collection processing.” But whenever someone empties out their wallet or takes out the trash, they’re also processing a collection. What people choose to keep, trash or treasure says a lot about who they are. Continue reading “Collection Processing and You: We Are All Librarians”