Week 5

This week was not filled with exciting adventures like the past few weeks. Again, I helped with reference at the Children's Reference desk as well as shelving books in the children's area. One special event which was hosted at all three of the library branches this week was called "Love Your Library." Occurring on Monday, this event was for patrons of all ages and included activities, entertainment, and giveaways for everyone. We hosted a craft for children to work on within the children's area. Reasons why each child loved their library were listed and hung about in the children's area. Also, a craft where animals were made out of papers cut into the shapes of hearts were made. It seemed the kids really had a great time!

Our story-time this week was also very special. The city's mayor came in and read two stories instead of the usual librarian. While it was not as "smooth" as it usually is, it was definitely a lot of fun for both children and parents to watch and listen to.

With the "Love your Library"event and other things this week, there was not a whole lot of new things or projects for me to work on unfortunately. It did give me a feel for the regular and sometimes less fun aspects of a children librarian's job. Reference, straightening up displays and picking up books, helping find AR books, and other tasks are daily things one must be familiar with when working in the particular area of the library field. It is good to have both practice and experience with all these tasks.

Week 4 at the Library....

This week, the activities at the library were a little slower than normal. For my hours this week I worked answering children's reference questions and I hosted an event. Many of the questions were about locating biographies. Apparently a majority of the elementary schools in my area are having their students read biographies and work on a project or a report. Many of the students I helped were in the third grade. What was different was the subject of the book. Since February is Black History Month some students needed to find a book on African American individuals. Other kids just needed biographies on any person of their interest. I have worked with children before and answered reference questions, however, this week I really realized how different the reference interview is with children versus adults. While both require similar questions, the responses from children differ greatly than those typically given by adults.

In addition to children's reference, I hosted event this week. A co-worker of mine hurt his leg this week so he was out sick. Due to this, I unexpectedly had to host Anime Club this afternoon. Normally, an episode or two of a Manga episode is shown. Unfortunately our projector is out of service this week. So, I had to scramble to find an activity for the participants. After speaking with my mentor, Christina, we decided to have the children draw their own manga cartoon. We provided them with several books from the collection on how to draw manga and cartoons as well as snacks and treats. The picture below is of the room and the tables I set up for this event. Overall I think it went well. I do think it would have been much better if I had had more time to prepare. It did teach me though that I can create an event last minute! Which can be a good skill to have!

Week 3

Wow! This week has been a very busy week for me during my praticum hours. First, several people were sick again this week so that left me to take over. Monday I co-hosted a story-time for pre-school aged children. I sang and read to them, which I was horribly nervous about. I could have done better but I was not awful! After the story-time there was a little art activity for the children and their parents to work on together. This week the theme was trains. All the songs and stories we read and talked about dealt with trains, so, for the activity the children colored in trains and then pasted them onto large pieces of construction paper. Here is an example I made for the children to look at:

In addition to the Monday story-time, I also co-hosted to Baby & Toddler story-times on Tuesday. This was much easier since I had helped in the one on Monday, but I was still nervous. The theme again was still trains but there were different books and songs and no activity since the children were younger. We had over 50 people show up! 

In addition to helping with the story times, I also worked on labeling new books for the children's collection. Several juvenile paperbacks had been ordered and are in the process of being added to the collection. This week it has been my task to label each book with a sticker that says "Santa Clarita Library Canyon Country Branch". 

Today at the library we hosted another event, called "Read to a Dog". For this event, three service dogs from the local community come in and young children are able to pick out one to two books and they sit next to the dogs and read to them. Not only does this help to build their confidence, but it helps them with their reading skills and can even teach them to feel more comfortable around dogs. For this event, I signed up children to participate as well as oversaw everything to make sure everything ran smoothly. 

Week 2 at the Newhall Library

For this weeks internship hours, I worked on a few different tasks within the Newhall Library. My first assignment was to make flyers for two events the library is holding. The first flyer dealt with Science Club. The Newhall Library is promoting a weekly event for young children to come into the library to learn and participate in fun and educational activities. The second flyer I made was to promote Read to a Dog Program. Each of the three library branches promotes this activity. Young children are able to choose any book from the library; they get 15 minutes to read to a dog. Four to five dogs are brought into the library by volunteers for the children to read too. These animals are service animals, typically for individuals who are blind or are therapy dogs. This activity helps to promote reading as well as familiarize young children with dogs.

In addition to working on flyers, I also observed as well as participated in Baby & Toddler Story-time. I was very nervous, but once the program was over I felt much better. I assisted a different children's librarian, Kelly, because Christina was out sick. I helped to sing songs such as the "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and I read "Goodnight Moon."While singing, I wore a spider hand puppet and the children seemed to love it. This was definitely something different and nothing I am used to. It was a good experience however; I was able to slowly ease into it. I hope, before this experience is over, to complete a whole story-time on my own.

In addition to these two assignments, I also worked at the children's reference desk and helped several kids locate books, both for school and for fun.

This is a picture of part of the children's area in the Newhall Library.

First Week

My first week working on my practicum was very busy and productive! Since I work in a public library, for this practicum experience I am working at another library branch and working on projects, tasks, and assignments I do not work on during a normal work day. I am completing my hours for this practicum on my own time; not while on the clock and with the children's librarian.

My first task this week was to help weed and remove some materials from the children's collection. In class I have learned the logic and some methods behind weeding, however I have never seen it implemented. For this task, I looked at the condition of the book, its age, and the content. Books with topics of science, space, and health were examined carefully. I found a few items stating that Pluto was still a planet. Items such as these I removed from the collection. I worked closely with Christina, who explained to me here reasoning between pulling other materials. In addition to pulling the books, I also withdrew the items from the catalog. This way, the items which we are discarding will not show up in the catalog anymore.

In addition to weeding, I was assigned the task of taking a set of children's reference encyclopedias from 2011 and changing them within the catalog to circulating. I also relabeled the items and moved them to a different shelf. The library ordered a current set of encyclopedias, so the past editions are now able to circulate outside of the library. This task was interesting because I had to change the catalog record for each item; something I had never done before. Not only did it give me a new skill, but I was able to look at the cataloging records and see some of the information I had learned in the cataloging course put into place.

The last task I worked on this week was helping host a children's activity. This afternoon, the library hosted a "Valentines for Veterans" event. We had children of all ages come into the library and make Valentines Day cards for our troops overseas. A young Marine, currently enlisted, came in and spoke to the children and thanked them for their thoughtfulness and expressed great appreciation for the cards. The library supplied all the materials including the cards, lollipops, stickers, hearts, markers, glue, and other supplies. I helped to set up the tables, put out the supplies, supervise, and help the children make their cards. Since this was the first activity I had ever supervised at the library it turned out great! There was a huge turn out and the children made adorable cards. Considered "passive" programming, the children were able to use their imaginations to create anything they wanted on their cards.

Here is a photograph of the Newhall Library

                                                               Courtesy of Santaclaritapubliclibrary.com