Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teen. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

My own Wiki

Collection Development class assignment


You will create a marketing visual to advertise your new collection. This can be a flyer, bookmark, web page, blog page, handout, etc., but it must be visual, graphic, and eye-catching.


http://schultzstm.pbworks.com/Young-Adult-Readers-%40-the-Titusville-Library


Since we've been talking about Wikis so much in this class as well as my other courses, I decided to try my hand at this.  I found a local librarian who has a Wiki for her YA Collection (http://sbateensread.wikispaces.com/)  while doing my Collection Development Project.  I used a lot of her ideas, then changed the information to reflect what my collection contained.  I'm not really good with this yet, as you can see, but I tried to make it sort of like I would a blog.



Saturday, April 24, 2010

Library marketing

Collection Development class discussion
I’m the moderator for the discussion this week so I have to stay on top of things.
Please pick one promotional activities and talk about it. What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages? In what circumstances do you think you would use it? Also, what kinds of promotional activities have you seen from your local libraries? Do you think it was effective? Why or why not?
I’ve seen a lot of various marketing strategies at my local public library. The website was revamped and is a lot more modern and cleaner looking. It has more zing. I think that will attract people more, especially in the library itself – for a while they still had computers with text based only card catalog search capabilities. I’ve seen the same library have information on their webpage but I’m not sure how much viewing it gets. For example, since I’ve been interested in the YA section of the Children’s library, I did not see much listed online at their old website regarding Books Clubs and activities for teens. Now that I’ve been in the library more and snooped around on their new website they have tons of Teen Space stuff. Still a lot of it is not updated. I would love to have a job where I did that kind of marketing in my library. The webpages need to be updated and fancied up as much as possible to keep the views and interest coming in.
I also bought the Friends of the library tote bag they have on sale too. The Friends’ website, incidentally, is so outdated looking that I chose it for my Web Development class project.
Please post the bibliography of your selection tools that you used to develop your collection. Also, please answer this question: What did you think about the assignment? What did you learn about collection development? This should be an informal comment. I just want you all to talk about your experience. You'll be doing a formal reflection for the assignment next week.
I really did enjoy the project, I'll say that up front.  However, I still contend that this was one of, if not the most, difficult things I've done in school before.  I still wonder if librarians do this start from scratch type of collection development often.  I understand we needed to learn how to pick and chose carefully as to what we will include in our collection.  I found that fun in the beginning.  I was very interested to see the similarities in what kinds of books libraries and bookstores had.  Still, it was quite time consuming, just by listing everything.  I took notes throughout the project but it was the actual listing, organizing, polishing, choosing the best justification, etc.  That was the most difficult for me.  And, as I said before, after $2000 worth, I didn't feel like I had even scratched the surface. There are so many great books and great magazines for teens that I would love to pick and choose a little of everything. It really opened my eyes to the world of teen literature.
In my bibliography I listed every thing I ever used to gather any kind of information in my collection.
Personal stuff
35 days until Steve gets here!  No wonder I’m finding it hard to concentrate on grading – I just want to get ready for him to be here!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Collection Assessment

Collection Development class discussion

This question focuses on different collection evaluation methods. The textbook and the articles talk about different methods to evaluate collections. Please pick one method and talk about it. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

Circulation studies seems like a fairly easy method to deciding if the materials on the shelves are something your patrons are interested in. If you have a collection with books that have not been checked out in several years, maybe it’s time to add that to the library book sale next time and look for books that will be of more interest. However, if we look at the circulation as “the adequacy of the book collection is directly related to its usage” idea, then we may be weeding out some valuable, classic literature that just hasn’t been checked out for a while (Evans 326). That is not to say that a student in the near future will not want to do a project on Mark Twain and will be interested in checking out his works (for example).

This module is all about collection evaluation and collection assessment. For the collection that you are developing in this class, what are the methods you would use to assess your collection and why?

For my YA serialized novel collection, I would definitely have to keep tabs on the circulation of each book. Even if it’s something I view as good as an expert (choosing something recommended in Booklist or something I saw at the bookstore that seemed interesting) that doesn’t mean my teen patrons will be interested. I would try to “push” a book like that through the Book Club and Teen Space website, but if that fails, I would look to see the use of other libraries statistics. If the book is doing well at another county library, then I’ll keep the book on the shelf for longer in hopes the interest will pick up.

Teaching

The semester is almost over and I keep getting late work turned in.  This weekend will be all about me getting these last grades in for their Drama Unit and then by next Wednesday all the Literary Criticism work (and the inevitable last minute work) will be turned in.  I’ll also have to give them the Final Exam that day too.  Then finals will be done, grades will be put in and everything will be done for the term.  It’s been fun.  I’ve enjoyed working BCC quite a lot. 

Personal stuff

Once school is over, I’ll be doing mad cleaning and getting ready for Steve to arrive.  Then it will be Disney vacation time!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Assignment Completed: Collection project

Comments to my professor:


I know we didn’t have to write a reflection, but I wanted to mention that I have 7 total items because the assignment says “at least three other formats.” I found this assignment very difficult just in time consumption. Every book has positive reviews but since I’m working with sets, it was harder to find a positive review for each book in every set that I had wanted. I thought I’d be smart and find books in Booklist first, then find a second positive review. I went to a couple of libraries numerous times as well as looking through the Teen Fiction section of Barnes and Noble. There’s plenty to choose from and I feel I only scratched the surface.


This helped me learn a lot though. I enjoyed the project all in all but this was the toughest assignment I’ve ever come across. Would we have to start from scratch like this a lot as a librarian, or does a vendor make this part easier?