Brentwood Library Internship Week One

This week, I worked from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Tuesday was a fairly basic day. My supervisor, Kelley Johnson, started off with inviting me into her office and setting up a schedule for the month of June. Going into this, I thought I might be working five days a week for five hours a day. I was pleasantly surprised when Kelley said that she wanted me to work three days out of the week for five hours a day. By the end of the summer, I will have the 135 hours that I need.

Next, Kelley took me around the library and introduced me to everyone that I would be working with and showed me around the library. Hopefully, later in the summer, I will be able to get some experience in some of the other sections, like reference, teen, or circulation.

Kelley re-introduced me to the Dewey Decimal System. I had been aware of it before, but I never knew exactly how it was organized. I have a vague understanding of it now and I have a goal to memorize the different categories.

On Wednesday, I spent a lot of time behind the desk in the children’s section. Towards the beginning, I was really nervous because I was scared I would have to deal with an impatient person.  However, it went well and I helped several people find the books they were looking for.

Thursday was a particularly eventful day. When I first got there, Kelley wasn’t there, so I was assigned a job by the assistant children’s librarian, Charity. She assigned me to a weeding project. Weeding is the process the library goes through to sort out books that are either in very bad condition or that aren’t checked out very often.

There was a list that Charity gave me that listed all of the books in the children’s section. So, the first thing I had to do was go search for all of the books. I found the majority of the books, but some of them were checked out. 

For the next step, I had to enter the data into the computer. I had to find each of the books in the system and classify them as “unavailable.” Then, I had to stamp the physical books with a stamp that said,”No longer property of the Brentwood Library.” For the books that I did not find on the shelves, I had to go into the computer and put them on hold.

After I was done with that task, Kelley arrived and we went to the Daybreak Adult Day Care Center for an outreach program. I observed while Kelley read them three stories.