Brentwood Library Internship Week Seven

Monday was not a very busy day, so I really didn't have all that much to do. Just as with every Monday, I helped the librarian set up and get prepared for the Monday morning story time. My supervisor had gone on a trip over the weekend and she missed her flight, so the branch manager had to do both the baby story time and the toddler story time. The only things I had to do were set up the carpet squares, where the children would sit and retrieve some things from the craft closet. After that was finished, I went to the back office to work on my story time once again. By the time the day was over, I had decided specifically which books I am going to read, I found dances that would go along with the songs I will be singing in between the books, and which songs will be my opening and closing songs. 

Tuesday was an incredibly busy day, which I was very happy about. The first thing I had to do was process the new books that had arrived at the library. To do this, I have to put "new" stickers on the spine of the books, then write down the month and the year that it was processed into the library. After that, I had to go into the computer and change the books' location to Brentwood Children's New. Then when all that was done, I had to go put the books away. After that, I had to do the opposite of what I had just done. I went around the children's New Books sections and gathered the ones that were older than October. I removed the 'new' stickers from the spine, then changed the location of the books in the computer from Brentwood Children's New to the proper location, then I put them away. I actually had to deal with a rather difficult patron on Tuesday. She gave me a long list of books that her child needed to read for school. The problem was that she walked away when I needed her library card, but thankfully, my supervisor helped me. This was my first experience using Mobius, which is a system that allows the public libraries to borrow books from university libraries in the area. Once that was completed, my supervisor took me on an outreach visit with her. This one was to the Westminster Church day care. She just performed a story time and she said rhymes, sang songs, and read a few books. 

Wednesday was an extremely slow day, so I went to the back to the office once again and began working on my craft for my story time. All that I had to do was glue the green sheets of paper into cylinders. Then for the rest of the day, I began researching events that I will have the kids grades kindergarten through second grade do in the library Olympics. I still have not made a final decision on that, though. 

Brentwood Library Internship Week Six

On Monday, I did the usual preparation for the baby story time and the toddler story time. This week there really wasn’t much to do, so I just laid out the carpet squares where the kids would sit. When I was done with that, I was able to get in some desk time. Monday mornings can be rather busy, so I spent a lot of time giving out prizes for the summer reading contest, helping people find books, and answering other questions.

On Tuesday, I worked all day in reference. I really enjoyed this because there was always something interesting to do. My day started off with a list of adult fantasy books that were to be pulled off the shelves and weeded, which means these particular books were to be taken out of circulation because they haven’t been checked out in at least a year. These books will then be given to the annual book sale. After I pulled them from the shelves, I had to go into the computer and remove the titles from the system. When I was finished with that, I had to do some shifting, which pretty much means making the shelves neater looking. I had to make sure that the shelves were 3/4  full and no more. Then, I was given a list of non-fiction books to weed through and remove from the computers.

Wednesday was a very slow day, so I went into the back office to work on story time. For the farm animals toddler tub, I have included a poem about a barn and different colored chicks using felt figures on a felt board. My supervisor got me the different colored felt I needed for this activity, so I cut out chicks in white, pink, green, purple, black, blue, brown and yellow, then I cut out a red barn from the felt. For my own story time, I will be doing a dragon craft, so I spent the rest of the time gluing googly eyes to cotton balls. 

Brentwood Library Internship Week Five

On Monday, I helped set up both the baby story time and the toddler story time. This week, the baby story time was mostly set around sound, so all I had to do was organize the carpet squares for the children to sit on and set out some things that make sound, like eggs full of sand and wooden hoops for them to bang together. After that was over, I picked up all of the sound items and helped to prepare for the toddler story time. For this story time, the theme was “big” and the craft idea was to have large pieces of paper for the children to lie on and draw.  So it was my job to cut pieces of butcher paper that were about four feet long and tape two together, so that there were large squares on which the children could draw. After that, I was able to have a little desk time, which I think I am getting better at. For the first couple of weeks, being on the desk made me really nervous, but I’m starting to learn where everything is and it isn’t as intimidating anymore. The only downside was that I did have to deal with a particularly impatient patron on this day.

Tuesday was a very quiet day, so my supervisor, Charity, sent me to the back office to work on my story time and my toddler tub idea. I finally finished my Farm Animals #1 toddler tub. I wrote up the directions for this particular toddler tub and all I have to do now is post it up on the main library website.

Wednesday was a really fun day! I spent the entire day up in circulation and there was always something to do. The first thing I had to do was organize the books on the checked-in shelves, so that the pages would be able to put them back on the shelves more efficiently.  Next, I was set to work on checking in books that were slid through the return slots, and with that, I had to put a slip in the items when they had a hold on them. After lunch, the delivery man arrived with all of the items that had been ordered from other libraries for our patrons. When all of the items were on carts, it was my job to check everything in, insert a slip with the patron’s name that ordered it, and put them back on the cart in alphabetical order.

Brentwood Library Internship Week Four

On Tuesday, I spent the day finalizing my craft idea for my story time that will happen in August.  Originally, I had this craft that is made out of several toilet paper tubes, but the site I found did not give specific directions, and neither my supervisor nor I could figure out how to do it. So, I continued searching for a craft that was somewhat like it and I found this one. What I really liked about this particular craft is that children can blow through the back of it, causing the streamers to go up, which would look like the dragon is blowing fire. I liked this because it will go with my story time’s theme of imagination. 

On Thursday, I focused on my toddler tub. The subject of this particular toddler tub is Farm Animals #1. This is much simpler than coming up with your very own story time because there are already books and activities in the tub. The only things I need to do are come up with a few songs and write up the directions for the other library branches. However, when my supervisor looked in the tub, she didn’t like some of the activities because they were poorly made.

On Friday, I mostly focused on trying to complete the Farm Animals #1 toddler tub. I had to find pictures to go along with the Old MacDonald song. There were cut out pictures taped to popsicle sticks already in the tub, but they were not very nice looking. After I picked out some pictures for that, I found a cute little rhyme about colors and chicks that used the felt board. So the next thing I had to do was find some felt and cut out some chick figures. I was only able to find several of the colors needed, though. Next, I was able to spend some time on the desk and I helped my supervisor sterilize some of the toys and exchange them out for new ones. 

Brentwood Library Internship Week Three

There are two story times every Monday morning at 9:00 and 10:00, so I observed story times this week as well. This Monday, was a much more normal story time session than last week, as we had power the whole time. I got to see a different version of the baby story time because someone else was performing it. After the story times were over, I returned to the back office and continued working on my story time plan. The theme I chose was ‘imagination’ and I chose to read books such as Where the Wild Things Are and Harold and the Purple Crayon. I found a few songs that would be suitable for the theme. My next job was to pick out one of the Toddler Tubs and figure out a craft and/or snack along with a few songs to sing in between the stories. The tub I picked was called Farm Animals #1 and inside were several stories involving farm animals, mostly about chickens and cows. Before leaving for the day, Charity sat me down and we discussed my July schedule, which we decided would be Monday and Tuesday from 8:30 - 1:30 and Wednesday from 10:00-3:00. 

The next day I worked was Thursday, which tends to be a very quiet day. My supervisor did not have much for me to do, so I went back into the office once again and continued working on my story time and Toddler Tubs plans. My story time is nearly completed. I have a large list of books, so I just need to narrow it down to a few to read and about ten more to put up on display in the story time area. Also, I need to decide on a craft that would be age appropriate for the children to do. Later in the day, there was only one person working at the desk, so I was able to get some desk time. Since it was such a quiet day, not many people needed help. However, I was able to assist a few people in finding the books they needed. 

 On Friday, I went for a little field trip. The Brentwood Library and the Nature Center teamed up in this event. The theme at the library is Dream Big for the children's section, so the Nature Center developed this event in which the children could learn about night time animals. There were five different sections: story time, learning about echolocation, arts and crafts, dissecting owl pellets and learning about how fireflies communicate with each other. I was a helper in the arts and crafts section of the event and I helped the children make origami coyotes. 

Brentwood Library Internship Week Two

This was the day where I first observed the Monday story times. In these events, the librarians start off with an opening song, and then they progress to reading a picture book. Then there will usually be two or three more books and songs until the librarian moves onto a craft or snack.  The story times generally have a theme and they must have one of the Racing to Read qualities. The Racing to Read program is a program to get children more excited about read and has qualities like loving books, telling stories and learning letters.  This was a rather unique day because there was a terrible storm that caused the lights to go out in the library.   

             

   On Wednesday, I was able to attend a staff meeting. In this staff meeting, they discussed what they called reconsideration. This is when someone sends in a complaint about one of the items in the library, and then someone has to review it again. The woman in charge of this brought in some complaint sheets and passed them around, so I was able to see some of the complaints that people had about certain items. Most of the complaints were overruled. Next, the staff discussed building onto the library. The plan is to gather people’s stories to get possible donators emotionally attached to the library, so they will donate money. Lastly, the main maintenance man for the library system came in to talk about the air conditioning and heating problems in the Brentwood Library. For the rest of the time that day, I worked on story time plan. I set up in the back office and began researching themes, songs, books and crafts.

             

   Thursday was a very quiet day, so I dedicated all of my time to my story time plan. My supervisor, Charity, introduced me to something called Toddler Tubs. These are large, plastic tubs that have books and games inside to a certain theme.  These are pre-made story times that are kept in case someone who had been scheduled to perform a story time cannot do it. In this situation, one of the other librarians would get one of the Toddler Tubs out and use that for a story time. 

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.