Google is stepping up their efforts to personalize our search experiences.
What’s your take on this ?
Today marks the 9th day of my online “Maymester” course at UNT in Technical Services, and the halfway point. It’s really flying by. There’s such a different feel to this course than the other online ones I’ve taken. With this compressed time period, it feels like I should always be reading or doing something for the course. But the workload has really been fair. I still have two more lecture units to read, two more unit discussion boards and the short research paper to finish by next Thursday the 31st.
I definitely have learned a great deal about the technical services side of libraries: firm orders, claims, subscription agents, etc. Most of my classmates are already working in libraries or seem to have an extensive background in technical services. I’ve enjoyed their postings and have picked up a lot just by listening (or reading, I should say).
By the way, our next unit deals with cataloging. It’s more of a brief introduction and overview than a how-to. Have any of you taken your cataloging course online ? I’ve seen quite a bit about how much different, and at times difficult, it is to take cataloging online instead of face-to-face. Cataloging is an elective at SJSU, but I’m planning on taking it down the road. Just wondering your experiences with it…
Anyway, back to some more reading….
If you haven’t seen this already, Emily at Library Revolution had a great post a couple of weeks back on her discussion with a library friend of hers about keeping up. Emily’s friend mentioned that because of the responsibilities of her own job, she didn’t have the time to stay on top of the latest in technology and library land.
There’s been a lot written lately about this topic. And that got me thinking about the ways each of us keep up, particularly those of us who are library students. What I’m wondering is this…
- How do you find the time to juggle all of your required readings and coursework with “keeping up” reading on various blogs, professional sites, etc. ? What specific tools (RSS readers, etc.) are you using to do this ?
- What percentage of your “keeping up” is library-related compared with other areas, like education, technology, and general news ?
- How much time do you spend in a typical day to “keep up” ?
As Nicole mentioned in her post over at What I Learned Today…,
The fact is that we can’t afford not to keep up – there is way too much happening and living in a bubble is not going to benefit our patrons – or our profession!
I think Nicole summed it up beautifully. So…how do you keep up ?
Considering the slow pace that I’m taking courses in my MLS program, I’ve been looking for a summer class to take and finally found one. I should back up and say that I was hoping to take a summer class this year at San Jose State (where I’m enrolled) but there is a very important event that’s happening right in the middle of their summer session……my wedding 
I don’t think my fiancee would like me writing a research paper in the middle of our wedding reception, so I decided to investigate other options.
After clearing it with my advisor at SJSU, I decided to enroll in a three-week intensive course at the University of North Texas during what they call their “Maymester” session. The class is titled ”Technical Services in Libraries and Information Centers”. It starts today and runs through May 31. After looking at the syllabus, the workload seems pretty fair. There are four units to the course, each with a timed quiz and several discussion board postings, plus a short research paper on a hypothetical managerial issue in technical services. It’ll be a good amount of work, but I think it’s manageable. I started some of the course readings today and plan on posting to the DBs today or tomorrow. I know with a class like this, you have to keep up with everything every day. I’m looking forward to it, as I don’t know much about technical services. Plus I’ll be able to transfer the credits back to SJSU if all goes well. Anyway, more to come….
Just want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom and also my future mother-in-law. Thank you for all you do. Where would we be without you ?
Have a great day !
