D. Today I went to FSN and after checking in with Kelly, went to my cubicle to work. I first went over my presentation and then shared it as a GoogleDoc with Kelly, Sandra, and Dr. Bird. After reviewing and preparing my presentation I send out a long email to Dr. Bird about where to go from here, after FSN selects a cataloging system. (I will do a second post that presents those thoughts). Then I emailed the librarian at the Levine Children's hospital Family Resource Center about going over to tour her library and see how she organizes her collection to hopefully get some ideas for how to organize the FSN collection. She emailed me back almost immediately, so I have a tentative date to met with her next Wednesday afternoon.
After that I started reading up about LibraryThing and found a manual online that another company had made for teaching their employees how to use LibraryThing. It would be a similar manual to what I would be creating in the future for FSN. At 11:30 I met with Tami and Kelly to start the presentation. Sandra was working from home so she joined us on a conference call. Since my presentation was a GoogleDoc she was able to view it at the same time we were on her computer at home. I gave my presentation answering questions from all three women as I went and trying to explain some of our library terms to them. By the end the women agreed with my presentation and agreed to use LibraryThing as our cataloging system. They want to get started quickly so that they can see something actually happen. At the end of my presentation/ our conversation there was some debate about what to call this resource center. The debate stemmed from the fact that both FSN and CDSA were going to be using it and if those two groups split up what would happen to the name. My suggestion was to "brand" the library with the FSN name, and if FSN leaves the CDSA building we can separate out the two resource sets and create a new account for CDSA under their name.
E. This morning was at first a very slow morning. I just wanted to get the presentation over with so that we could have the official ok to go ahead and get started with LibraryThing. I am so happy/relieved that FSN agreed with my/our recommendation of LibraryThing. I was afraid that LibraryThing would not seem professional enough for the CDSA (which is part of the mecklenburg county government). But after the presentation I think even more that LibraryThing was the right choice, because the CDSA plans to use this mostly in house inside their building. Therefore it does not have to have that "professionally/governmental" feel. I am really excited to get started. I was also really pleased on the reception that my presentation got today. Kelly said that it was very professional and an excellent presentation. I think I explained myself really well and helped them understand the differences involved between creating a whole ILS on a server that would be housed in a building versus a web-based model that can be maintained anywhere. There are still some things to show them about how circulation would work and such, but I think that it will work out in the end.
AL. I am trying to think if this was my first professional presentation today. I know it was my first librarian professional presentation. I am fairly sure that I have done formal presentations before, I have taught other teachers professional developments before and I have done presentations in front of students 100s of 100s of times. But I guess perhaps what I "learned" today was more introspective. I felt really good presenting and being able to explain these library terms and applying library concepts to really world situations. For example, I explained about how we would need to "tag" the resources with key words that people could search for because we needed to create more access points to the resources (more than just the title and author). So I guess I "learned" that I enjoy presentations and explaining things and perhaps I learned that I am good at those things.
Overall I am really enjoying my practicum, it is making me think more about library consulting, I think I could be good at it, although I am not sure I would be able to market myself to do it
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