Visiting the Levine Children's Hospital's Family Resource Center

D. Yesterday I went to visit the Levine Children's Hospital's Family Resource Center and talked with their librarian Angela for about an hour. The purpose of this visit was to see how she set up her library because her library is a Consumer Health Library for families with Children, which is very similar to what the library will be for the Family Support Network. The Levine Family Resource Center uses the National Library of Medicine system to organize their collection in the catalog, however on the shelves it is arranged by general topics such as Autism, Allergies, Cancer, Pregnancy, etc. The topics are then in order alphabetically. Angela and I discussed how she put books into categories and how she dealt with books that didn't fit neatly into one category. She also suggested that Planetree was another classification system that I could look into using. We also discussed how to catalog brochures. She doesn't include them in her catalog, she just has to recommend them to visitors or a visitor has to randomly discover them themselves.
E. Overall this was a very good visit. Angela gave me a lot of advice and insight into how to organize a consumer health library. She mentioned that when families are in crisis they don't want to figure out an organizational system, they just want information and fast. So easy to use subject headings seems the best way to go. I wrote down all of her shelf titles as a reference/starting guide. As I thought about my visit later on last night I came up with a plan of action. I want to catalog all of the items in the library first and then see my most popular tags. By knowing the most popular topics I think that that will make it easier to create shelf labels.

Angela was very helpful, she even sent me links to more information that I could look at. I am enjoying this practicum experience because it is truly making me feel like a professional. I feel more professional because I am having these conversations with other professionals and I feel like I am being treated like an equal. Maybe I am weird in this feeling, but in my past/current jobs I have always been a teacher/educator and therefore around kids all the time and spending most of my time talking to kids. So I guess I feel grown-up now that I get to talk to adults. :)
AL. Today I learned that there were many classification systems, not just Dewey and LC. I learned a little about the National Library of Medicine system and that there was another system called Planetree. I also learned that many small libraries just make up their own system, especially if they do not coordinate with other libraries that much. Furthermore I learned the reasoning and rational behind why a subject heading /shelf labeled system works well in Consumer health libraries. Overall a good learning experience