Boot Camp Day 3

More than half way there!!
Acquisitions
Nina Servizzi (Head of Acquisitions) gave us a broad overview of what the department does. It actually is under Technical Services, which also include copy cataloging, original cataloging, and special collections cataloging. They work closely with collection development to purchase books and there are many ways to place an order. Anyway, not to go into much detail, I've now realized just how amazing Joyce was at Josten. She was the department at Josten, lol.

Cataloging
Susan Hayes (Head) came to tell us about her department. It seems many people who had worked on the ALEPH migration project, had left the department and moved on (hahaha). They're really short on catalogers and have to place priority on items when cataloging. Apparently, there was the "great betrayal by LC" which I haven't heard about, but apparently, everything the LC used to do, they don't have the funds to do so they decided to skiddaddle! So now there's no real cataloging standard. She was definitely the most lively and interesting speaker (I think) today.

(~25min break, during which I talked to Dan about the Five College Libraries. He graduated from Hampshire recently and has taken some classes at Smith!)

Preservation & Conservation
Paula De Stefano gave us the grand tour of the preservations facilities. We got a first hand look at how they actually do these things. There's a huge backlog (same as in almost every department). In the Conservation part, she talked about turning print material in microfilm vs digital. If a particular material was too delicate, they actually shrink wrap it in plastic before sending it into storage! In the Preservation dept, we met a technician (I think he name was Lou) who showed us different rebound materials and a current project they're working on for Fales Library. We only had time to peak into the Audio Preservation and Video Preservation Labs -- lots of high tech equipment!

NYU Press/Scholarly Publishing
Monica McCormick (Program Officer for Digital Scholarly Publishing) gave us a broad overview of University Presses and where they stand in terms of publishing. She talked in depth about new platforms for scholars to share ideas. Traditionally, to publish, the author would send the manuscript to the publisher, who sends it for peer review before publishing. There's a new idea (Media Commons) where scholars publish first (on the web) and get peer to peer conversation on the content (kind of like blogging with comments). It's interesting to see that the lines between nonprofit and forprofit becomes kind of blurred.

Access Services
Kimberly Sweetman (Head) gave us a really in-depth look at Access Services, which is a subdivision of Public Services. She talked about the issues of each division within the department as well and how they're planning on expanding their services. She did touch upon the ability to return books/materials in more ways than just coming into the home library, which I think is a great idea. While I was at Courant, people used to return Bobst items and there was nothing we could do with it till someone walked it over. She also talked about a "bastard child of ILL" which seems like a great service if they get it into place. The idea is to join a group of libraries which share their catalogs and member libraries can lend books to each other and it would be faster than ILL in some ways.

So far I've noticed that between librarians and heads of departments, everyone seems to know each other on a first name basis. They joke around with each other and poke fun. Everyone seems to love the job they're in. It's kind of awesome =)

On a side note, I went up to see Mike at Courant Library to get my work-study position figured out. It seems I might be working all day Saturdays (10am-6pm) and pick up the odd hour covering someone's lunch hour maybe for a total of 8 hours a week. The pay is pretty nice: $12/hr. I've yet to work out my hours with Pauline for the Fall semester, but it'll be 12 hr/week. HR warned me that I absolutely can't go over 20 hours a week; otherwise, I'll run into payroll issues! Wow, that sounds really strict...

So I'm going to do a few hours on Friday (shelving mostly). Other than that, looking forward to the last day of boot camp! I didn't even get a chance to go to any of the NYU Welcome Week events for grad students 'cause bootcamp really tires me out. It's alright, I guess. I can figure it all out on my own anyway.