Boot Camp Day 4

This camp really is the most intensive 4 days I have ever had... It was also the most interesting and informative sessions about the kind of work libraries do to keep operating. So here goes for my last report about library camp!

Interviewing & Tenure
Jerry Heverly gave us a quick run down of the job hiring process. It is only slightly more lengthy than a regular job hiring, taking anywhere from 6months to a year or more. It's also more of a group hiring process. One great tip I learned: if you fit 2/3 to 3/4 of the advertised qualifications, you should definitely apply! What they list is for the ideal candidate, who doesn't exist. One thing I'm worried about is the "Job Talk" which seems to be a popular thing now. You have to prepare a 20-30 minute talk on some topic that they'll give you. Sometimes, there's even a required writing sample.
Nadaleen came back for another session and talked about tenure. NYU has two tenure tracks: 6yr and 9yr, and both require that you are active in the community, have 2 master's degrees at least, and publish. One great piece of advice: a portfolio -- keep track of everything you're doing because it's so easy to forget. It seems if you're hired, you need to figure out if it requires tenure or not. If you don't get tenure, they give you a year before you're forced to leave (sounds pretty intense, doesn't it?).

Library Technology
Bill Jones, the Systems Librarian, gave us a rundown of what a systems librarian does. It requires a lot of tech-savy-ness. He described a systems librarianship as "the art and science of combining the principles of library science with the abilities of computing knowledge." I definitely lack the kind of skill needed for this position, but it's not what I'm looking for so that's ok. =)

Digital Projects
David Millman came to talk to us about the digital projects going on. He showed us some websites created to host archive material. The biggest issue is money for such projects. I think it's really cool that they're putting their collections up on the web for the world to see.

Development
Paula Jennings and Sally Cummings did a joint presentation on fundraising and how they work to get donors to contribute their time and/or money to help finance the library's endeavors. They pretty much wine and dine you with the expectation that you'll give something back, which sounds vulturous but they make it clear that they are after something so you can always just say no at the beginning. They said sometimes it takes years to court a donor!

Dual Degree Student Reception
The last event of bootcamp! They really pulled out the works for this one. There were several kinds of wine and fruits, cheese, wraps...

I asked if we could take a group photo. The quality of this picture isnt that great because I did some cropping in paint and it saved it funny... In any event, the Dean of Libraries Carol Mandel came to talk to us. She was so happy to see us and realize that this program is so wonderful that she was tearing by the time we finished our individual introductions. The Dual Degree program would not be possible if it was not for her innovation and push to develop it.

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.

Boot Camp Day 2

Collection Development

We met Angela Carreno. She seems so laid back despite what her job entails. We had a lively discussion about electronic vs print materials. NYU has a $12 million materials budget! 60% of that goes to electronics and 40% to print. There's a lot of decision making involved and ways to acquire the different materials available. Her demeanor reminds me so much of Janet that it's weird. She's physically smaller, but she's got almost the same kind of smile, soft-spoken, and graying hair. She said she's been here for over 20 years now!

(at this point, i was hungry, but there wasn't anything to eat so i had to make myself a cup of coffee -- put too much milk in, and with nothing to stir, all the sugar sank to the bottom; blahh)

Subject Librarians

We met some lively librarians next: Andrew H. Lee (History and Politics Librarian), Kara Whatley (Head of the Coles Science Center), and Mary Jean Pavelsek (International Business Librarian). Each of them had a very unique story to tell. However, each of them went through library school, worked in a library, and eventually got their master's degree in a subject area. Some interesting issues raised concerned tenure status: how do you get it? Standards still require them to publish articles/books. They also touched upon how it's really the skill sets you have, rather than the subject area you're in, that the job needs. You can transfer that from one to another subject.

Data Services & Avery Fisher Center

Jason Phillips gave a short introduction to the Data Services Studio on the 2nd and 6th floor. The have every possible software for research you can think of. The goal is to have something even before the researcher knows he/she wants it! His goal is to make the library an all-encompassing research place, so you can do your entire project from start to finish at the library. I think it's kind of neat.
Kent Underwood (Music Librarian) gave his talk on the Avery Fisher Center, which houses the media collection of NYU. It has music CDs, VHS, DVDs, etc. It reminds me of Josten. Often when you walk in, they have something interesting playing on the large screen tv. The loan period is really short tho and everything has to be used in-house.

(back to tea...)

Special Collections
Mike Nash (Head of the Tamiment Library) came in to talk about the Tamiment's collection. They have a lot of original sources and constantly archiving material.
Nancy Cricco (University Archivist) gave us this cute block books that showed a timeline of NYU's history. She talked about how she supports the university and its press releases.
Brent Phillips (Media Specialist and Processing Archivist) gave a short intro to Fales Library. They collect English and American Literature from 1740 to the present. I think Danielle would be greatly interested in this special collection...

Boot Camp Day 1

It was one event packed day...

Introduction
Dual Degree Program -- Pauline gave a short 15 minute introduction to the program. I did a little show and tell for the Facebook page. I really dislike being the center of attention... lol, but I suppose one of these days I'll just have to suck it up and get used to it.
Mentoring Component & Boot Camp -- Tim Johnson gave us a nice broad overview of the goals of the program.

Public Services
Lucinda Covert-Vail gave us a nice overview of what public services entails. I think it would be interesting to check out, but I think I'm more of a technical type person than a social type.

Remote Bibliographic Instruction
Tim and Nadaleen Templeman-Kluit gave a really interesting presentation on how they're trying to use videos to instruct people on how to use certain resources. We saw some sample clips (both failed and successful ones). There's also other helpful resources: libguides and lynda.com.

Reference Services
Tim started with explaining what he does. Then Alexa Pearce explained virtual reference (like the Ask-a-Librarian service). Apparently, there's a whole discussion on whether or not it should even be called "virtual reference" since it covers basically everything not in person (like email, IM, and texting)! They're proposing that it should all just be under "reference." We looked at an IM transcript and there was one that took almost 1.5 hours! One of the students actually fell asleep during the presentation; it wouldn't have been an issue if he didn't start snoring quite audibly...lol. Marybeth McCartin introduced classes that the library offers: prescheduled and by request. How do you convey your ideas? How do you motivate them? How do you assess what the students got out of the class? Interesting questions...

Meeting with Mentors
We concluded the day with meeting mentors. Only two showed up because it was a last minute switch and many people were still on vacation. My mentor Meg came, but I had already met her before so we briefly chatted to catch up on my plans for the Fall. We're going to meet over coffee (tea for me) some time later this week to discuss the Learning Contract.