Internship Week 15: Wrapping It Up

So in this last week of the CPL internship, when I'm writing my final report for LIBR 294, I got some of the feedback I've been wanting to hear!

Internship Week 14: Housekeeping

We're rounding the corner into the end of the semester, and I'm nearly done with the CPL internship. This is the standard weekly report (just shorter this time).

Internship Week 12 (by the school calendar)

I realized where the disconnect was in my scheduling! I forgot to skip the week of spring break in my counting. So this is only Week 12. I am on what may be my last project for the CPL internship, and it's a doozy.

Internship Week Whatever This Was

Oof. I really enjoyed researching digital storytelling and watching/listening to examples of both professionals and novices at the craft. It was fascinating. But by the time I'd spent 3 weeks on the topic, I was NOT pleased to be writing a paper on it. Especially since I ended up staying awake until 3AM a couple nights in a row to do so.

On the plus side, I shared a link with my site supervisor, because I thought it could help inspire content in the summer learning program, only to be told that it fit very nicely into my next assignment, which is about tying youth services into the new makerspace opening this summer at the Harold Washington Library Center. Serendipity! Now I'm going to have to interview some of my geeky crafty friends, because I am as far from a maker as it is possible to be. :/ 3D stuff -- cloth, clay, most types of visual art -- spatial understanding, kinesthetics:  all of that seems to slip through my fingers. I can work out cause and effect, and I think I would probably be good at the type of organization and logic required for coding... but physical engineering just isn't me. I've never understood the attraction.

But I like explaining things, so I'm going to start by looking over the Instructables contest and from there come up with family-friendly activities CPL can use this summer.

Internship Week 10

Another slow week for the internship (but I'm blogging about it as a required class assignment).

Internship Week 9

This week was relatively mellow on the CPL front. (I've been catching up on my e-portfolio, mostly.) The new topic I'm researching is digital storytelling, and I logged 4 hours last week and 8 hours so far this week doing the research and outlining the report.

Internship Week 7 review

Last week was a busy one with the CPL internship. I submitted one new project and completed an ongoing one, logging 19 hours in Week 7.

Internship Week 7: Using Tumblr

Last week I made a Powerpoint presentation about the use of Tumblr in public and school libraries, and I dealt with underestimating the time it would take me to write the accompanying report.

Internship catch-up: variable deadlines

Last week I was assigned a report about Tumblr, which turned out to be time-intensive once I had all the details. This week I took on a shorter project to find science experiments and activities for kids online, turned that in before deadline, and then moved back to Tumblr.

Internship, Week 5

On Saturday I turned in my second report, which was a series of booklists based on the activities in this Family Science and Math handout.

• Exploring Science with Kids
• Explore Shadows with Your Child
• Explore Water with Your Child
• Explore Plants with Your Child
• Explore Color with Your Child
• Explore Sound with Your Child
• Explore Ramps with Your Child
• Explore Patterns with Your Child
• Explore Measuring with Your Child

I finished up early (11 hours) and did a little background research into the next topic; however, because of the long weekend I didn't get the details of that assignment until this morning. So I'm still behind on total hours.

ALL the Internship Questions

Something about this virtual internship that I've found challenging so far is the isolation from a traditional work environment. While I find it easier to get work done on my own, without the distraction of office noises and other people, there are certainly some benefits of being familiar with the actual work environment librarians encounter. That hands-on experience would be a large part of the attraction of a traditional onsite internship placement. Lacking this day-to-day engagement with Chicago Public Library, this is the email I sent my site supervisor.

Internship Update: Week 3-4

On Monday I turned in my first research assignment, which was to create a fact sheet and toolkit for CPL children's librarians to use with new LEGO DUPLO kits. I also discussed with my site supervisor how best to use my time and complete the required number of hours.

Internship Learning Outcomes

When students participate in an internship for LIBR 294, SJSU requires them to state some specific learning objectives at the beginning of the term. I made the following three with input from the SLIS supervisor, focusing on my goals this term at Chicago Public Library.

Library Policy on Unattended Children

As a child, I spent a lot of time at the school libraries and at the public library. I wasn't always directly supervised, although my mother was usually in the building. (When we visited the public library, I was with her and often my younger sister, because we were too young to travel there by ourselves.)

I have no idea whether there was a formal policy on unattended children for our small town library, or what ages were considered mature enough to visit without adult supervision. I spent plenty of hours in the children's room and the juvenile/YA stacks, though, and I never got into trouble. Usually I'd browse the shelves long enough to fill a plastic bucket with books, then check them out, and sit down to read while waiting for my mom and sister. Happy reader!

So I've been surprised recently to find out that many public libraries have concerns about children who are unsupervised and/or disruptive -- not always both. Sometimes it's just that school-aged children are in the library "alone" that's enough to call for stricter policies about age, and that doesn't make sense to me. If the kids are well-behaved and using the library for its intended purpose (education, entertainment, community gathering space... not daycare), why bar their access?

Spring Semester Courses

After Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I'll start my final semester of graduate school. Here's the lineup!

Storytime at the Farmers' Market

All through the summer, Green Branch will be hosting an open-air reading room at the Saturday farmers' market in Berkeley. The growing children's collection is too massive to display in the reading room, so each week two or three themes are selected. Yesterday's were Strong Girls and Diverse Families; there are always some classics, pre-K board books, tales from around the world, and just-for-fun titles, too.

Learning Outcomes APPROVED

For an internship (LIBR 294) at SLIS, a student must provide in his/her application several Learning Outcomes by which performance in the internship will be evaluated. Because my summer internship was being created at the last minute, my application went in just before the semester ended, and I had to revise my Learning Outcomes. They've now been approved -- and we begin the term today -- so here's what I will be focusing on at Green Branch:

Update your resume!

How many times have you heard -- from your professors, career counselors, parents, LinkedIn groups -- "Always have an updated resume on hand"? Oh, blogger boys and girls -- this tip paid off a whole bunch this week!

First: You just might need it in a hurry.

My sweetie's back on the market this week, and having to make only a few changes to the resume(s) she last used (and then saved online, in a Google Doc) meant less downtime. Aside from a few online gigs (check out Mechanical Turk or TaskRabbit if you haven't yet!), she's launched a new search for a full-time or part-time job in the area. Resume at the ready, she's set to network with friends, browse LinkedIn and Craiglist, and get her feet back under her FAST. Consider whether you'd be ready to knock on a temp agency's door tomorrow morning if today you were let go, your position was cut, your relationship or housing situation changed, or the company you work for closed their doors. In an uncertain economy, that extra bit of preparation can have big results.

Second: You never know when you'll stumble across a golden opportunity in a narrow timeframe.

Wednesday evening, my standing appointment was rescheduled, so I was actually home baking cookies and watching Netflix. Although the semester hasn't officially started yet, some professors are making their course pages public a little early. I figured I'd get a head start if there was anything new to look at, so I logged into D2L and checked the new emails from the SLIS list. Last week, an announcement for a student assistant position was posted -- someone to help with the debut of the Virtual Internships Program at SJSU (a collaboration between the records management folks at SLIS and the management info systems department in SJSU's College of Business, as I currently understand it). The assistant would work 10 hours a week (paid!) creating, populating, and updating a database for current and future interns and their supervisors. The work seemed right up my alley, but I was concerned that the position would itself be an internship, with concurrent enrollment in LIBR 294 -- and I won't be eligible for that course until after I finish the Spring semester. (Not to mention that most of the paycheck would go toward tuition fees for the course credits!)

So I emailed the head of the program to ask whether this was an internship, work-study, or what. (I phrased it a bit more elegantly.) When I'd had questions about the Virtual Internship program last semester, she'd been very responsive via email, so I was hoping to get an answer the next day. I was NOT expecting an email an hour later explaining that the position was not an internship (and therefore I could apply), but that the application deadline was THAT NIGHT! Resumes would be reviewed the next day, and "tomorrow will be too late". Yikes! Guess it was a good thing that I asked right away.

Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Larkin in last semester's LIBR 204, and the helpful input I received from Jill Klees at the SJSU Career Center, I had a resume suitable for this position at the ready. A few minor updates and a solid cover letter later, I'd applied for the position! Turn-around time from receiving the email: about half an hour. AWESOME.

As I write this, I don't know whether I'll be offered the position. But at least I'm in the running! I also think that I'm an excellent candidate for the job. The sense of accomplishment of finding a job opening that fits with my work skills and experience, and is also connected to the SLIS program, is a great encouragement to my fledgling job/internship search. So I'll repeat the wisdom, and gladly -- Always have an updated resume on hand!!