Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

It is that time again...making a display that is holiday-e and inclusive. It is tough. In the past I have had some bang up displays in December. Star Wars themed (Planet Hoth), book snowman, and  Krampus just to name a few. It was easy when I worked at the art school. The student workers were motivated to not do library work and make elaborate displays for me. At the public library, the teen advisory board made a display (with my help) and covered all the bases we could think of for December holidays.
At the college I am at now, I was inspired by a "Season's Readings" post I saw on Pintrest.
I used snowflakes I had from my holiday decorations box, got blue poster board from Michael's, and my daughter painted a sign for me.
Some of the other librarians cut out snowflakes (out of scratch paper) and we made a green book "tree" from some discarded books. The seasonal reading materials featured are graphic novels and some books from the kid's section. Always the DIY'r, I wanted it to cost nothing, but I had to buy the poster paper, so it cost $6.50.
Is it amazing? No. But it filled up the display case so it won't sit empty for the next week and half.
Here are some photos of the current and previous December holiday library displays.

Current Display

Art School Displays

I couldn't find the Star Wars holiday display photos. Here is a link to my Instagram. I put one there. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/-y5_W1GT-y22uC_5BrjHz6g_-4KsvXC46GheI0/

Another brick in the wall...

I can’t be sick. Ok, I feel like I can’t call into my job if I am sick. The department is stretched paper thin and in the past couple of weeks, I have experienced firsthand what it is like when one person is out sick.

At the college I work at, I am a faculty member. It is nice, because in previous positions I wasn’t considered faculty, even though I was in the classroom teaching.  Yes, I didn’t have a class that met Tuesdays from 9-11 and I didn’t have to input grades, but I did library presentations for multiple classes that required me to alter my “spiel” (a former dean’s word, not mine), change my handout(s), and PowerPoint.

Anyway, this semester it is becoming painfully obvious that we are short staffed. There is an adjunct who is the instruction coordinator of all the presentations that we do for courses. On average there are 50 a semester. I think they have like 5 hours a week to manage the calendar, connect with librarians who are teaching, instructors who have requested the presentations and offer best practices. These are not all done by the same librarian, but already 5 weeks in I have done 6.  On a few occasions, I have had a reference shift (which typically lasts 3-4 hours) either right before or after my library “spiel.” Since there are only two full timers, I am often on the desk to cover other folks who are out due to illness, or at the very least relieve them so they can take a lunch break. Oh, did I mention there is a major library service platform migration happening? We are also changing our proxy service. Since I am the electronic services librarian, I am virtually neck deep in webinars, trainings, and calls about this stuff. I really enjoy teaching, and I worry that when the adjunct who is working as the instruction coordinator leaves we will not be able to provide the faculty and students the library support that we have now.

To come back around on why I am afraid to call in sick actually has to do with something that happened last week. The other full timer was sick and called out. I was the morning reference desker and there was an adjunct teaching a class. From 8:15-12:30, I was on the desk with no break. I had a call right after my shift and I ate my lunch (with the phone on mute) during it. The following morning I was teaching a class at 8am, so I prepared for that after the kid went to bed. The instruction coordinator librarian isn’t on campus Tuesdays, but was nice enough to answer some questions about the faculty expectations. I got to work at 7:15, so I could set up the classroom, go over my notes and then hit the ground running at 8:00 for the class. I had 25 minutes after the presentation was over to shove a THINK bar in my mouth and then jump on a call about the new library system we are switching over to- I had lunch and then got on the weekly call with the other librarians in the district who are switching over as well. That call ran a little long and had to get off the call to help a student who had set up an appointment with me to help her with reviewing some sources she found for a research project.

I am not complaining. I swear! This is the norm. This week has proved to be just as busy. Luckily, I am not picking up weekend shifts at the public library this month. Eeesh!

Six days a week. I don’t know if there is a strong enough vitamin and I worry that I will come to work sick, just because there isn’t anyone to cover.

You know I often daydream about having a full time instruction librarian. Ooooh how amazing it would be…they could work with the faculty, Guided Pathways, student success committee, FYE, and the list goes on…The great state of California has created all these great plans for student success. Their narrative is to have a student driven educational model.  It is really great on paper. But they will never be successful if there are not enough people actually on the campus who can hold up the vision. It also doesn’t work if there is only one department who is fully staffed. All departments have to be staffed to tailor the initiative(s) to the student population. I love sweeping ideas as much as the next person,  

They don’t tell you in library school that you have to be the smartest person in the room. People come to you because they see you as an administrator, IT person, reference librarian and teacher. It is the nature of the profession. Not to mention that you there should be some customer service bedside manner as well. Hopefully, the higher-ups will agree to open up another full time librarian position. Not that I want to call in sick, I just want to feel like I can call in sick.

Let me tell ya 'bout the birds and the bees And the flowers and the trees And the moon up above And a thing called...

Summer session is in full swing.
What to do for the next display?
I had the pleasure of attending ALA this year and before I left, I thought I would get some freebie, which would inspire me to make a cool display.
Well...
I did get a freebie, but it was not at ALA. Me and fam were checking out the mall and my husband spotted a farmer's market. The man cannot resist a fruit and vegetable stand. Anyway we checked it out and it just happened to be pollinator week.
There were some really great resources for folks to learn about what to put in their gardens to bring the pollinators, information on what is harming them, and how to manage a hive.
The poster was great and even though I knew I was going to have to carry it around for 5 hours and then home on a plane I took it.
It was my starting point. There were some other pamphlets and stuff that I took that I knew would go with my idea.
 When I got to the library I pulled a few books on pollination, bees, bats, and butterflies and put everything up.
It was a bit bare, so I took the fake flowers by the reference desk and asked a colleague who was working the desk to print me out some color photos.
It looked better...but needed a little more.
My daughter loves to paint and had made me a painting for my office. It has bees on it, so I added that as well. She also painted me a bird house, which I included and some more fake flowers and butterflies that I had at home.
Think it turned out pretty nice.

Stone walls. Bar brawls. Common stalls that cause 'em all...

PRIDE is one of my favorite kinds of display to make.
I am forever an ally for the LGBTQI community. Last year at the branch I made a teen focused display in their section, an adult (fiction and non-fiction) book display right when you walked into the branch and a few small pop-ups in the children's section.
The teen display of course had books and DVDs, but I also included some resource pages and events for the summer that supported teen LGBTIQI in the area. One of the colleges I worked at held a "gay" prom for youth up to 19 years old and I was pleased to see there were activities for teens in all of the surrounding bay area. 
I also put up a bunch of rainbow and trans flags (I like flags). They were all taken. 

At my new job, I volunteered to make a display...in a case.
Since it is the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, I decided to make a display that not only had some books about it, but also images and some history. Since I got the whole display case, I transitioned them into more of a PRIDE theme. 

I am pleased with it.

Slang teacher no pain in the mouth. Slang teacher no long in the tooth. Slang teacher chew it up spit it out ...

Recently, I attended a great one day conference there was a quite a bit of conversation about changing the idea of a"one-shot" library presentation. I am the first to admit that I get into a presentation rut and with the new gig I want to kick ass, so I took a lot of notes and have been thinking about re-imagining how I will structure the lib presentation time to include more student engagement and less "this is how you maneuver the databases we have."
We are moving over to a LSP, so there will have to be some instruction, because it is a little different than the ol' way, but that is for another blog post.


So how do you present everything you want to in 50 to 75 minutes? How much time do you leave for live searches for the students. Do you have controlled live searches? Should there be a worksheet?
How can you include big and little picture in a short amount of time?

I want the students to get something out of it- for sure - and I want the instructors to feel like I have provided good tools and information to their students to be able to succeed in completing their assignment.

A neighboring community college did a pilot program and embedded librarians into their English courses and the results seem pretty darn good. Yes, it is extra work and there has to be buy-in and blah, blah, blah.
But I believe that there can be a embedded-lite version of this in English courses.

First, start off with just a few courses. Don't over do it.
If you have two librarians up for the task, then don't have 15 courses signed up.
Once  you have your courses, go over the syllabus with the instructors. Make sure that you are both on the same page. Have a clear picture of what you want to do, but also be ready to pivot if necessary if it comes to light that X might be more important to go over than Z.

A thing to consider- online presence? Should the librarian be part of the online component of the course. Most colleges use Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, Brightspace, Dokeos, Claroline or one that I have forgotten about and all that I am aware of have capabilities for a second instructor (like a librarian) to be part of the LMS.

How many face-to-face meetings are good? My opinion 3 or more. But this could be flexible if the online component the librarian is part of is live chat or something interactive.

Know the assignments ahead of time and find out what kind of sources the instructor is suggesting to the class.

Have a buddy. I was a solo librarian for 5 years + and it is sooo much better to have a collaborator, partner-in-crime, or at the very least fresh eyes on these kind of projects.

Totally off the subject- I made a display today.
The lib staff kept the boxes (and posters) that all the manga and graphic novel fancy sets came in...
As I was putting the display together, a student came up and asked if they could check out the graphic novel I had in my hand. Um, sure! Another student asked where we kept the graphic novels and manga and I walked them over to the shelves and pointed to the display that another librarian had put together... It is nice when items move because of a display.

Update- Looks like this embedded librarian thing is going to happen in the fall semester. Stay tuned.

Modern art makes me want to rock out. Rock out!

Display cases.
They are fun.
They have smudges.
They look sad when they are empty.

The display cases that I am going to be in charge of sit in the entry to the library and across from the circulation desk.

They have glass shelves and lighting inside. A little beat up, but still nice.

In the past year, I came to the conclusion that I am a crafty academic librarian, not an academic public librarian so this stuff is way up my alley.

The librarian before me sent out emails to regulars to keep it filled with something and I will continue to do this...but how do I get others excited to display in the library?

I took some photos (and I a no photographer) of the current display and sent them to marketing to put it on the Instragram.

Some point before the end of the semester I am going to reach out to the automotive department and see if we could collaborate and put something together like the history of the car engine or something.

We have sports teams on campus, maybe there is something there?

Here is a look at my first attempt at the display case. It is a 3D art class that made manhole covers out of cardboard.
The teacher wrote up a little blurb about the assignment that I put in the display as well.
I think the display cases will spill out into the library.

I LOVE making mini-displays of parts of the collection. I believe (I have some hard data on this) that it kicks up the circulation of section that is featured in the display.

Often when new books are no longer new and are put into the stacks they are forgotten, unless an teacher talks about the book or provides it in a bibliography. I feel that connecting with faculty and asking about specific assignments and catering mini-displays does a few things. Brings focus to a part of the collection, gives the faculty a concise point of search for their students and most importantly brings students into the library.

When I give one shot library presentations, I do my best to present library as space. What I mean by this is the library has more than one purpose. It is your (students) space to read, study, rest, research, use the wi-fi, study rooms, ask for help, sit  in a comfy chair, and collaboration with your peers.
It sounds cheesy and librarians roll their eyes, because we all know it.
Last week I did a presentation of the library to High School seniors. In all I saw about 50 students. When I asked the question who uses the library 6 raised their hand. 6!
So going the extra mile and selling the library at every library presentation is something I don't mind and do not find it cumbersome. Because I think it helps.

At the art school I used to work at, I was part of orientation. I would give my spiel about the what the library is,  what is available to you (the student) for free, and who is there to assist you. I would also tell them that I would see them again in many of their classes, so to expect a little of the same song and dance.
Luckily, I like to perform.

Here are some photos from the current display case.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BwIA_bah9MY/

If you know your history...

I am really late in posting this...my apologies.
Started a new job and well things are a bit crazy at the moment.
We are in the final days of Black History Month. I have had the pleasure of putting together displays for this event for a number of years both in academic and public library settings.
Some things I have done (and most that have no pictures) are make folded table signs for the study tables. On them were pictures and paragraphs about folks who had contributed to academics, art, fashion, sports, politics, popular culture, and science. Also, I made it a point to include super famous, not-so-super famous, dead and alive figures.
When I was at the art school the population was dense and I attempted to create mini bios (with photos) of significant contributors to the disciplines we taught (culinary, audio, fashion, gaming) along with the old standbys.
At the public library, I put together a couple of "pop-up" display areas like one in the children's area, adult bio, and for the display case I printed out color photos of books that we had in the branch of significant figures.
I did my best to cast a wide net of peoples (my comfort zone is art and music) so that there could be something for everyone.
Here are only a few photos I have of what I have done in the past.

Spent a week in a dusty library. Waiting for some words to jump at me..

I am changing this blog.
For the past couple of weeks, I have thought about writing on this blog and when I sat down to actually write...nothing happened.
Why? I think there is- was a lack of focus.
My personal blog is to write a few lines about stuff that is on my mind- I want this blog to offer some suggestions or fresh eyes on library day-to-day.
So! I have decided to take my DIY self and show some displays that I have created for a next to nothing budget. Program ideas. What the heck to do with volunteers. Social media and the library.
Just to name a few.
Since I am a musician first and a music lover my post titles will be song lyrics- or at the very least music related.
For my first post  with the new format, I will tackle an issue that I am sure many librarians have faced.
What to put in the display case, just to make sure it isn't empty. In between the winter holiday and Chinese New Year there was nothing scheduled in the display case at one of the branches I work at.
Since it lives in the entryway of the library, there had to be something put in it even if it will only be for a week and half or so.
The children's area had been painted recently and the pictures were taken down and hanging out in the branch manager's office.
So, using a piece of furniture, thumb tacks, and some books prizes from last year's summer reading game.
This is what you get.




Not super exciting, but it fills up the space and it did not require a lot of time to put together.

There you have it. First post with the new format. My intention is to post every other week.
Let's do this! 2019!