In-between Days

The summer semester is now complete and I can return to doing what I enjoy: spending time in libraries. I spent about four hours in the library yesterday and I slowly realized while covering books that much of the work that needs to be done is on the electronic end. Our LibraryThing page is a bit of a mess due to lack of consistency or controlled vocabulary, and this prevents many books from being found and organized properly. Today I fixed all the children's literature by moving them from the general collection 'Your Library' to their own 'Children's Literature' and paring down the tags from >250+ to 33! This took about 2-3 hours and a lot of patience. Tomorrow is rinse, repeat... for the rest of the library. *deep breath*

Organizing the books from 'Your Library' into collections allows for easier tagging and further organization. Once the books have been organized into individual collections, spine labels may be printed out and applied to the covered books, creating a finished item to be shelved, read, and studied.

Today also saw the completion of a spine label template! I used Apple's iWork application Pages to create the template and a table to make the graph. After some trial and error, I was successful in creating a design that lines up with the labels and is easy to modify for multiple uses.

Recovering

Dear app, please update for multitasking so you don't eat my post that I was too forgetful to save when I switch to Safari to get a URL.

Anyway. Last week was rather hectic, so other than placing an order for supplies (9" and 10" book covers) and visiting the excellent, charming, and beautiful Second Story Books in Rockville, I spent the majority of the week helping my friends move. I am so glad to be back in the library.

At Second Story I purchased some supplementary books - books that people may be more likely to reread than to read once and donate. Books like Companion to Narnia, by Paul Ford and Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller. I also found a book on modern morals (post-economic epic failure), some C.S. Lewis apologetics we are missing, and some Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Once I'm in here I find that I struggle with being content working only on one area. When it comes down to it, I'm more interested in the music books than the marriage section. I suppose that's all too indicative of my hobbies, though. Some apart of me is horrified that if I apply and am accepted to work at CUA's law library with their Preprofessional program next year, I will not really find law libraries exciting or interesting, merely rather complex and confusing. That something beyond my current understanding or perhaps a subject that does not pique my interest will lead to a future downfall the like of which may only be measured in Troys and Jerusalems. Maybe I will take a job at an elementary school media center and find that I really, really dislike picturebooks and brightly-colored bulletin boards. I will then pine away for 12pt text and a citation concerning more than a current president or the celebrity of the week (looking at you, Beibs).

To be honest, though - to make things more interesting I make it a point to flip through the books, see if I like the author's tone, how they structure they book, and imagine what kind of patron would read it. I also try and find a podcast that covers whatever section I am tackling. For example, due to the fact that most of what I am covering right now is single/marrieds/family books, I try and find episodes of This American Life to listen to on that subject. Definitely brings context and laughter.

Perhaps I will find a nice archive and care for that material. Future project, wait for me - I'm coming!

Well it is now almost 6pm and my iPhone is worn out from cranking out Ira Glass et. al. I am off to burgers!

Trimming the Fat/Extra Labels

While putting in the Brodart order, I realize that I forgot to request funds for a P-touch PT-90 label maker. D'oh. Here's hoping I can trim down the order by $30 so I can make proper labels for shelves/supplies.


Aaaaaand done! Decided against a few of the classification labels (although I decided to add a Health section due to how many I found today), and shrunk down some of the label sizes, as well as went with some economy brand spine labels.

Sections and Decimals

Second day in the library! The current organization is more or less intact, and I have begun to refine (and further sort) the sections - lots of the marriage books have been mixed in with family and even more books for YA (most of them concerned with sex, drugs, and rock & roll) are popping up. The disconcerting thing, though, is that it appears the sections have been broken down and Dewey'd within that section. I'm struggling with knowing that many of these will have to be redone as I cover them... but if this was going to be easy I'd be bored :) I have separated them and then arranged them according to whatever Deweys they already have for the sake of clarity. Pictures will be uploaded later today.

Last night I spoke with the library team about how to arrange our non-academic area (self help, how-to, and fiction) and we agreed to separate YALIT and chapter books from the picture books and give them their own section - they have mostly been donated for our memorial library, and they will still be right next teach other so as to not become wholly separated. I know as a second grader I abhorred having to sift through 'baby books' (picture, board, and pop-up books) to get to C.S. Lewis and Peretti. So in the interest of the congregation youth they will be adjacent but apart. I am also ordering a stamp and bookplates to place in the books.

There is also the question of the multitude (as in an old testament multitude - there's a TON of these) audio cassettes. Many of them are seminars and lectures, so there is a lot of people who want to listen to them, but no one has a cassette player in their car anymore. I think that if I could get a decent computer (or just bring in my iMac) and my trusty Griffin iMic I could probably digitize them and put them on a hard drive for the A/V team here - we could then move the materials to the annex for storage or give them to the people who have cassettes still.

I also spoke to the team about the supplies I will be ordering later today and how best to make a cover dispenser. The one on Brodart is almost $130, which is a little too much for us. I think that given $30 at Home Depot and a day or two in the garage would yield a nice little rack we can mount on the wall or tuck in a corner for us to use. We'll burn that bridge when we come to it. I have also considered asking someone on Etsy to make one as it would be easy to make and only a little more expensive than making it myself.

The more time I spend in here the more I am hopeful. Many of the books here are applicable and useful and I can't wait to make them accessible.

I'll be honest, I'm extremely excited to be ordering spine and classification labels to make sections easier to browse since Dewey doesn't lend itself very well to such a teensy collection.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:E Franklin Ave,Silver Spring,United States

First Order of Business

Alrighty, I have put together a solid list of supplies we will need to get things going. Most of what I am ordering are things like hanging files, an X-ACTO knife and cutting mat, Scotch tape and a dispenser, a self-inking stamp for the library), nice shears, and a bone folder. I am also ordering a bin to keep everything in to keep them easy to transport and put away so they will be less likely to wander away. These are things that we will be using throughout the library revamp - accessories and staples of any office or workplace.

The rest of the order consists of items that we will be using up and ordering more of as we run out - book covers (I am ordering one 300' roll of hardcover jacket covers and two 600' rolls of paperback covers), spine label covers, alphabet labels, shelf labels, classification spine labels, and so on. Most of these are things we'll order once and reorder after long time. The spine labels are about 250-500 per roll, so these will be for the entire collection. There's a lot in each one of these. One thing I love about this is knowing how long it will take to use them. These are supplies to make our library usable, browsable, and enjoyable.

All I need to do now is actually make a label dispenser (shouldn't be too hard to make a rectangular box) and make a dispenser for the book covers. Apparently I can purchase most of the raw materials from Home Depot and once I get those it should be a day or two of working in the garage to get everything ready!

It's a start!

Spent my first day in the library doing a basic count and estimate of volumes to order the proper amount of covers for paperbacks. We have a lot more than I thought! Roughly eight hundred paperbacks of assorted sizes. Whew! I have decided that the children's books will probably remain uncovered since we a) have so many of them b) they are mostly hardbacks (without jackets) and c) paperback covers won't make them much more resilient against a determined child than if we left them uncovered.

I think the best way to begin the organization is to go back to some of my Apple basics - make sections that are easily divisible and reasonable goals that are achievable. So with that in mind I will first order supplies from Brodart and make a Staples run, (yay!) and start to separate the books into sections and create some order upon the shelves. They are already loosely organized, but it's difficult to know how much we have of one section or another without rummaging through piles. Fortunately we have shelf dividers which will make this way easier. I don't know if the original librarian/committee/volunteer/whatever knew just how lovely and priceless those things are.

One thing we really need for the library right now is an area to keep our supplies that is out of sight and out of mind. I've found a few things at Ikea that would make things easier, but at the same time they are overpriced and unwieldy. Ideally we could have a table with some lockable drawers and a librarian station for covering books, etc... the thought of creating a kind of lazy Kate for the rolls of book covers has crossed my mind, and it wouldn't be difficult - a few pieces of wood cut down to size and a couple of dowel rods would do nicely. However I have yet to find a place to keep such a monstrous contraption.

Another thought is to cut holes in a box (or modify an appropriately sized dairy crate) and put the dowel rods in there - easy to stack and change out rolls, as well as easy to move and store... any ideas?

Well, a good first day to get things rolling!
-Kirsten

Location:E Franklin Ave,Silver Spring,United States

first post!

Hey all, it's Kirsten - welcome to the church library blog! My plan is to post here when I make progress, discover or learn something, or just find something to share. This blog will also be a bit of a record keeper for me to track how I apply the knowledge I learn as I return to complete my BS in Library Science. The first phases of the library will be as follows:

1. Rearrange what we have into a coherent and browsable collection, separated by genre
2. Cover the books, section by section
3. Catalog the books and make sure they are available via LibraryThing
4. Find and add new books!!

I've already put together an order for Brodart which contains book covering supplies, spine labels, genre labels, and stamps - also, a list for Staples for library-only supplies. It's enough to get us started and keep me busy for a while. One of the most time-consuming parts will be covering and taking care of the paperback books. They all need weeding as well as the usual care, and it's hard to pick which books leave and make their way to the Annex. Given time, though, they should be pared down and made available.