Library Day in the Life Project

As part of the Library Day in the Life Project, which can be found here, I figured I would outline the day in the life of an Indiana University SLIS student.  (Perhaps an a-typical one, but one none the less.)

I woke up this morning in a bit of a fog, although the sun was actually shining and the sky looked inviting rather than dull and grey as it has for the last few weeks.  I got up, donned my new dress procured via Outlet Mall shopping (the first of the items checked off my aforementioned IU Bucket List!), a pair of tights, and booties, put my hair in a messy bun, and headed off to my internship at the William and Gayle Cook Music Library where I serve as the Acquisitions and Collection Development Intern.  I first grabbed a Diet Coke (a necessary caffeinated evil) and headed down to the work area of the Library (aka: the basement) to work on my Collective Works project.  Basically, I am checking our library OPAC and seeing what Collective Works we are either missing altogether, missing volumes from, or are up to date on our Standing Orders with the vendor Harrassowitz.  I am constantly fascinated by this project, if only because I'm learning about obscure composers (including today's gem of Johann Fux)  and helping to keep our collection up to date.  It can, admittedly, be tedious, and after two hours of this, I was ready to head off to my Collection Development class (S502).

Today's class was focused on the topic of Selection.  We discussed the concepts of "un-biased" and "balanced" collections, and how those should affect a library and its choices.  We also discussed the implications and pros and cons of E-books, and the services that provide them.  While this was interesting, it's  been discussed a great deal during my internship, so it's not new information to me.  The class is held in the SLIS auditorium, which houses perhaps the most uncomfortable chairs ever created -- so after an hour and fifteen minutes, I was ready to GO.  I spent some time with fellow SLIS student, Brianna Marshall, discussing her recent post on Hack Library School and the comments she was receiving; prompting me to head home and add my own reply (which can be found at the bottom of the entry).

From there on, I worked a bit on my reading for my Internship: two books by former IU Music Librarian, Michael Fling, and caught up on tweets, since I recently created a twitter account: @sharplibrarian.  I have then set my alarm for 'way too early'-o'clock to get up for my shift at the Archives of Traditional Music in the morning, and here I am.  A day in the life of Sarah Elizabeth.