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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by fallsfall on February 7, 2004, at 18:39:34
I live in a college town, and one of the dorms wanted to do a community service project, so they contacted the library where I work. My library is really very small (but I think it is quaint).
This afternoon TEN (10) polite, competent, intellegent, enthusiastic students showed up at my library. I explained the task that I wanted them to do (and why). We were going to make sure that the books were shelved in the right sections (no adult books in the kid section, no non-fiction in the fiction section etc.). The books on the shelves didn't have to be in exact order - they just needed to be in the right section. The kids chose sections that they wanted to work in and in a little over an hour they had checked all of the books and piled the ones that were in the wrong place on a table in the middle of the library. Then they reshelved the ones that were in the shelved wrong, leaving me with about 50 books that needed new/correct spine labels.
I was blown out of the water! This task would have taken me months to do (I only work 10 hours a week).
Fortunately, I had another task ready (they were staying for THREE (3) hours)! We enter most of our books by hand into the computer, and sometimes we aren't as thorough as we should be. I'm really hoping that we will be able to upgrade to the newer version of the catalog software so we can put our catalog online (I feel so backward!!). But our records are really a mess, so what we should do is to get new, complete records from a central database for the books that we have. The best way to identify books is with an ISBN (I don't even know what it stands for - but it is unique for each book). So I printed out pages of lists of books that don't have ISBNs in our computer and handed them out to the students. They found the books on their lists (most of them) and wrote down the ISBN. Older books don't have ISBNs, so those were noted as "old". They got through almost all of our Adult Non-Fiction! I can't believe it.
They are going to come again next month, and I'll be ready for them to do a physical inventory of the collection. This will verify that all of the books on the shelves are in the computer, and all the books in the computer are on the shelves. I am beside myself with excitement.
College students are the BEST!
Posted by jay on February 7, 2004, at 19:05:21
In reply to I love college students, posted by fallsfall on February 7, 2004, at 18:39:34
Sounds like you have an excellent job..and I admit I have a deep respect for public libraries. They are the only "sacred" places of such a massive breadth of knowledge, wisdom, and perspectives, and it really bugs me when a library has to take a funding cut in favour of some sports arena, or other local project. Kids, heck everyone, should be getting their noses into books more, and get them
away from tv, video games, and sports. Exercise for the brain and soul!Jay
Posted by noa on February 7, 2004, at 21:22:03
In reply to I love libraries! » fallsfall, posted by jay on February 7, 2004, at 19:05:21
This is the end of the thread.
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