The spring semester has been over for a few weeks now and as I'm getting ready to start summer work on my practicums, I thought I would look back one last time on the semester.

The biggest project which I wrote about in previous post was the Planning, Marketing and Assessment Project (or PMA).  Again I'll just say quickly that a lot of hard work went into the PMA and I'm proud of what I accomplished. I'm not sure if I will ever do one in such detail again, but I'm glad I know how to. I was surprised to hear from my professor in the final comments on my project that he thought I had too many outcomes but other than that I feel like the feedback was good and as expected. I'm excited to see how the librarian and the school will actually implement my plans.

My other course this semester was the cataloging course. I don't think I'm actually a "born cataloger" as many people are, but there were definitely certain aspects of it that I really liked. The nerdy organization personality came out in my when trying to do the cataloging exercises. I also really enjoyed writing my final paper, which was on the semantic web. It was a big topic to take on and I don't think I got all the concepts perfectly straight, but it was really fun to read and write about. As I play with my new android phone and hear the 5th grade students doing their PYP exhibition at our school talk about the new sixth sense technology I can see how this topic will begin to effect e very soon.

Overall I think it was a good semester. I can't believe I only have one more semester of classes after I finish my practicum this summer. I've got lots to do to organize my portfolio, but I think after several of the courses here and the internships I've been doing, I'll have lots of great stuff to choose from.

Bring on the summer!

It's about time to reflect on classes once again. This is the beginning of week 5 for the two courses I'm registered for: 613 and 616.

The first course, 613, which is the cataloging course, is going well. It has been eye opening for me and definitely different than expected. I can not say yet whether or not I'm a 'born cataloger', however I have not completely given up on it yet either. I trust our professor when she says all those pieces will fall into place soon and we will have an "ah ha" moment. The thing I've been most surprised about in this class is the sheer number of whys to catalog thins, and especially all the acronyms that we are reading about. I'm temped to make a giant diagram that helps explain how all these organizations, schema and protocols fit together. This week I'll be working on my first MARC recording which will be exciting.

One other exciting note in relation to 613, is that I had one moment last week where I was apply to specifically apply what I was learning to the real world. The library I am working in had a Follett manager come visit our school to help us out with some Destiny issues we were having. We began to talk about connecting our school wide database with the Destiny system to automatically keep our patron records up-to-date. I immediately know what he was talking about when he began to talk about xml because of the reading I had done the night before. It's always nice to make those connections.

The second course I'm taking is 616, which is the marketing and planning course. We began the class with a little bit about collection management and weeding. I enjoyed the exercise we did for weeding, especially since the weeding I did was also a part of my practicum which meant I had a true experience, emotions and all, when weeding.

We've also talked a little about policies, which again is applicable as the library I'm working at is currently facing a book challenge. I can not speak to the specifics about the situation, but it is definitely a learning experience to see a real book challenge and how closely the policy is or is not being followed.

We are just now getting into the major project of this course, which I think will be another great, real life learning experience with applicable learning and teaching (see course reflection on 605).