Week 15

 This week I had finished my final design proposals for upcoming web pages for the Marin County Free Library, and also completed all my 135 hours. My site supervisor informed me over the phone that she will fill out and submit the site supervisor evaluation form, and I will of course fill out and submit my student evaluation form by this weekend.

 I have been working on my final internship report, which I am getting close to finishing and will submit on Saturday.

 I have now done two virtual internships as a SLIS student, but I will not be doing an internship during my final semester in the Spring since I have to focus solely on my e-portfolio and its required 135 hours. I will also be focused on revising my resume, getting started with networking, and beginning to search for jobs, either virtual or on-site work.

Most things about my internship will of course go into my final report, but in looking back at my two virtual internships, I do like how they gave me experience in working independently, which although was stressful, did give me more confidence as a worker. I am sure I will be able to have the skills as an independent worker once I enter the workplace, which hopefully will make other people's jobs easier and myself more reliable.

Week 14

 I have been creating the final designs, which again, are proposals for upcoming web pages for the Marin County Free Library. I just finished all the required 135 hours, but I will still meet with my site supervisor on Monday, as we will probably have our final telephone meeting.

 The more recent set of designs (there are four of them) that I created are supposed to be more consistent than the older designs. As my site supervisor stated, when creating a website, design proposals for that site and the site itself is supposed to have consistency. The four designs I have been working on are centered around four topics; E-Books, the MARINet Digital Downloads, Axis 360, and 3M Cloud Library. To make these four designs more consistent than earlier designs, I created them around four subjects that they have in common, or that are universal to each of them. These four subjects are "About sections," in which I clearly state to patrons what E-Books, the MARINet Digital Downloads section, Axis 360, and 3M Cloud Library are so that they understand them; as well as Browsing, Downloading, and a Help/Support section for patrons to get help and support with these technologies. To give these four designs subjects that they all share such as browsing and downloading, I am not only making them consistent, but making them more clear to the patron. Now the patron will better understand how the Marin County Free Library utilizes E-Books, its MARINet Digital Downloads section, Axis 360, and 3M Cloud Library.

 I will be completing a final term paper for Library 232 this weekend, and afterwards, I will start work on the 294 final report. I have a bit of an advantage since I had already done a professional virtual internship final report in the Spring 2012 semester, which I will use as an organizational guide.

Week 13

 This week I'm just continuing to create webpage design proposals on Go Mockingbird Wireframing. For this next week, I will be creating proposals for four webpages on different subjects.

 One webpage is on E-Books, which will contain the Marin County Free Library's information and services on E-Books. I will create proposals for webpages about Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library, which will contain information about them that the library wants to include and use on their public site. Lastly, I will create a proposal for a webpage on the Marin County Free Library's downloads called MARINet Digital Downloads, which of course will have information about the library's digital downloads.

 The challenging thing about creating these webpage proposals is not using technical language that library patrons would not understand, but choosing to use simple language that they will be able to understand. It is very tempting and easy to use technical library language or jargon, but it takes more time to figure out how to change the technical language or jargon into simple words or phrases that the library patron will understand.

 When I created the first few webpage proposals, I had made the mistake of using too much jargon, and so I had to create more simple versions of them using language that the average library user will understand. I also was not entirely clear about organizing my proposals into different subjects.

 My site supervisor wants me to create more proposals this week, but she has divided them up into four subjects so that my assignment in more clear to me; these subjects, as mentioned above, are general E-Book information, Axis 360, 3M Cloud Library, and Digital Downloads.

 I think I am now just getting the hang of changing jargon into simple everyday language, and I have a clearer idea of what direction to take with my next webpage proposal designs since the subjects have been divided.

Week 12

 This week I have been focusing on improving my skills in creating webpage designs as proposals (using Go Mockingbird Wireframing) for an upcoming webpage for the Marin County Free Library. Basically, I have been trying to improve the language on my design proposals by simplifying it so that library patrons better understand it.

 To clarify what I am trying to say is that I had created designs using Go Mockingbird Wireframing. The designs are different versions of an upcoming webpage for the Marin County Free Library, except they are intended as proposals for that webpage. My site supervisor will examine my designs and decide which one is the best design for an upcoming webpage that the library will be creating and making available to patrons.

 The designs I created earlier in the week had language that was a little too complicated for patrons to understand, and the language therefore needed to be more simple. My site supervisor ordered me to create new designs with more simple language so that patrons can better understand the webpage that will be made available to them.

 Once my site supervisor is more satisfied with my designs and their language, she will choose one as the look of the library's upcoming webpage.

 The webpage that the library will be creating and making available to patrons during the Winter, will contain information about library downloads, and library information on downloading E-Books using 3M Cloud Library and Axis 360. My site supervisor had me simplify the language on my designs by having me clarify the meanings of 3M Cloud Library and Axis 360, and basically write more simple language such as "browse collection" or "library catalog" as opposed to more technical and complicated language such as "3M Cloud Library" or "Axis 360."

 The point is that patrons will not understand the more technical language that librarians use, so librarians have to create websites with simple language that patrons will understand.

Week 11

  My internship is now picking up again as my site supervisor is back in her office, and I have been given two assignments.

  The first assignment, which I have been working on, is to visit Google Play and the Apple Store, and compile information for Apps on three topics of my choosing. To clarify this, I chose three topics which were Homework, Phones, and E-Books, and compiled or collected information on Apps related to those specific topics. I compiled information on Apps that are designed to help kids and teens with homework, to improve the use of phones, and to provide access to E-books.

  The other assignment has to do with wireframing. At some point after my internship has ended, the Marin County Free Library will create a new and improved web page with information about downloads, Axis 360, and 3M Cloud Library. My assignment is to create a proposed design for this web page, which I will do through the GoMockingbird Wireframing website. GoMockingbird allows web site designers to create blueprints for websites they want to build. It is basically a first step in designing a website:

Here are four You Tube videos about the process of wireframing and how GoMockingbird Works:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl0O02-7wLk
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq7vkwfTFRA&feature=related
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjIDHTyY1zM&feature=related
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY5hCB8f7wk

Basically with wireframing, I am learning the first steps to creating websites. But my assignment is to come up with a proposed design for a web page for the Marin Library by using GoMockingbird Wireframing.

Week 10

 My internship has been put on hold for a temporary period (or perhaps an unknown period) since my site supervisor is experiencing a family crisis, and is unable to work with me until further notice. We were scheduled to have a meeting this past afternoon, but my site supervisor, having a family problem, did not show up. I wondered for a couple of hours what had happened to her, but luckily I finally received an email from her explaining that a family problem caused her to miss our afternoon meeting.

 There is really a lot to be done since November 6 is the scheduled date for the public launch of the Intranet. However, all my upcoming work regarding the Intranet and its public staff profiles has been postponed until my site supervisor has worked out some family issues. I did create two subject guides for the public site, although the last time I spoke with my site supervisor, she was having trouble with displaying the guides on the public site. She stated she was going to work on fixing the problem, but I am assuming her family issues have put her correction of the subject guide displaying problem on hold as well.

 As of this blog post, I have only 40 more required Internship hours to fill until the end of the term, so I am not worried that my site supervisor's family problems will cause me to have trouble completing those final 40 hours.

 There are things for me to do until I get contacted by my site supervisor concerning the start of new projects. I can use up more hours by studying guides on social media, post news stories on Facebook and Twitter, use the study guides to learn about posting blogs to the public site since I have not gotten the hang of it, and posting blogs if I feel I have gotten a better understanding about the appropriate types of blogs to post on the public site. Until I hear back from my site supervisor, I'll just have to think of ways to fill up hours, although I know I can do so since there are things I can study to get a better understanding of certain types of work and features on the public site.

Week 9

  I have been working extremely hard at my professional internship this past week since it has gotten quite challenging. This past week and a half, I have worked around 29 hours. This is because I'm not just compiling information for the public and staff sites for the Marin County Free Library, but doing the larger tasks of posting the information to those sites, learning to use the sites including creating content like library items and websites, and basically managing the sites. It takes much work and a lot of time to learn how to utilize public and staff sites for libraries, especially as an administrator in training who must create and manage information, as well as experience lots of trial and error.

   More specifically, I have been learning to use and manage the Research and Learning section of the public site. After I had compiled information for two social media subject guides, both a general guide and a parent's guide, I have had to learn how to create these subject guides in the Research and Learning section of the public site, which includes creating taxonomy (social media subject terms like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, You Tube, and Websites), but also placing library items like books and also websites into the taxonomy fields I created. For instance, I created a taxonomy section for the General Social Media Subject Guide simply called "Facebook." I then had to learn to take library books about Facebook and also websites about Facebook and place them into the "Facebook" section of the General Social Media Subject Guide, and I did the same for the Parent's Social Media Subject Guide.

  To do this work, I used a guidebook on how to manage or utilize the public site, which has instructions on how to add things to the site such as titles, websites, and databases.

  Although the work is quite complicated to describe, perhaps too complicated for a simple and brief blog post, I am essentially learning to do what all library staff and administrators must do, which is utilize and manage the library's public site.

  I have so far worked a total of 95 hours this semester, and have 40 required hours left. I know I have more challenging assignments ahead that will take much time to learn, so I have no more worries about filling up the required hours for this 3 unit internship. What I have not mastered yet is making decisions about what types of blog posts to make on the public site, but this internship certainly requires much trial and error, which may be frustrating, but I am glad my site supervisor wants me to take much time experiencing trial and error and work slowly in order to learn how to do things, rather than pressuring me to get the work done.

Week 8

  This past week I have been using social media (blogs, Facebook, Twitter) to promote library events and also to provide staff members with social media training materials.

  I have been creating blogs on the Policies and Procedures section of the Marin County Free Library staff site. These blogs on the staff site contain files of training materials for social media sites like Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter, which I had uploaded. The staff are now able to gain access to these social media training materials so that they can better utilize social media; particularly to promote services and provide information to patrons, and also work together to enhance the social media experience for both patrons and staff.

 I have been spending even more time promoting and marketing upcoming library events to patrons through the use of social media including blogs on the public library site, as well as Facebook and Twitter. The events I have been promoting include those that are part of the Marin Public Library's Science Month project including lectures and discussions about mammals, humans, and the geographical area of Marin County; but also story times for children, Spanish Language courses, art related events, and many other events.

 My site supervisor is getting close to having my next big assignment ready, which involves compiling and uploading information about the staff. In the meantime, or for the rest of the weekend, I will be doing more work with social media including uploading subject guides that I created to the Marin County Library's public site so that patrons can access them; one is a general subject guide and the other is for parents. I will also be doing more promotion and marketing of upcoming library events.

Week 7

 My internship is now getting off the ground. I am no longer solely doing research, compiling information for staff and users, and revising staff materials. I am now learning to use the Marin County Free Library Intranet or the MCFL staff website. My site supervisor made me an administrator of the MCFL staff site, and in addition to receiving Intranet training, I have been learning to post content to the Intranet or staff website. I have taken the staff training materials and subject guides that I worked on since the start of the semester, and have now been able to upload them to the staff site of the Intranet.

 This has not been as easy as it sounds. I did face challenges as there always is when learning something new. I spent a full day struggling to solve Intranet login issues. I had trouble logging into the staff site, but that was because of some mistakes I made and possibly login issues the library had been experiencing, but luckily my site supervisor guided me on how to correct such issues so that I could gain access to the staff site. It was also challenging to learn where and how to post content. It took me a while to learn how to post content in the appropriate sections of the staff site including the policies and procedures page, committee page, and staff home page. Furthermore, it had taken me some time to learn how to upload content onto the Intranet, which I found challenging since it is done a little differently from other websites such as our own D2L site. I also had to struggle to figure out how to upload files that are certain sizes, and basically how to solve issues regarding the uploading of file sizes. Although I know how to post images to the regular MCFL website for users, I still have not figured out how to post images to the Intranet, and solve issues with image size.

 The good news is that I did manage to upload all the files my site supervisor wanted on the staff site, and the appropriate places to upload them, for instance training materials that need to be uploaded to policies and procedures page.

 Furthermore, I also had to learn about the taxonomy of the staff site. Taxonomy is vocabulary created to help staff find the right places to access certain information and also post content. For instance, the word "Procedures" is an example of taxonomy and was created for the staff site so that staff can upload and access all files related to library procedures. I had to learn how to choose and create taxonomy so that I knew where to post my content, and also where my content can be accessed by library staff.

 My site supervisor did say that I need to take my time to learn all these things, and that I don't need to rush to complete assignments. We still have until November 6 before the Intranet actually goes live.

Week 6

 This week, I have been given access to the staff home page of the Marin County Free Library website; not just because I'm an intern, but mainly since my future assignments will be done on the staff homepage, such as uploading and posting information. I was given a username and a password to log into the staff home site.

 A future assignment in which I cut and paste information into the staff site, like staff information, has been put on further hold and is still in development.

 My assignment for this week is learning to use the library's Intranet. An Intranet is as Wikipedia states, "a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to share information, operational systems, or computing services within an organization." I will be watching a training video on how to use the Intranet. I will be using the Intranet for many future assignments to share staff information, training materials, and anything for the staff so that I can meet the student learning outcomes that state, "the student will help develop and maintain the staff website, as well as create and maintain training materials to assist the staff in improving staff communication and efficiency," and "the student will maintain existing materials and create new materials for publicity and trainings to enable staff to help promote the library and its programs."

 I will also be filling out and emailing a time sheet to show the library the days and hours I worked in September, which I must do at the start of every month.

 I do not completely understand all the technology that I must use for the staff home site and the Intranet. However, I will be going through a list of assignments for this next week one by one, and by doing so, slowly and gradually gain an understanding about these technologies, how to maintain and develop the staff site, and how to use the Intranet. At this point, I'm a little lost, but I will have to take these assignments a little step at a time.
 
 

Week 5

 It is a bit slow this next week, but there is a lot going on since my site supervisor is currently figuring out and creating upcoming assignments and other things related to the library's website. We are usually scheduled for telephone meetings every Wednesday at 11:30am, but my supervisor has postponed our next meeting until October 3 since she is now hosting a training this Wednesday morning.

 I have completed putting together information that will eventually go into both the website and subject guides. The information for the website is on Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library, and the information that will be added to the subject guides is on social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and You Tube. My site supervisor will be in the meantime figuring out how to get Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library working, and how to create the subject guides based on my research and findings. There is an upcoming assignment where I put together information about the staff, which has been postponed because of some technical issues. In the meantime, I will be creating blogs and posting information on social media sites.

 The two learning outcomes I will be focusing on in the next week are:

1. The student will maintain existing materials and create new materials for publicity and trainings to enable staff to help promote the library and its programs, and assist patrons in utilizing library services and materials.

2. The student will help develop and maintain the Marin County Free Library website so that patrons will learn to use the library, become informed about the library's reading programs and events, and get information about the library including locations and service hours.

 The blogs that I will be creating are to "help develop and maintain the Marin County Free Library website so that patrons will learn to use the library and become informed about the library's events." The blogs also function as "new materials for publicity to enable staff to help promote the library and assist patrons in utilizing library services."

 This may sound boring, but I am basically creating blogs for the next week while waiting for my site supervisor to have my next major assignments and certain aspects of the website ready for me to work on.

Week 4

 My internship is all of a sudden moving very fast, and my site supervisor has me on a roller coaster. I will of course put details and specifics about my assignments and experiences with them in the status reports and final report. For now, I am working fast and only have the time to blog about general information on my new assignments.

 This week I have been given two assignments, although my site supervisor is developing one of them. The assignment I am starting today is compiling information for two upcoming subject guides that teach patrons how to use Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and You Tube. One guide will be for general information, and the other will be for parents. My assignment is to collect social media website information from the Marin County Free Library site such as subjects, book titles, websites, and subject headings. This information is what will go into the subject guides.

 The assignment that my site supervisor is in the process of creating and will have for me any day has to do with putting together information about the library staff. There is information about the staff such as pics, bios, user permissions, and email that are in both the Library's website and on a spreadsheet (my site supervisor will send me the spreadsheet any day). My assignment will be to take all the staff information from both the Library website and spreadsheet, and cut and paste it into the staff site on the Internet. Generic passwords will be given.

Week 3

  It must be stated that when new information technologies emerge and can greatly benefit libraries, libraries will of course want to use them to compete and survive in the information industry. However, libraries are not going to immediately understand how these new technologies work, and how they can use them to their benefit. All they know are that these technologies are new, are improvements over previous technologies, are helping other libraries, and that they would greatly help their own library or library system; they just do not know how to go about approaching these technologies and using them. They need to be guided, helped, or get ideas on how to use these new technologies by researching and learning about how other libraries are utilizing them. It is in this research and learning process that I come in for this next week's assignment.

  My job for this next week is to help the Marin County Free Library get a start on using Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library, which are new technologies to get information to patrons. Libraries are now learning to use these technologies and implementing them; both public and academic libraries. I am to find out what libraries use Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library, and report back to my site supervisor on how these libraries are utilizing them, and how the Marin County Free Library can understand and use them too.

  More specifically, I am to find out...
 1. What libraries are using Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library
 2. How these libraries are marketing Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library
 3. How libraries are using Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library differently
 4. Evaluate what these libraries are doing with Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library
 5. Find out what to do and not to do with Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library
 6. And get any additional information and support about how libraries are using Axis 360 and 3M Cloud Library to get information to patrons.  

 

Week 2

 During the second week, I continued to review training and publicity materials for the library staff at the Marin County Free Library, and also continued to meet the student learning outcomes that focus on "maintaining existing materials for publicity and trainings to enable staff to help promote the library and its programs, and improve staff communication and efficiency." The materials on training and publicity are on social media and are supposed to train library staff how to use social media sites like Blogger, Twitter, Hootsuite, Facebook, and You Tube so they can better connect with both the community and other librarians and staff persons. The training and publicity materials were done last Spring, and since social media sites do change overtime, my assignment was to report any recent changes in how these social media sites work that differ from what is stated in the training and publicity materials. I am now in the process of editing the Google documents for these materials so that they are updated to show how these social media sites are functioning today as opposed to last Spring.

 I will also be posting current news stories about the library on these social media sites. I will be doing some research to find out any current news about the library, and use the library's social media website accounts to post them so that the community and staff are informed about the latest news concerning the Marin County Library.

 

Week 1

 I have started the Electronic Services internship for the Marin County Free Library. It is my second internship in this program, but my first with a public library. 

 Note: I will post my student learning outcomes for this week so that other interns in Library 294 will know what I have to work on this semester, can better follow my blog, and also provide comments. I would have liked to post a photo that fits well with my internship, but there have been too many problems in recent times regarding bloggers unknowingly posting copyrighted photos and getting into legal trouble, particularly authors, which I want to avoid. 

Student Learning Outcomes: 

1. The student will maintain existing materials and create new materials for publicity and trainings to enable staff to help promote the library and its programs, and assist patrons in utilizing library services and materials.

2.  The student will help develop and maintain the Marin County Free Library website so that patrons will learn to use the library, become informed about the library's reading programs and events, and get information about the library including locations and service hours.

3. The student will help develop and maintain the staff website, as well as create and maintain training materials to assist the staff in improving staff communication and efficiency.  

   After reading and filling out employment and legal papers designed to give me a better understanding of the internship and the Marin County Free Library, I was given an assignment that fit with learning outcomes 1 and 3. I had to review social media training materials for library staff and make suggestions for revisions. The training materials included toolkits and cheat sheets for social media sites such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Blogger, and You Tube. The purpose of these training materials is to teach library staff and librarians to better utilize these social media websites. The Marin County Free Library staff have to use these social media sites to connect with the community they serve. I made a list of suggestions for revisions of these training materials and emailed them to my site supervisor, although since it is Labor Day weekend, I do not expect a response until Tuesday, September 4.

 My site supervisor has me use Google Calender to keep track of my weekly hours, and she has to see my calender on the first of every month. I am required to work 9 hours a week, although I have done 10 this first week.

 This internship is of course a new experience, but I know its purpose is to teach me how librarians use social media and library websites to connect with their local communities, and also with people who either do not visit the library or are located in distant areas.