The end that leads to the beginning.

Today is November 30 and this project is due in about 6 1/2 hours. I'm tying up all my loose ends. I've got all my photos categorized on Flickr and my paper is about 30 minutes from being finished. To read through my experience from the beginning, please begin at the first post titled "First meeting" and read chronologically from there by selecting "Newer Post" at the bottom of the page.

Thanks! Any comments are welcome.

Marissa Antosh

R through Z

I pulled the books that were in need of weeding and deleted them from the system. I was able to find two thirds of the list, which is pretty decent. Books get misplaced all the time in Children's, so I consider being able to find more than half a success!

At present, I'm writing my paper, but I wanted to squeeze in a few more journal entries as my time winds down. I've relabeled through the letter P in the early and first readers. Since it's a holiday weekend, we have some returning college students helping out at the library who were unaware of my project. Once they figure out where everything is, it makes sense, but there is an initial period of "where did those books go?" There is a consensus that having the three letters of the author's last name on the spine label is helpful, however. We'll all get used to the new layout.

I'm almost finished! I'll continue this after my time is up for the project, which will just be the letters R through Z. I feel like I've definitely done a good thing by doing this project. I hope patrons will feel the same way.

Unexpected!

When it rains it pours. I've been periodically trolling our book carts for returned early and first readers and WHOA there were a ton of them on the carts yesterday. I got them relabeled and reshelved, but it feels like I'll be finding ones forever that haven't been changed.

Eileen generated a report of books that need to be weeded, so that will be useful. I'll just go through, pull them, and swoosh-- delete them.

One side of the shelf is full!

I've gotten through N and filled up one side of the shelf. I've also updated the shelf labels. Hopefully I can finish next week?? I have the majority done already, and that was the goal. I've been able to do some more weeding as I've gone through, so that is great. Next up is my paper!

Much accomplished.

Today I spent the whole day working on my project. I got a lot accomplished and I'm now through the beginning of the Ms. Going through these books is nostalgic for me and a lot of fun. But on a sad note, a lot of Frog and Toad and Little Bear books are out of print. I suggested that Eileen get a few more of them and they are all fancy now with an accompanying CD. What happened to good old-fashioned books?

Confusion

Today I made signs to let patrons know where half the early readers had gone, even though they just moved around the corner. Even one of our staff members was confused as to where books had gone to. It takes getting used to when collections change. So far, this change has gone quite smoothly, but the early readers circulate more than the books to share. I keep scanning the carts for early readers that were just checked in so they don't get mixed in with the ones I've already changed.

First readers as opposed to early readers: what does it mean?

I figured it would be useful to explain why I'm putting first readers back with early readers and what all these distinctions mean.

The head of Children's prior to Eileen took the very early readers-- e.g. The Fat Cat Sat on a Mat-- and labeled them "first readers" so parents who had beginner readers could find the books more easily instead of ruffling through the entire early readers section. However, there was never clear criteria for why a book went in one collection as opposed to another. There were some early reader series that had books in both spots. For example, there is a series of early readers called "Rookie Readers" and there would be some in the first readers collection and some in the early readers collection. It was all very confusing. When Eileen took over as head of Children's, she didn't like the inconsistency and decided to merge the two collections. Indeed, both collections are for beginning readers, so why have them in two locations? That is why I'm putting them all together again. The collection will be much more cohesive once this project is finished.