My First Experiences in Librarianship

 Log 5

Student: Austen Esch

Supervisor: Shelley Barba

 

February 21, 3035

I took a photo of myself as I walked across the campus to the Special Collections Library. I find it fascinating that there are several different libraries at Texas Tech that require walking across campus.

This was a unique day for my internship at Texas Tech Library. I had not, as of yet, had a day when my supervisor, Shelley Barba, was not present with me. She was to be absent this Friday, so she set up a schedule for me to interact with some other librarians for the day. I was a little nervous about going to the special collections library and to Matt McEniry without Shelley, but I knew it would be okay. First, I was to meet with Matt McEniry on the second floor of the library to discuss his role at the library. Shelley and I had visited his office earlier in the week, but he had not been present in his office. As a result, this was my first time meeting him, and he would share with me the ins and outs of his position. We met and explained that he was an associate librarian, and his job was to catalog new material for the library's online database. He also shared with me that librarians are expected to frequently publish research papers in journals while employed at Texas Tech University. This was quite shocking to me because I thought only professors were expected to publish in journals frequently. He said this was the only downside to his job, and I was tempted to ask whether or not having to write journal articles affected his work, but I didn’t.

              After meeting with Mr. McEniry, I walked over to the special collections library for a second tour, this time with their librarians. I arrived and met up with the employee stationed in the front area of the library. She showed me around the receptionist area where students can request access to historical documents. She also explained to me that students cannot leave with these historical documents and must read them at the library in a giant reading room. She showed me the main reading area, which was beautifully designed. Next, one of the special collections librarians took me to the back rooms since it is a restricted area that the other employees could not take me. We ventured into the housing room where tons of historical materials were being stored. She showed me that pieces of cloth cover the outside of the shelves so that light does not damage the material. Also, the room employs temperature control and humidity detectors to ensure that no damage comes to these pieces of history. One of my favorite items that they had was a giant historical globe that was locked behind a glass case. This library truly blew me away, and it introduced me to a new librarian field to consider.

 

February 24, 2025

I have Shelley take a photo of me at my workstation. She had just finished telling me about a workshop opportunity that would give me experience with Open Refine.

              Shelley is back, so we return to the typical day at the library. Shelley comes to tell me that she will be hosting a workshop on Friday. This workshop will give me an opportunity to learn more about Open Refine, an application that Shelley learned about many years earlier, around 2019. I told Shelley that this will be my first library workshop, so I’m not completely sure what it entails. She explains that she will be demonstrating some of the features of Open Refine as I follow along on my own computer. Shelley also tells me that once I have completed this workshop, I can put it on my resume. I updated her that I’m almost done with the sports subject headings. At this point, it is time to begin writing down the changes that I am making in instruction format instead of a list like I have been doing.

Later in the day, Shelley tells me about an exciting experience that she had recently had as a librarian. She explains that she has to take down a document at the recent request from none other than NASA. The reason given was that the document contained the word “inclusive,” which is a polarizing word at the moment, and NASA did not want this to come to the attention of certain politicians. Interestingly, the inclusion reference in the article is for deaf people, but this probably would make very little difference in how people would react to “inclusive.” Of course, Shelley explains that she takes this kind of thing very seriously, so she complies and takes the document off of the library database. However, she asked them whether it was okay to save the document and upload it later when things were more settled. NASA agrees that it might be appropriate to upload the document in the future when the nature of the discourse is somewhat less intense.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summation Entry

  Summation Entry As I reflect on my practicum experience at the Texas Tech Library, I feel incredibly grateful for the wide range of learning opportunities I had. I came into the internship expecting to learn more about subject analysis and Library of Congress Subject Headings, and I certainly did. Working through two full batches of subject headings gave me valuable, hands-on experience in critically evaluating metadata, correcting errors, and understanding the nuances of cataloging. Shelley’s guidance through this process was immensely helpful, and I now feel far more confident in my ability to work with subject access points in a real library setting. It was a challenge at times to keep track of all the changes I made, but this eventually turned into an opportunity as I compiled a workflow and even developed a presentation to help future librarians learn how to navigate similar challenges. One thing that surprised me was just how diverse the roles and experiences of academic li...
Read more

Digitalizing Posters

Image
  Log 16 Digitalizing Posters Student: Austen Esch Supervisor: Shelley Barba   April 16, 2025, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. I take a photo as I walk to see Nathan, who is in charge of digitalization at Texas Tech. I find the digitalization process fascinating, and it was an enjoyable experience for me. During my final week, I had the chance to meet again with Nathan, who is in charge of digitization at the library. Shelley wanted to make sure I experienced the digitization process firsthand and even gave it a try myself. She took me over to Nathan’s area, where I watched him digitize a few posters that had been made by students many years ago. After walking me through the process a couple of times, it was my turn to try. I began by placing the poster on the digitization table and switching on the built-in vacuum that holds the paper in place using small holes across the tabletop. Then I used magnets on each corner of the poster to secure the edges that weren’t getting held d...
Read more

Creating a Presentation

Image
  Log 14 Creating a Presentation Student: Austen Esch Supervisor: Shelley Barba   April 7, 2025, 1:00 – 5:00 p.m. I'm taking a walk around the room and looking at the posters on the walls. I'm getting prepared to create a presentation that I will give to Shelley. I started putting together a record of all the changes I’ve made while fixing subject headings. The goal of doing this is to use this information to create a presentation. The purpose of the presentation is to demonstrate how to correct subject headings in a way that aligns with Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). Shelley told me it could eventually be used as a training tool for new librarians at Texas Tech. I’ve been noting down different kinds of issues I’ve encountered, like headings that are not authorized, incorrect formatting, or vague terminology, and how I resolved each one. This way, the presentation can serve as a guide for navigating the trickier parts of subject heading cleanup. I s...
Read more