The Trials and Tribulations of Librarianship

 Log 7

Student: Austen Esch

Supervisor: Shelley Barba

 

March 3, 2025

Another photo of myself at my workstation. I am getting a lot of work done. There really isn't anything else to say.

              I am back on Monday after the workshop with plans to make further progress with the personal finance theses and dissertations. Over the weekend, I thought about how great it was that I had had the opportunity to attend it. While I planned to share my resume with Shelley, I would need to add the Open Reform workshop to it before sending it to her in an email. Shelly has told me that she can give me pointers on how to further improve my resume before I start sending it in for job applications. Shelley shares the possibilities of additional opportunities for workshops that might arise later on in the semester, hosted by other librarians. If this does happen, I think it would be a great opportunity for me to learn about other applications that are relevant for librarians, specifically for cataloging. With my work on the subject headings, I have learned how tedious and time-consuming it can be to ensure that everything is formatted and compliant with library standards.

Shelley informs me that I will be meeting with her supervisor, Joy, later in the week. I have not yet met many people who are higher up in the library hierarchy, as most of the people that Shelley introduced me to are of either equal or lower status to her. Shelley tells me that she intends to email me a new batch of subject headings other than the ones dealing with mental illness and abuse. She thinks this will give me more time to think about whether or not I want to deal with such heavy subject headings. Of course, she lets me know that that are numerous other subjects with theses and dissertations that need their subject headings adjusted to meet Library of Congress standards before the batch of subject headings about mental health and abuse would need to be done. The batch of subject headings that I am already working on is taking far more time than the previous batch due to numerous reasons. The most pressing reason is that these students were fare more thorough in recording subject headings, with a lot having as many as the subject heading. For each one of these subject headings, I have to search the LCSH website to ensure that the terms are acceptable.

 

March 5, 2025

I have Shelley take a picture of me after we discuss her experience as the theses and dissertations curator. I was horrified to hear about her experience, and I understand why it was so traumatic for her. 

              I’ve made more progress on the subject headings, but it is taking a lot longer on each document because there are so many subject headings listed by the students. I tell Shelley, and she tells me not to stress about the pace but just to make sure I get everything done correctly. She also tells me a story about her past situations while working at Texas Tech. She had alluded early on that there had been some stressful times as the theses and dissertation curator. Shelly now shares the specifics, telling me about when Texas Tech library’s theses and dissertation housing platform was being decommissioned because the company operating it was closing. It became her responsibility to ensure that all the theses and dissertations were transferred before they were deleted and lost. This housing company sent thousands of files that had the names and tilters wiped from the icons for some reason. However, that information was still available once the documents had been clicked into.

Shelley had to go through each individual document to see what was inside. She created files with people’s names so that she could put all documents from the same person together. This project required that she sit down and decide on a project style to guide her work. Shelley recommended that I also investigate the most common project styles and choose the one that is most acceptable for my subject headings project. She emailed me a document with seven project types, each with its own specific qualities. Shelley tells me to read over this document and decide on which project style I want to implement. She explains that whatever project style I choose she will support and implement the needed changes on her end to be compliant with it.

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