Please come join us for the ALCTS CaMMS Competencies and Education for a Career in Cataloging Interest Group (CECC IG) session in Atlanta!
The CECC IG will meet Friday afternoon, January 20, 2017 1:00-2:30 p.m. in the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), B215.
There will be three presentations given on the theme of successful cataloging and metadata internship or fellowship experiences.
1). “Sharing knowledge from the perspective of the intern and the supervisor” presented by Mary Gilbertson, Head of Monographs, University of Arkansas & Baheya Jaber, Graduate Student, The University of Alabama.
The University of Arkansas recently hosted an intern who did a rotation in reference and in cataloging. Mary Gilbertson supervised part of Baheya Jaber’s rotation in the Cataloging Department. We will talk about the experience from both a supervisor’s and an intern’s perspective. Hosting an intern is a great service to the library profession. It allows the intern to see where they might fit in an organization if working in multiple areas. It allows an intern to develop some pre-career skills even if in a short period of time. It also helps the supervisor to question how they do things, to stop and look back at the tools and not take for granted what they think they know, and provides the supervisor an opportunity to not only teach but to also learn. It is a mutually beneficial experience.
2). “How to build a successful internship experience for beginning catalogers” presented by Heylicken (Hayley) Moreno, Database Specialist II and former diversity fellow, Metadata Operations, WorldCat Quality Control & Laura Ramsey, Section Manager and former mentor, Metadata Operations, WorldCat Quality Control.
For several years OCLC housed a fellowship program where recent graduates or beginning library professionals of diverse minority backgrounds were given an opportunity to work in WorldCat Quality Control. During the one year tenure, a dedicated team worked with the fellow through the various cataloging standards and best practices used in the field, as well as the internal methods that helped maintained WorldCat. This helped improve and correct errors found in the WorldCat database by manual and automated processes. A former mentor and fellow will discuss their respective experiences working together through the program. Procedural documentation and role design will be discussed by the mentor, while the discovery process of cataloging standards and the role of proactive participation will be discussed by the former fellow.
3). “Teamwork makes the dream work! Or, many hands make light(er) internship work” by Sevim McCutcheon, Catalog Librarian and Associate Professor, Kent State University Libraries.
Some librarians are hesitant to supervise internships because of the time commitment. Time and effort considerations can be particularly acute in cataloging and metadata departments, as teaching and providing sufficient feedback to students in record creation is labor intensive. This academic librarian will share techniques for easing the workload of internships. She will address two aspects: 1. strategies and methods for teaching pre-professionals to apply standards and principles using current cataloging tools, and 2. ways to involve others in imparting this content. These include peer-to-peer teaching (having graduate student workers assist in training), delegating (as to junior/adjunct faculty), and co-supervision (collaborating with librarians in other departments and other types of libraries to broaden the internship student’s experiences). Internships can be a win-win for all: internship students gain practical knowledge; fellow graduate students acquire teaching experience; and librarians in the community get a low-commitment way to help prepare the next generation.
ALCTS CaMMS Competencies and Education for a Career in Cataloging Interest Group
Susan Rathbun-Grubb and Allison Yanos, Co-Chairs
Maurine McCourry and Elizabeth Shoemaker, Vice Co-Chairs