Practicum: Complete

Utterly exhausted...

Yesterday evening, I officially completed LIS 7640 -- my public library practicum: I logged my last few hours at CADL, wrote a blog post about my activities and observations, and published a summary of my overall experience!

I wrote:

My practicum experience mainly focused on surveying both the legal community as well as the library's patrons as to their legal information needs, reviewing and then weeding the library's legal collection, and creating a pathfinder of legal resources. For these projects, I utilized knowledge and skills acquired from LIS 7340 (Collection Development with Dr. Holley).

My secondary projects involved creating three annotated bibliographies for the library's young adult department -- Hunger Games Read-Alikes, Exploring Books Across Genres: A Guide to Teen Lit for Girls, and Exploring Books Across Genres: A Guide to Teen Lit for Guys. For these projects, I utilized knowledge and skills acquired in LIS 6530 (Young Adult Literature with Suzanne Todd) and LIS 7250 (Programming for Children and Young Adults with Suzanne Todd).

I am very satisfied with my experience and I am aware that my site supervisor is satisfied as well: "You give me new faith in the profession and what it is and will be. Thanks for everything you’ve done and especially the joy and enthusiasm you bring." Dievendorf provided me with a copy of my evaluation and it honestly brought tears to my eyes -- it was that touching. While CADL is not currently hiring, I have been asked if I would be interested in working on additional projects for the library. I am honored and have already made arrangements to do so.

As part of our final practicum posting, it was optional to provide a picture. Before leaving, I made a point to take snap a picture (via my webcam) which I've embedded in this post. I would have much rather used this picture (which I snapped on my way to my practicum earlier in the week):

So...now all I have left is finishing up my research proposal for LIS 7996. Currently, I am over halfway done writing the literature review and then I will be onto methodology, analysis of the data, limitations, and possibilities for future research.

In the next day or so, I'll share photos from my practicum experience -- mostly snapshots of various books in which I encountered while working. Only the bibliophiles out there will likely appreciate them.