Week seven (Mar.2 - Mar.6)

This week, the same problem of getting the topic happened again.

Monday:
The topic we have for the Monday class was spring08, and the topic is unclear. It is about "The Lost Kingdom of Lyonesse", and I can think many ways of writing a paper without specific instruction. I have sent emails to the professor, my supervisor, and previous interns to ask about the topic and I hope I can get responding before Monday morning.

Fortunately I got the answer from the professor, and my supervisor called the professor too. However, they gave me different topics. For the class, their topics are open with anything, but the professor wants students look for Lafcadio Hearn, the Blood drinker during the session. This is something the professor's research on his own, and it won't really help students for their researches. In addition, it is very hard to find the blood drinker that Lafcadio Hearn worked on. Indeed, he called himself blood drinker once on a newspaper. Because there was no student could find information on blood drinker, the first session was running out of time. Thus, I tried to push students at the second session, instead of finding something about Lafcadio Hearn and the Blood drinker, I told them to understand how to use the database for finding something and if they could find both Lafcadio Hearn and the Blood drinker, that would be fine. By this way, we finished 15 minutes early; hence, students have been asked to search on their own topics for the rest of 15 minutes and I could help them on the real search.

Tuesday and Wednesday:
I have three sessions for the same professor for two days and her students' have topics on global issues. The class was fine, and there isn't any problem. In addition, I showed them to cross search on the topic of Global Studies' databases instead of using databases for English topics only. Furthermore, some students' topics are about global warming and I showed them the environmental databases to cross check.

Thursday

Today, I met with librarian Diana and Rob for collection development project.  They told me how to choose appropriate books for the department.  For instance, I shall study college catalog to see what courses the school provides; meet with department dean and faculty to discuss the department focus; check SJSU library catalog to see what books the library owns; check CSU union catalog to see what books other CSUs have.  

In addition, check statistics of books check-out is another way to learn whether the book is what students and/or faculty need for their researches.  Moreover, check if there are gaps on the collection.  For instance, if the library has the serials from 1995-1999, 2002-2005, 2008-present.  That means there are gaps of the collection need to fill in.

Week six (Feb. 23 – Feb. 27)

Even though this is the sixth week of my intern, it is the second week of teaching indeed. And so far, I only had two sessions to teach. I would be very easy to be stressful if I couldn’t get the topic before the class. Unfortunately, I got the problem for two of classes this week.

Normally we got the topic at least a week ahead so we would have time to prepare. However, one professor did no respond my email, and another professor said she sent the topic but no one got it. I also heard that both of them have some special requirements, but we couldn’t tell what those are without their topics. I was frustrated, but I kept trying to call and email them a couple of time since last week. Finally, I got what I need a day before the class and I was so happy because one of them ask to teach the class in lecture style, which means, I need to show the entire class how to search in OPAC and databases step by step. Without knowing the topic, I would not able to choose appropriate databases for the class. It is always highly important to contact professors in advance. They are very busy and they may forget sending topics, we have to try and try because without a topic, we can not know which databases we want students to try on.

The day before teaching the lecture style class, we had the meeting with Toby to go over the lecture class tips, and the professor asks any topic that related to the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald, such as men and women of 1920’s, Jazz Age, Scott Fitzgerald is also fine. Because I have to show the class how to search, I need to choose a topic to use on the class, and relate to the Great Gatsby. Thus I decided to use Women’s rights in 1920’s as the topic and use OPAC, Academic Search Premier, Omnifile, and ProQuest Historical Newspaper – San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1922). From four of them, students would able to find books, scholarly journal articles, and historical information. However, lecture style class takes longer time to explain each database, so I run out of time to show all of databases. Instead, I show them how to use OPAC, Academic Search Premier, and ProQuest Historical Newspaper – San Francisco Chronicle (1865-1992).

Another session I taught was that the professor wanted me to show the class different databases in different subjects because she would assign several papers to the class in different subjects. The topic we would use for the first paper is Healthcare system. Based on her needs, I chose OPAC, Academic Search Premier, Business Source Complete, ProQuest Newsstand, and Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. As again, OPAC and Academic Search Premier were chosen because OPAC is the basic one for catalog searching and Academic Search Premier is an extremely helpful one for starting a research with fresh. ProQuest Newsstand provides newspaper and magazine articles; Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center provides articles for more debatable resources that students could refer to.

There were several problems that I haven’t deal before, but I learned from dealing with these problems and gained knowledge of the importance of communicating with faculty and manage time effectively during the session.

Week five (Feb. 16 – Feb. 20)

We started teaching from this week and we could observe/assist several classes which taught by pervious interns. We teach classes in workshop style, which means after introducing the library, we will separate students in groups and ask them work on different databases. The topics of which I observed were more or less about debatable topics and the intern whoever teaches the class selects databases. When I was watching them, I was not sure how they decide which databases to use in each class.

My first class was on Feb. 19. A day before I started my own section, I have met with Toby because I would be the first one to teach in three of our new interns and I asked her opinions for the databases. The topic was broadly about education, gender issues, religions, and monetary success. It is different from what I have observed, so I chose Academic Search Premier which is always a good one for freshmen students to start a topic; Academic Search Premier-Visual Search which is same with Academic Search Premier but in a more visual search rather than traditionally way of searching. Library Catalog is always needed. The last one I chose was JSTOR, but Toby thought JSTOR would be too advanced for freshmen students. Therefore, we changed to Omnifile.

I was worried if I forgot what I want to talk, what if I could not keep the class for full of one hour and fifteen minutes, what if I don’t know what to do while students work in groups, what if students do not follow me…

To help myself, I created a brief cheat sheet about what I need to tell the class about the library. Because I was too nervous when I started, I forgot to introduce myself to the class. However, thank to my cheat sheet, I told the class they could get help to start a paper at Reference desk; they could get help off-campus via call the reference, email librarians, and use online chat/AskNOW; they would be able to access databases off-campus too with their student ID and PIN of library card. I also showed them the academic gateway and how they could find appropriate databases in different subjects.

After introduction part, I separated students into groups and walk around to help them. The time went by fast and I have to remind them to discuss their presentations. Students liked to show the class what they discovered on the OPAC, databases, the full-text, GetText button, citation format, email the articles to themselves.

After the experience of the first class, I felt more confidence and it was my great experience. There was another section for the same professor right after the first class. While teaching to them, I could give them more organized instruction and asked students to read the handout of the database and work on their own first, discuss after they found out one record. By doing this, each student would have something talk rather than only one student talk about everything and other group members just standing during the presentation.

Week two - Week four (Jan. 26 – Feb.13)

Because the English 1B lecture requires students to have a topic for their paper, we didn’t allow English instructors to sign up any class until Feb. 16th. In addition, we had orientation with previous interns about how to use pbwiki to track hours, find topics which they upload on pbwiki, and how to organize them. Moreover, I need to be familiar with business databases because Diana Wu is the specialist librarian for Business department.

Because my intern hours are only 90 totally, so Toby didn’t asked me to help Amanda to set up schedules and/or contact with professor because she needs me for those class. By the way, there are about 80 sections this semester, and I need to teach at least 23 sections. In those three weeks, I was just trying different databases for these topics I found from pbwiki.

Week one (Jan. 13 – Jan. 23)

At the first week meetings, we have discussed how we separate our time periods for class. For instance, I will mainly teach early morning classes, such as 7:30AM and/or 9AM sections. Toby also provided us the handout of databases that we would use frequently. In addition, I met with Diana Wu and Robert Bruce to discuss what kind of assistance they need and what kind of project I need for my class. We discovered that I can teach BUS100W class for Diana Wu and Robert Bruce will let me to observe his 90T class; moreover, I will assist them for collection management while I am taking the collection management class this semester.

SJSU Library Instruction Intern

I am doing internship for San Jose State University Library (SJSU Library) Instruction. First of all, let me talk about the library. Five years ago, SJSU Library combined with the main branch of San Jose Public Library system (SJPL) into one building, which locates at the corner of 4th street and San Fernando St. The joint-used library is called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library (King Library) and it is where the class will teach for English 1B. The library is totally nine floors with 1.5 million items, and each floor has its own collection. The Lower Level is mainly periodicals and government documents, first floor provides check-out, return, and quick information services, and children room. Even though it is called the children room, the collection is also good for high school students. Second floor is reference floor with reference librarians who help people to search information online and researches. Third floor is the public library collection, including adult fictions, youth fictions, non-fictions, and language materials. Forth floor is the social studying floor, and fifth floor is specially collections. From sixth to eighth floors are SJSU library collections.

My primary task is collaborating with Toby Matoush, who the coordinator of English 1B library and subject specialist for English, Foreign Languages, and Urban and Regional Planning, to develop basic literacy session for English 1B students to effectively use academic databases. In our team, we have three interns. In addition, I assist librarians from Science & Health Team, Diana Wu and Robert Bruce, for collection management. Therefore, my intern hours are split that 60 hours for English team and 30 hours for Science & Health Team.