My student position in the University Library's Pacific Collection these past 2+ years was coming to an end, and I had nothing lined up. Then luckily, through a random series of events, I found myself in a part-time position as the new Development and Digital Projects Specialist at the UH Press, just a little over a week before graduation. (For other graduates out there still looking, don't forget to look at HirenetHawaii.com for casual hire positions.) I'm enjoying the people and the atmosphere at the Press and find all of it stimulating and interesting. Katherine, who I'm replacing, is someone I highly respect (and also graduated with this semester). She's been making the transition a lot easier by showing me the essentials. I really wanted this position because it involves grant writing. I am so thankful to have this opportunity! Since this is a part-time position, I still need one more part-time job to pay the bills. I am really excited to be working here, and think itʻd be fantastic if I could work in a library or archives environment as a second part-time job.
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On Friday, March 17th, I took the final oral exam required for all UH Manoa LIS graduate students who chose not to do the thesis option. We were given a list of questions in advance to choose from, and asked to present based on a particular track/area of study. No notes were allowed, and any citations made (some are required) had to be memorized.
The exam was a good exercise which provided a platform to reflect upon my education over the last 2.5 years and present it to a board of 2 faculty members. In addition to coursework, I drew upon my experiences at various internships, working in the Pacific Collection, and looking for other resources when I needed more info. I took the archives exam, and am happy I passed.
As a student member of the Hawaiʻi Pacific Chapter of the Medical Library Association, one of the things I enjoy the most is being offered opportunities for professional development. I joined HPC-MLA last semester, while interning with the Health Sciences Library of the John A. Burns School of Medicine. In March, we had the opportunity to take an online course entitled Discovering Toxnet, comprised of 12 modules featuring different databases related to environmental health and toxicology. As a short-lived Chemistry major, this was pretty darn fun for me. I ended up doing all 12 modules (only one of them was mandatory). I'll be receiving a continuing education certificate, but mainly did it for fun and to learn something new. Unfortunately, there are very few medical library jobs here in Hawaii (to my knowledge). All the medical librarian's I've I've met here are fantastic. I enjoyed the modular design of the course, in addition to the moodle environment which is also used by Library Juice Academy courses. Especially helpful, were the discovery exercises and the hands-on tutorials which utilized Guide on the Side, which I really liked (and had some previous experience with creating tutorials for JABSOM HSL). The instructors: Molly Knapp, Rebecca Brown, and Jessi Van Der Volgen constructed and facilitated a great learning experience.
Below are links to all the tutorials (no login required) for this course: Yay! I made it through. After 6 months of courses with Library Juice Academy, I completed my goal of learning more about Linked Data and the semantic web, earning a Certificate in XML and RDF-Based Systems. Instructor Rob Chavez deserves a big mahalo for his thoughtfully laid-out lessons and assignments. I didn't continue with Sparql II or Sparql III, primarily because my current semester and the upcoming oral examination I need to pass in March is taking huge amounts of time and effort, but I hope to take more professional development courses in the future. I'll write more about my current internships, work, and the oral exams in another post. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by!
During my internship this summer at Smithsonian Libraries, I was introduced to Linked Data concepts through a NISO vitual conference on BIBFRAME & Real World Applications of Linked Bibliographic Data, and some other meetings and discussions with members of the Digital Programs and Initiatives Division. Alvin Hutchinson recommended Library Juice Academy to the interns as a possible way to supplement our current academic curriculum if we were interested in learning more. In August, I registered for the first course (of six) in a series that awards a Certificate in XML and RDF-Based Systems. All courses in this series are taught by Robert Chavez, who puts together month-long courses broken down into weekly modules with readings, examples, and assignments. Successful completion of each course allows you to progress towards the certificate. I definitely feel a greater understanding of these concepts largely attributed to Robert's course materials. I just registered for the final course in the series and if all goes well, should be getting a certificate next year. I'm willing to pay the extra money to learn concepts that aren't currently being taught at my own school and have enjoyed the experience so far!
This Fall, I had the pleasure of doing an invaluable internship at a medical library--the Health Sciences Library of the John A. Burns School of Medicine--as part of a course credit (LIS 690) for school. This gave me experience in both an academic and special library. I have to thank Library Director Kris Anderson for taking me on, as well as Melissa Kahili-Heede for providing such excellent guidance through the majority of the internship. My classmate, Dee, also interned here, and I was really happy to have her at the same site. Dee and I received additional guidance from Luree and Carrie Ann when it came to Technical Services work; Leah was an all-around resource for any questions that arose and also was amazing at coming up with ideas for outreach and engagement, and Hilda (who Kris says runs the place) taught me as much as she could about circulation (and more).
The staff make a really great team, and I felt like they were excellent role models. Some projects accomplished involved the digitization of the Hawaii Medical Journal (1990-2005) which was uploaded into eVols. Dee and I both had a part in the process of scanning, OCR'ing, and creating metadata for issues loaded into eVols. Another accomplishment was selecting the best crowdfunding site for Kris' IAMSLIC project. Today, Kris took the staff out to lunch at Little Sheep. It was their holiday party and my very first hot pot (and Mongolian hot pot at that!) My last day will be on Friday (12/16). I've thoroughly enjoyed my time and the experiences I was able to have here. I'll miss working there 12 hours a week, and seeing the awesome staff, and really cool projects. JABSOM itself has its own vibe, and I really liked the students. Mahalo to Kris, Melissa, Leah, Luree, Carrie Ann, Hilda and Dee! Time is the 4th dimension. Lately, I've longed for the ability to press pause.
This semester, I've been working part time in my student assistant position in the UHM Pacific Collection, and interning at JABSOM Health Sciences Library where the staff is amazing, and I am going to deeply miss working with them. I am also taking 2 LIS courses: Database Searching, and Resources in Hawaiian & Pacific Librarianship; as well as working towards a Library Juice Academy certificate in XML and RDF-based Systems which requires me to take (6) 1-month-long classes. I just finished class 3: Introduction to the Semantic Web. I'm digging the courses and the instructor. In November, I flew to Hilo on the Big Island, for the Hawaii Library Association (my first ever professional conference) Conference. I also presented my first-ever academic poster. All that being said... I've been super busy this semester. On Saturday, September 24th, I had the wonderful opportunity to help community members learn how to preserve their family treasures. The Association of Hawaiʻi Archivists partnered with the Society of American Archivists student chapter to invite students to be presenters at this vital workshop on the west side of Oʻahu. Hawaiʻi is famous for its amazing weather. We live in paradise, however, with our subtropical climate there are unique challenges for community members wishing to preserve their papers, books, photos, and other cultural artifacts.
I was fortunate to team with three fellow classmates and SAAsc members who I have ginormous amounts of respect for: Jennifer Magdaloyo, Keala Richard, and Ellie Seaton. Together, we tackled the content of Session 1: Mālama Palapala, which covered physical environment, pests, the care of papers, books, photos, and other artifacts such as feathers, kapa, and ʻumeke/calabash. As aspiring archivists we had all studied under the wise and skillful tutelage of Deborah Dunn in LIS 619 - Preservation Management. (Keala and I were lucky enough to have Debbie for LIS 620 - Conservation Management, as well). Each of us parsed out the topics comprising our 90-minute presentation, and created all the content for our topics. The topics I selected were: pest identification and prevention, identification of types of books in the home one might preserve, and types of books commonly sold today, and photo preservation and storage. Debbie graciously agreed to help us run through the presentation, made suggestions, and then (bless her heart) she sat through it again! She was very happy with it the 2nd time around, and so was I. Having her give feedback was integral to the success of our portion of the workshop. The audience was a mixture of different ethnicities from all over the island. They were primarily middle-aged to senior citizen, and actively took notes and asked questions throughout. It was a pleasure to be speaking at Leeward Community College, which is the CC I lived closest to (and where I started my college endeavors) back in the day! I felt really comfortable speaking to the crowd because they were really interested in learning what they could do with their possessions at home. I found the entire experience to be very meaningful and special. We were flattered to have people ask us if we'd consider doing another workshop. Some members thanked us and let us know the community really needs workshops like these. By far, this service event required many hours of preparation, far beyond previous volunteer activities I've participated in. It was partially for that reason that this was also one of the most enjoyable, however, being told we were able to help the people who came was the best part. It was so cool to see people motivated to start preserving their own collections. Mahalo to AHA and the SAAsc for allowing me to present, and Mahalo to the community members for spending their Saturday with us and being such an awesome crowd! |
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