That Artsy Librarian is a feature all about my journey through graduate school as I work towards my Master’s degree in Library and Information Science.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my grad school experience, so I thought I’d do that today! I feel like I’ve been in school forever… And I have. I’ve been in grad school for three years. I honestly can’t believe it. I never thought I’d ever go to grad school, much less do a program that takes almost as long as my undergraduate degree.

I just finished up my second to last semester, and I took library marketing and collection development classes. In marketing I spent the semester writing marketing plans for a local library. The first plan was for the ENTIRE library: all of the services and programs available there. It was so complicated and long… 20 single-spaced pages. The second plan was just for the library’s teen services department and it was 16 single-spaced pages. It was fun, but super stressful because I was never really clear on what my teacher wanted. lol. I also made an 8-minute powerpoint audio/visual presentation for my first plan. The course also required I write reviews of scholarly publications and participate in weekly discussions on our required readings. It was a very intense course.

My collection development course was interesting… I was paired up with a classmate and we had to put together a 15-minute audio/visual presentation on weeding library collections. I also did a group assignment on the principles of collection development, which I did not find incredibly useful. The bulk of my final grade came from a 20-item collection I developed for the same library I used in my marketing class. I decided to do it on art and its influence on popular culture. Seeing as how I got my undergrad degree in art history, I thought this was a really fun topic and I enjoyed my 20+ hours of research. Not only did each collection item have to fit the theme, it also had to have positive professional reviews from publications such as Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. I spent a lot of time researching those and quoting them in my justifications for each item. I also had to fight for why the collection was necessary, how I would maintain the collection and add to it in the future, and I had to include an itemized list of prices and vendors. I also had to design a marketing tool to advertise the collection to the general public. We all know graphic design is my thing, and I made a large format poster that looks awesome.

I’ve always enjoyed collection development, and this was the third collection I developed for my program. I’ve also done a children’s picture book collection on multicultural friendships and a teen collection on post-apocalyptic topics (fiction, graphic novels, non-fiction, reference, DVDs, CDs, etc.). I find collection development to be a bit of a treasure hunt and I have a lot of fun searching for items. This has been something I’ve learned about myself since I joined the program, and I’m actually surprised! It’s a good kind of surprise, though.

This was probably the most work intensive semester I’ve had, hence the lack of activity going on here on the blog. I’ve done my best to keep up, but I know things slowed down a lot. I did get A’s in both classes, though! 100% in marketing and 99% in collection development, so my devotion pid off. Now I have a few months off to read and relax and enjoy the summer before jumping in to my final semester. I’m taking my last class this fall, and it’s my capstone course. Essentially, I will be designing and conducting a research study. My final paper of the program will be discussing the results of that study and their applications and relevancy to the field of information science. I already chose my topic, but more on that in a later post!

Yay summer!!!

That Artsy Librarian is a feature all about my journey through graduate school as I work towards my Master’s degree in Library and Information Science.

So, I officially began my second year of graduate school on Monday, and I am already stressing to the max. I guess it’s not the beginning of the semester unless I’m flailing throughout the first week, before realizing I can do this because I’ve done it before. The thing is, though, I’m serious this time! I might not survive!

I’m taking two classes this semester (my counselor considers this a full load, and I’d be rather nuts for trying to stack on three courses, thus the reason the program takes three years…). One of them is Library Programming for Children and Young Teens. This one should be fun! I get to visit libraries, visit children’s book sections, interview a children’s librarian, develop a program (with a CRAFT. This is artsy librarian to the FULLEST.), and then present the program to a group of kids. How fun does that sound!? I’ll be fine. It’s the OTHER class I’m scared of.

I’m also taking The Organization of Information this semester, which is a required core course or I would have stayed as far away from it as possible. Basically, this class’s name is fancy talk for Cataloging. *cringe* My professor is very nice and helpful so far, but I am worried my brain is just not big enough for this class. He has mentioned several times that it’s a complicated course. He has mentioned that we will need to read some of class readings multiple times before they sink in. And he has said we have to learn two (TWO) cataloging coding languages (AACR2 and RDA). WHAT. I don’t even understand this class enough to tell you what our projects are like. I’ve begun reading the manuals for the coding languages, and I guess I’m too dumb to even figure out what I’m reading. The manuals are written using English words, but the way they are strung together has me so confused that I would probably understand Japanese better. I’m terrified. TERRIFIED. I can only hope that things will make more sense as we continue through the course, because right now I look pitiful.

So, is anyone else worried about this semester/year?
Have any of you taken Cataloging and survived?
Do any of you know AACR2 or RDA? Will I survive?
Basically, I need a pep talk here.

That Artsy Librarian is a feature all about my journey through graduate school as I work towards my Master’s degree in Library and Information Science.

People. Life is crazy! And I have SO much school work, and the semester ends REALLY soon (like, the end of the month), and the weather is nice and the books I love are calling me, but all I have time for is school! I can’t blog, I’m barely reading, I’m not doing anything fun. Just writing stuff to turn in. This is majorly, MAJORLY crunch time and I feel like I am clawing my way to the end. So, naturally, I’ve had to slow down on blogging. I am so behind on writing my reviews and I’m behind on reading my review books. And everyone wants something from me! And I’m dealing with some health issues, and it’s like AHHHHHH!

So basically, I’m writing to let you know that I’m not dead. Yet. Things are sparse here, and they might be for another couple weeks but I am ALIVE! As the semester draws to a close and my first year of grad school is behind me, I’m just like, “Wow. I’m too old to be a student.” Stress is no longer a good thing! Haha. I’ll be ok!

Anyone else feeling like this? Spring fever coupled with school-needs-to-end-now syndrome is a tricky combination. How do you cope? Tell me I’m not alone. Please, just vent about how stressed you are.We can be friends. :)