Well, it’s all over now. I’m back home in Virginia, and I’m glad to be here, but it was somewhat bittersweet leaving Georgia. I had a lot of fun, learned a lot, and I think I accomplished a lot during my internship. But, I suppose I need to discuss how my final week went!
I gave a presentation titled Web and Tech Tools for Academic Libraries to the staff of South Georgia State College on staff development day. It went really well! During the presentation I went over ten resources that I found that I thought would be good for using in academic libraries. They included image and video editing Web sites, presentation and screencasting software, and tools to help with research and organization. I wasn’t sure how the presentation would go over, but everyone seemed to like and get a lot out of it. I included a handout with all of the sources that I went over on it, and Jacqueline asked me to send her my PowerPoint so she could possibly use it for educating students. So, I’d say it was a success! The rest of the staff development day was good, too. I got a brief look into ALMA, which is the system the library is going to be switching over to in about a year or so. It looks like the same system that USM uses for its libraries, so I was actually somewhat familiar with some aspects of it. It was nice to get a little bit of training in something new, even if it wasn’t much.
Over at the public library I taught my last class, which as I mentioned before was just a practice session. I only set up five computers, because the maximum number of people I’d had to that point had been three. It turns out I only needed to set up one. The one person who showed up was appreciative, though. I gave him a sheet with several Web tutorials that I had found and he went through a couple of them. He spent most of the class practicing his typing. It was ok, though. I’m glad I did it, and creating and teaching the classes was good experience.
I also finished my list of resources. Overall I came up with about 250 resources in over 20 different categories. I felt like I could have done better, but for a first try at collection development, I’m hoping it was ok. Mark seemed pleased with my work. I left on Monday, but before I did I stopped by the library one last time to do a bit of an exit interview with Mark. It was good to talk to him one more time and go over everything I’d done. Overall, I was quite pleased with my experience at the two libraries. I learned a great deal and gained a lot of professional experience. I imagine this experience will help me a great deal in my career, and I’m grateful to Mark and Jacqueline for mentoring me and teaching me so much.
Oden the Librarian 