USF MLIS ePortfolio
Goal I: Leadership & Innovation
Goal II: Systems & Services
Goal III: Knowledge Representation
Goal IV: Theory & Praxis
I. Leadership and Innovation
Students are innovative, ethical, problem-solvers able to lead and manage through communication, collaboration, and reflection.
This is easily the goal I felt I learned the most, partially because it is the goal I use the most often in my work at the library. This goal encompasses networking and good customer service, both of which help in many aspects of librarianship, from library management to outreach and marketing. This goal means the most to me as my foremost personal goal is to become an effective and inspiring leader for my teenagers in the library.
I.a. Students are able to evaluate critically, reflect, and problem-solve individually as well as collaboratively.
+Consequences of Information (Foundations of Library and Information Sciences)
This was one of the first major papers I wrote for this program. It is an overview of one of many problems librarians face every day - what, if any, information should be taboo. I explored several solutions for several issues that seemed common based on research, and it was my first foray into ethics of librarianship in an academic setting.
+Continued Learning (Introduction to Library Administration)
Continued learning has recently become an important point of our careers at my library. I wrote this paper before it became a reality here, which led me to see this reflection of what seemed most important to me at the time as being more valid than I originally thought. It also feeds into my concept of "learning through play" at all ages.
+History of Cataloging (Organization of Knowledge)
This paper was my first big "work with someone else" paper. We had a few hiccups in dividing up the work and staying within the given limits, but it gave us both a good deal of knowledge and some insight into working with others on strict deadlines.
I.b. Students demonstrate effective communication skills
+Programming Ideas (Adult Services in Libraries)
This was a discussion board post response that gained a number of replies. Effectively sharing program ideas can be difficult. This, though, is easier than sharing exactly how to do a program since every library has their own slight quirks of what they can and cannot do. All discussion board posts in my academic career have been helpful, because the sharing of individual ideas on the same topics gives everyone better insight to the many ways to see a problem or solution.
+Windows 10 Lesson (Teaching Information Literacy)
Effectively communicating what should be learned from a lesson is something new I have learned this semester. It has definitely made designing computer classes to teach to the general public much easier to think about, because it helps focus what I should (and shot not) be communicating to my students.
+Strategic Plan (Introduction to Library Administration)
Creating a strategic plan was the hardest implementation of communication that I came across in this program. Working with others to create a unified idea and then working with them to present the idea to others so that it is clear, concise but detailed, and engaging enough that it makes others believe in your idea is a challenge, but a wonderful one to tackle.
I.c. Students participate in professional and community engagement activities in the field.
+Anime LibGuide (Basic Information Sources and Services)
I firmly believe that everyone who works in a library has their own strengths in niche knowledge, and that it is important to share this knowledge. I have been in the anime/manga world for over two decades now, and enjoy sharing what I know. This project was also my first big project in school working as part of a group and I wound up doing a lot of the delegating and creating the basic skeletons for many aspects of this project.
+interPLAY at FLA (Outside Classroom)
At the FLA Conference in 2015, I submitted a discussion idea and had it accepted as one of the workshops for the convention. Jessica Beeler and myself ran it in costume and were able to network afterward with library employees who wanted more knowledge on the subject.
+Youth Advisory Board (Outside Classroom)
The Youth Advisory Board at this library already existed when I was hired, but we have reached the point where all of the teens in it joined after I began helping to run it. The teens we have are all very eager to help out around the library, whether it's fun (like updating and testing games on our gaming computers) or tedious (cleaning up after programs). We have an exemplary and larger-than-average group and I have given advice to other librarians on how best to manage a YAB/TAB group.
I.d. Students demonstrate leadership skills and innovation in a diverse and global environment.
+Multicultural Book Reviews (Multicultural Course)
Supporting diversity in literature is an extremely important task for librarians. It is important to understand how to research what books give good diversity and which ones do it for the higher sales. I learned a lot about how to do that in taking the Multicultural Course, and loved writing reviews on books from different cultures.
+Short Story Machine (Outside Classroom)
My short story machine hack (based on advanced machines in France but on a budget I could afford in the library) is my favorite example of my innovation. I hope to use this low-cost (less than $200) hack to promote new ways to teach writing in the library and to share with other librarians around the world.
I love the sharing of information - so it is probably no surprise that I love the concept of YALSA HQ, where library employees share programming for teens and ask or answer questions pertaining to teens in libraries. I have linked my profile on YALSA HQ, which has two of my programs up so far. I was specifically asked by a moderator to create the convention guide after answering a question elsewhere on the website.
II. Systems and Services
Students understand the systems and technologies that facilitate the management and use of information resources to serve the diverse needs of users.
This goal was the second-most useful to me so far in my career. It encompasses two aspects that make up a good deal of my work - using resources to effectively answer research questions, and how to do collection development. I practice a lot of these skills every day in the library as I work the Reference Desk, make myself available at all hours to teens who need help with projects, and am in charge of the collection development for our YA book section. The knowledge I learned in school helped to strengthen those skills that I began through help from my co-workers and learning on the fly.
II.a Students identify and analyze diverse information needs of individuals and communities.
+In-Library Reference (Outside Classroom) (No outside link, just an anecdote.)
Inside the library, there are a large number of resources to use to discover information to the reference questions patrons ask of you. Finding the best ways to answer questions is something learned on the job just as much as in a classroom setting. I have had some strange questions, from "could my apartment be haunted" to "I have this obscure German poem and want to know the author," and I have found that sometimes Google can be effective. When searching for foreign reference, I use the Google of that country and then translate the page to get a better starting point, which has helped in several questions so far, such as in the latter example, where I put a line of the poem into Google.de, copied the URL to a website that contained the full text, and ran that through Google Translate. While this will not always be the most accurate, it is a great point to jump off from.
+Strategic Plan (Introduction to Library Administration)
Our strategic plan was done after talking to a number of teens about different things they were looking for in the library besides books. Hands-on, self-directed learning of skills is an information need often overlooked in what can be offered at a library. Many libraries are able to provide for these diverse information needs, but many do not realize it.
+Major Research Proposal (Research Methods for Library and Information Sciences)
Understanding information needs requires some measure of research. Learning about the demographics of your community and how those demographics affect library use seem to be a great first step, if a difficult one to undertake, if my attempts to figure out how to design a research project are any indication.
II.b. Students evaluate and select print and digital information resources and systems to meet needs of users.
+First Marketing Plan (Adult Services in Libraries)
Effectively choosing how to spend funds is a scary process. This marketing plan was put in place at my library when I started my collection development for a tabletop RPG book collection. As one can see from the actual development and a marketing plan I started this semester, I learned a lot over the past year and a half on the subject.
+Collection Development Plan (Collection Development and Maintenance)
This extensive collection development plan (to create a new collection with a set amount of money) was the only time I had a chance to look into selecting digital information resources for the needs of users, a culmination of several projects about a fictional library in this class. Finding reviews on digital resources was a bit trickier than finding reviews on physical books.
+Second Marketing Plan (Library Outreach and Marketing)
Learning how to select materials - and what information to gather to aid in those decisions - has evolved during my time in graduate school. This is the start of my second attempt at creating a marketing plan to deliver knowledge of the collection to more people.
II.c. Students understand and use appropriate information technology for information services.
+Library Collection Development (Outside Classroom)
Two of the above artifacts in the last subgoal talk about this tabletop RPG collection - here is how I shared information about that collection with other librarians. This is the first part of hopefully three blog posts sharing information on this type of collection and how best to utilize it.
+Reference Questions (Basic Information Sources and Services)
This assignment is the answers to a number of questions that were long and multi-stepped to simulate being asked questions in the library - and they are pretty spot on with how varied the questions we get at the reference desk are. This assignment goes over how I found the answers as well, using all sorts of tips and tricks picked up in school and in the field.
+Library Technology Classes (Teaching Information Literacy/Outside Classroom)
We teach a lot of technology classes at my library. This paper goes over me sitting in (and accidentally still helping) at one of the classes. We share a lot of knowledge about technology and have a number of options for how to review and teach the subject, from PowerPoints to hands-on classes to handouts, or a combination of those. I am also learning how to teach these classes through a video and have learned a lot about broadcasting software for that purpose.
III. Knowledge Representation
Students are proficient in the theory and application of skills essential for knowledge representation in evolving technology environments, in any chosen area of specialization.
While I know now from my schoolwork that I am passable in understanding the necessary technology for a number of specializations, I am confident in saying that I know what knowledge to gather and how to present it for my own specialties: young adult and new adult programming, young adult collection development, and technology courses for any age. Creating digital content has been my favorite new skill, picked up in my classes here and honed through several outside hobbies and work.
III.a. Students analyze, organize and describe various formats of information objects.
+Cataloging Homework (Organization of Knowledge)
There is something almost relaxing about cataloging - at least when one does it for class and not for a job, if our cataloger at work is any indication. He never quite appreciates when I give him items that have never been cataloged before. Learning the basics of cataloging in the Dewey Decimal system was very interesting and helps on the reference desk as well for being able to walk patrons to the nonfiction section.
+Anime LibGuide (Basic Information Sources and Services)
Working out how to organize information for others to explore and understand without you being present to help them is very difficult. In this assignment we had a location to organize and describe this information but had to work out the best way to present it so anyone could look at it and understand what we were discussing.
+Reviewing Sources (Books and Related Materials for Young Adults)
Reviewing reviews feels almost silly, but it is very important. Analyzing the sources I use to make purchases and recommendations means that I can trust those recommendations a bit more, and often when doing collection development, I have limited time to spend looking at information, so having a chance to decide which I trust the most was a great assignment I could also use in my job.
III.b. Students identify and apply best practices in the use of different technologies for knowledge representation.
+Audio Project (Preparing Instructional Media)
Delivering information digitally has been my favorite thing to do, in school or work or play, over the past year. Learning how to record and edit audio with Audacity, upload it to YouTube, and find creative ways to use it for work (creating a program about how to record audiobook versions of fanfictions) or play (I fell in love with the concept after creating to program, hence this first link) has been my favorite result from an assignment.
+YouTubing 101 (Outside Classroom)
Learning how to use different technolgies for creatiing a wide variety of YouTube content has been a fun but difficult challenge. After learning to love YouTube from my instructional media class, I have decided to share that love with patrons at the library, and this is my most popular technology class now (with a dozen students, all above 40 years old), and it goes into a lot of technical detail that I have had to learn how to deliver effectively.
IV. Theory and Praxis
Students have a critical grounding in theoretical perspectives that draw on research in LIS as well as other fields of knowledge, that inform their professional practices including research, organization, management, and access to information.
This goal goes far beyond the "Needs Assessments" that I am used to conducting in the library for various reasons (collection development, class development, or renovating our teen space every year). I would like to one day make more use of the knowledge I learned in classes for this information, doing in-depth research in both my library and libraries in general, but for not I have had a lot more theoretical research than practical research, except for my in-house needs assessments.
IV.a. Students will describe applications of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies in library and information science.
+Educating the Young & Unimpressed (Foundations of Library and Information Sciences)
This was one of my first essays, and the absolute first where I looked into a good deal of data for creating and supporting a claim. Due to constraints, learning to use the data others have collected to better understand libraries has been a very important skill that I have used in every class in this program.
+Needs Assessment Windows 10 (Teaching Information Literacy)
This is an example of my latest needs assessment in the library. This is one of the few I did for school, many others were in-house (mostly surveying the teens of my library and looking at past checkout records for items). Lessons on needs assessments came in a number of my classes and I appreciated the academic practice each time.
+Website Rubric (Web Design for Libraries)
Looking into both quantitative and qualitative aspects of website design, and deciding what to include in a rubric, was an interesting way to further understand website design. I broke it down into aesthetics and numbers for easy-to-jot-down details and think I could use this to better understand this data in other scenarios.
IV.b. Students will identify opportunities for research and develop plans for research in applied settings in library and information science.
+Major Research Proposal (Research Methods for Library and Information Sciences)
This assignment was probably the most difficult one for me during my classes. Trying to understand what data was necessary for my research question and coming up with ways to collect and analyze it was hard, and there are still aspects of the assignment I still do not quite understand. But it was great theoretical exercise in case I am ever able to put theory into practice.
+Future Wish - Learning Through Play (Outside Classroom)
"Learning Through Play" is definitely a tagline for my life. The link is to another page on this website, my vision for the future. This is what I would like to apply research to in order to write several articles on the subject for publications. I will certainly use what I learned from doing my research proposal for class in order to move forward with this.