Documenting the Future (& Past)

April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

As of yesterday, I have exactly one month before I leave Merced College, and I have started preparing for the new librarian who will be making the Los Banos Campus Library his or her new work home. (Here is the job ad for the position I am leaving, by the way.)

Last summer, Meredith Farkas’ American Libraries column was about what to do to ensure your projects continue after you’ve left a position, “Future-Proof Your Project.” Documentation is so important when leaving a job. When I got my position, documentation wasn’t necessary because my predecessor (and librarian mentor) was switching to the other campus, so I could easily call to ask questions. I have been working on a Word document that is simply a list of things to know: a little library history, accounts to get set up (LibGuides, Text-a-Librarian, Sirsi Workflows, etc.), collection needs and procedures, things I worked on and things I still wanted to do, etc. I also have a message about how important it is for him or her to make the library his or her own; I have my strengths, and the new person will have other strengths. I also included my personal email and cell phone number. I have nine single-spaced pages so far.

I added the librarians at the other campus as co-owners to all of my LibGuides, so they can share those with the new librarian. I got rid of paper and digital files the new librarian won’t need and re-organized the file drawers. Our campus has a shared drive, so I am updating the Library folder in there, too, with various folders for electronic copies of handouts, important forms, instruction calendars, and other things I mention in the Word document I am writing up.

I switched all my listserv subscriptions to my Gmail, started forwarding a few emails, and boxed up the things to take home, including a binder full of flyers I made over the last few years for displays, events, and contests.

13072919_10156770974445573_4293123233050030986_o

I also started cleaning out my office.

13071947_10156783673190573_7654611409594775529_o

Doing these things has also helped me realize that I was able to accomplish some good things in the three years I was full-time in Los Banos. Ultimately, I am glad I was able to be an energizing force on our small campus. Their librarian wasn’t a shushing, stern type. I was able to make small steps to get a more user-centered space. Culture is the hardest thing to shape, but I made progress. I was able to have some fun displays, contests, and activities, including Game Nights. Through these and other communication efforts, the faculty and student groups began to see and use the library as a campus hub. Our student government even had a campus suggestion box in the Library at one point. And let’s not forget about the food pantry! I feel great that the faculty and staff knew they could count on the Library to help, in both instructional and non-instructional efforts. I was able to build solid relationships in our campus community.

And the students knew they could count on me, too. To quote one of the student comments on my evaluation this year, “Definitely not the crusty old librarian stereotype.” I feel really good about that.

December 2015 & January 2016 Library Displays

February 17, 2016February 23, 2016 Lindsay Davis6 Comments

The last day of the fall semester was December 18th, and the spring semester started on January 19th, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday.

I don’t really have a whole lot of time in December as students are hurriedly finishing final papers. Our library media technician pulled some winter and holiday items out for a quick display, which always stresses me because we don’t have a whole lot of variety when it comes to holidays. I always forget to have the main library order me some children’s titles about Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and Ramadan, and I vow to ask by the end of today. We have a part-time child development instructor at our site, so we have a small children’s collection specifically for an assignment involving multiculturalism. As someone who worked as a bilingual (Spanish/English) library assistant in the children’s department at a public library, I desperately need to make this a priority before embarking on the next chapter in my library career (more on that soon). Because of those changes, my display game this term will be even simpler. I decided to forgo linking the titles in Smore and will just be posting photos.

Sure enough, I didn’t even have time to link the titles I used for the refugee display I had in December anyway. I was really pleased–people checked items out!

Refugees

For the latter half of January, I had some Martin Luther King, Jr. books out, and I also highlighted some of our biographies (I did a little cleaning in this section, and I think I am done for now) about survival, failure, and success.

MLK

Survival

November 2015 Library Displays

February 15, 2016February 15, 2016 Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

So it’s February, but here are the displays I had up in November.

I love highlighting Native American Heritage Month. This year, I focused on items that relate to California and CA’s Central Valley.

Native American Heritage Month

Although I am Mexican-American, Día de los Muertos is not something my family does, mostly because my mom’s side is not Catholic. I really enjoy how much interest develops around the display. Here’s the online display, which I especially like. I re-used last year’s Día de los Muertos sign. One of the evening librarians made the tissue paper flowers during Hispanic Heritage Month, so I re-used a few.

Dia de los Muertos

For Veterans Day, the library media bookstore technician (she is now full-time–the first full-time staff position our little library has ever had!) re-used a banner we had last year for people to honor those who have served in the military. It’s blue butcher paper with white stars attached. People are encouraged to write in a veteran’s name with markers i leave on the windowsill. We put the banner in the hallway outside the library. The technician also put together the display we had inside the library. She also advertised the city’s second annual Veterans Day parade.

Veterans Day

I had one Major Idea display about criminal justice (you can read more about this display series in my August 2015 Library Displays post). I stopped doing this series in November because the space I was using is where I moved our children’s and young adult section. Our history section is out of control, and it was getting way too full, so I moved things around to create room before tackling the 900s this semester.

Criminal Justice

Food Pantries in Community College Libraries

January 26, 2016January 26, 2016 Lindsay Davis4 Comments

I have been under the weather since before the New Year (a cold, then a sinus infection, and now bronchitis), so I have been a little neglectful lately, but I think tonight’s post will make up for it. I’m excited, anyway.

The campus I work for is right outside the small city’s limits, serving the western side of Merced County, a county known for low levels of education, which is typical of the Central Valley in general. The campus had a headcount of 1,800 students this past fall at census. One quarter of our students are part-time students. Many are parents. We don’t have food service, and we have a very small library, small tutoring center, and small student lounge. We have 19 full-time faculty: 5 English instructors, 4 math instructors, 3 science instructors, 3 counselors, 1 psychology/sociology instructor, 1 history/political science instructor, 1 communications instructor, and 1 librarian (me).

The beauty of working at the smaller campus of a community college is that small teams can often get quicker results and be a little more innovative due to a lack of resources. Because we are so small, we work together quite often and are always thinking of ways to meet our students needs, needs that are not always academic in nature but that certainly affect their ability to stay in school. This past fall, some of the women faculty members got together at an area restaurant before a faculty meeting as a way to begin to get to know our new biology instructor. At the lunch, the chemistry instructor brought up the idea of creating a small food pantry for students in need but wanted ideas for how to make it private and where it should be located. I saw my opportunity.

Our small library has a back workroom. We keep some old periodicals and supplies in there, and it is also our break area with a fridge and table. We also keep off-season textbook reserves in there. When our part-time library media technician retired this past May, I was finally able to throw things out and work with our new full-time technician, formerly our part-time clerk, to get organized and clear the mess. It’s still wasn’t perfect at the time I made this suggestion, but I immediately mentioned to our chemistry professor that we were making room. They could use a small part of our workroom shelving to house a food pantry. Of the two buildings on campus, we are the area that is opened the longest (the front office closes at 4:30 pm on Monday-Friday, and we stay open until 8 pm Monday-Thursday and until 3 on Friday, though our technician doesn’t really leave until 4 pm on Friday), and no unauthorized people can get to the workroom. The idea is that students in need, with their student I.D., can go to any staff or faculty member or administrator, and be walked to the library workroom to get food.

We got permission from our campus dean, and while we haven’t worked out all the logistics quite yet, we decided not to advertise that it is in the library because we want it to be a little more discreet. I didn’t make the graphic for the posters we’re putting up around campus, but they are absolutely fine and will get the job done. I’ll be displaying the information inside and outside the library, and the counselors are also on board.

Interestingly, over the winter break, both The Atlantic and Inside Higher Ed shared posts about student hunger on community college campuses. It rings so true with our student population.

I am proud to introduce the beginning of our campus’ food pantry. Our chemistry instructor stocked us up with some non-perishables during the first week of the spring semester. 12615148_10156408358120573_604629448180132362_o

Small campuses with small libraries with caring faculty can make a world of difference. I am a regular financial giver to area food pantries, and I can’t believe this idea never occurred to me before. I am so thankful for our faculty and the enormous amount of nontraditional collaboration I have been able to do here.

Does your community college, college, or university have a food pantry? How are your faculty involved? How is your library or library faculty and/or library staff involved? Let me know!

UC Merced, which is the closest university to the larger community college campus, has one, and I believe I read somewhere that our community college students who live in Merced can also access it. I would love to do a little research on this topic in our area.

Art + Library = Fun(draising)

November 26, 2015November 28, 2015 Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

Mod Shop

Small Business Saturday is coming up this Saturday, November 28th, and my city puts on a fantastic event downtown that I am always excited about–The Mod Shop: Indie Crafters Market! The stores downtown open their spaces for local artists and artisans to sell their artwork and wares. Here is some history from the local paper.

This year, my sister and sister-in-law will be joining forces to sell cup cozies and purses. Last year, my friend Angela sold stationary (she doesn’t sell anymore, otherwise, I’d post the link to her Etsy shop). Last year and again this year, fellow librarian–and now published poet–Stella Beratlis and our town’s former poet laureate Gillian Wegener will be typing up poems on the spot.

The event always reminds me of a great fundraiser the Friends of the Los Banos (public) Library put on every October–the Small Works of Art Sale. Here is an article about this year’s event from Los Banos’ local paper. Since I began working in Los Banos as the town’s college librarian, I help sell tickets and man tables during the event to show my support. Essentially, the Library closes a little early, so local artists and artisans can show off and sell art and wares, the proceeds of which go to the Friends. There is also wine and delicious goodies. Tickets are just $20 a piece. It’s so great to see members of the community all come together to hang out, buy art, and support their local library.

Textured Forest Painting

This year, I manned a table of succulents in handcrafted chic concrete pots and some modern wall hangings by United by Form. These were the only wares and artworks not created by someone local, but the artist is a friend of the daughter of one of the Friends’ members. I have a profound love for succulents, so I bought a couple for myself.

United by Form Business Card

Succulent on Block of Wood

Succulents in Concrete and Copper

Wall Hangings

What kind of fundraisers does your library’s Friends’ group do? The Friends of the Los Banos Library also do a Used Book Sale every fall and spring, which I know are popular among many public library Friends’ groups. Is a small works of art sale something you think would work well for your local Friends? Let me know if your Friends’ group decides to put one on.

October 2015 Library Displays

November 2, 2015November 10, 2015 Lindsay Davis4 Comments

In October, I had two Major Idea displays (see the August 2015 Library Displays post to learn more about what this is), one about math and another about English, which focused on fairy tales as a theme to explore literature studies.

$Mathematics$

October 15th was also the end of Hispanic Heritage Month. See the September 2015 Library Displays post about it here..

I also put together a quick display for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which included directions for conducting a breast self-exam in both English and Spanish. I snagged up the instructions during an event our campus had last year that had booths from the community, including the local health center.

One of our part-time evening librarians put together our Halloween display this year, for which I am very grateful. Here’s the online flyer I made for her display. Since I have more people to rely on in the library and now know what can be delegated, it’s been fun to see others’ creativity.

October is always the beginning of research paper season around here, so it’s been busy! I’ll have to share more about that soon.

September 2015 Library Displays

October 27, 2015November 10, 2015 Lindsay Davis1 Comment

That we’re at the end of October and this post is about September displays is pretty indicative of how busy I have been at work! As a commuter, I have limited evening time, and trying to fit in the gym and a good amount of sleep have been my top priorities, so it’s pretty much just prep for the next work day once I get home.

In September, I had one display for Major Idea, centered around Art History.

I don’t celebrate Library Card Sign Up Month in a big way in September other than publicizing the public library. Since school begins in mid-August, I did a big pitch for students to get library barcode stickers on their student IDs during the latter half of August. All the students who got barcodes were entered into a drawing for a prize pack, which included school supplies, such as highlighters, Post-It notes, a print card for the computer lab, Scantrons, blue books, a college folder, and a $25 Starbucks gift card. The prize is actually one I was trying to give out during our campus’ outreach event in the spring, but the winner never claimed his prize.

I also had a display up for Constitution Day. The history/political science professor and I were hired at the same time, and once she discovered how much I enjoy community engagement, she pitched a Constitution Day Quiz contest. We house the quiz in the Library; students take the quiz, which is a 15-question multiple choice quiz they take via Scantron (our campus dean approved the purchase of little Scantrons). The students with the highest scores are entered into a drawing for a prize. What’s nice about our set-up is that the professor calls the winners to tell them to come back to the Library to get their prizes, so they can come have a chat with their librarian, and it helps my cause to show that the library can be a fun, positive place. Last year, the history/political science professor and I purchased two Starbucks gift cards. The prize this year was smaller, but it was free thanks to some leftover prizes for another campus event–two $10 gasoline gift cards.

As one of the few Latina faculty members on campus, and as we are a Hispanic-serving institution, I take great care in our Hispanic Heritage Month displays. This year, I designed the flyer in homage to lotería, a Bingo-like game I played as a child with my cousins. Over the summer, we had a family reunion with my Mexican family, and my aunts and older cousins and I all got to play together. I think I have been carrying around those little memories since summer. Last year, I did key Hispanic/Latino figures in history, but this year, I decided to do a U.S. Latino Voices display, featuring U.S. Latino/Hispanic poets and authors. The new U.S. Poet Laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera, the first Latino-American to hold this role, had a lot to do with this theme.

I also continued with my participatory banners, but it started to go a little wrong with student comments (students advertising their social media accounts, writing their own names, etc.). I decided to take a break with banners for now. The banner that was scheduled to go up after the end of Hispanic Heritage Month in mid-October, “What are you or your kids going to be for Halloween?,” could go very wrong. Last year, I did this question on a white board in the Student Lounge in 2014, and a student posted, “A sexy librarian” as a comment. Sigh.

This year, one of our new evening librarians put together the display for Banned Books Week; you can see some of her work in the online flyer I made for that display. She also put together a fun contest. I bought a $10 Target gift card for the prize. The evening librarian also purchased a used copy of the book the students had to guess, which was To Kill a Mockingbird. Several students got the correct answer, so she did a drawing to select the winner. One of our student workers actually won! I encouraged her to submit to librariandesignshare.org, and I was so pleased that her display was recently featured there. However, I was surprised to see that some of the photos I took for the online newsletter, including the photo collage, were on the post featuring her display; my name is not included. She did a similar display at the other campus, which is also featured in that blog post, but I didn’t take those photos.

Hopefully I can get the October displays up before the end of November.

Just the Highlights

October 5, 2015November 10, 2015 Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

Librarian Design Share

Library informational handouts and brochures–the kind we give away at orientations, fairs, and workshops–can easily suffer from the classic librarian pitfall: TOO MUCH INFORMATION. Striking the right balance between needed information and visual interest is a challenge. Lindsay Davis, librarian at the Los Banos Campus Library at Merced College has created informational flyers for students and faculty that touch on all the library “highlights,” those crucial services and bits of information that will make the most impact with library users.

Flyer for Students

Here’s Lindsay discussing her design:

This is the beginning of my third academic year as the Los Banos Campus Librarian of Merced College, a community college located in California’s Central Valley. When I give an instructional session, I usually give out a handout that covers basic library information printed in black and white on muted yellow card stock (we only have a few color options through duplication…

View original post 283 more words

August 2015 Library Displays

August 22, 2015February 15, 2016 Lindsay Davis3 Comments

This isn’t anything mind blowing as far as libraries go, but I really believe in the power of displays in showcasing not only resources but also getting library users to discover a new topic or idea they might not think up on their own.

My library is two thousand square feet, and our campus serves about 1800 students. We don’t have a lot of space for displays, but I use all the nooks and crannies and sometimes a book cart parked by the research help desk. I mostly use the lower reference shelving underneath a giant window, which, unfortunately, is in the back of the library, but it’s closest to the main bank of study tables.

There is a section within the higher reference shelving I’ve carved out with shifting and weeding. It’s the space I have dubbed Major Idea in which I’ll be displaying books and databases related to a topic or idea within a major offered by the college. First up is psychology.

It’s not pictured, but I also am advertising the services offered by the academic counselors and our new career counselor for those interested in the psychology major and/or careers in psychology. I also have a college catalog on display. (When I went to check on the display the next day, the illustrated Interpretation of Dreams had been checked out! )

August 18th was the 95th anniversary of the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. August 26th is Women’s Equality Day, which celebrates the 19th Amendment’s ratification.

Since I snapped this photo, I’ve shuffled things around and also added resources about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Act banned racial discrimination in elections, which enfranchised more women and men of color, especially in the South. It’s an incomplete story without this bit of history.

Here is the online flyer for Women’s Equality Day and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Since we’re in California’s Central Valley, drought has been ever-present the last few years. Both college campuses have brown lawns, and we’re proud! I put up a display about water and drought materials, a quick list of relevant websites and databases, and I incorporated some interactivity by asking how students cut back on water usage this summer. Since it’s in an awkward spot, I didn’t expect more answers beyond my own example on a Post-It, but I was pleasantly surprised.

This year, I’m going to see if I can get our student workers and staff to participate in some displays. Now that I have evening colleagues, I asked one of them if she’d like to do the Banned Books display this September. It’s always a fun one to do, but September is just really busy with many other events, displays, and information

Library Services Flyer Aimed at Faculty

August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

I go back to the community college library tomorrow. I’m looking forward to the new year. I have some fun ideas to work on, and I am feeling more confident about my abilities. It also helps to let go of those things you cannot control or all the things you wish you could do but can’t for any number of reasons, etc.

I meant to have a flyer for library services aimed at faculty ready to go by Monday, but I won’t be ordering the flyers through the college’s Print Services department until tomorrow. Since I work at the smaller of the college district’s campuses, our mail gets delivered through a courier once a day. I should get them by the end of the week. Here’s what I did through Canva, which is one of my absolute favorite tools I use at work.

I also plan to update our flyer for students (it’s actually half-page size). For the last two years, I have only ordered it in black and white on light yellow card stock as it cuts back on costs, but it doesn’t match my style or the culture I’ve worked so hard to mold the last two years. I’m hoping to create something similar to the one I made for faculty this year. I’ll work on it this week while waiting for the faculty flyer.

Lindsay Ann Davis

Community College Librarian

Category: Creativity