Banned Books Week

                        As promised, I'm going to tell you about what the library is doing for Banned Books Week! I have had a lot of fun planning it. First of all, we're going to have pins with book covers on them so that students can show off their favorite banned book. There will also be snacks, and a comment box where they can write their feelings on censorship which will be posted on Facebook and Twitter, hopefully every day but it depends on how many responses we get. I'm also making up signs so that students can see the title and then turn it around to see the reasons why the text was banned. A lot of them are really interesting, and maybe books you might not expect. Like Captain Underpants, which was banned because it contains poop jokes and potty humor. Which is why I loved it when I was little. We're going to showcase Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn during the week. I think the students will be most interested to know that Hunger Games, Twilight and Harry Potter have been banned, but then again maybe they'll surprise me and go for the classics. I also hope that they like the buttons, I had so much fun making them! Button making machines are awesome, and I wouldn't mind making some more.
                       Learning about Banned Books Week has been particularly interesting to me. Some of the books that are banned have actually won awards and are considered some of the most popular books published, like Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird. There seems to be a repetition of reasons for banning as well, mostly offensive language, anything involving sex or drugs, violence, and religious views that are controversial. This seems to represent the mindset of the country, to me at least. For instance, the book It's Perfectly Normal, which explains to teens what puberty is like and what they will be going through, is banned because it involves sex and has pictures of the human body. Because educating them about their own bodies and sex is a topic that is uncomfortable and so we either ignore, or blatantly don't discuss it. I think the banned books that bother me the most are the ones that are banned because some of the characters are homosexual though. Not that I agree that any of these books should be banned, but banning for that reason particularly irks me. Just the fact the characters are homosexual is enough for the public to ban them, regardless of what they are actually doing in the book. Which is just plain ridiculous, in my opinion anyway. I don't want to get too political about it, but reading about all these censored books has definitely given me something to think about.
                      As part of my internship, Clinton gave me an article to read about a children's book that was causing an uproar. The book uses the word scrotum in the context of a little girl who hears it and makes up her own ideas about it and what it means. Because of that word, schools are banning the book from elementary schools and possibly public libraries. It's tough to balance, I think, when it comes to children. Wanting to educate them but also not including material that isn't appropriate for their age group. Maybe there is a way to work with that though. In elementary school the students won't know what it means, but if they ask, their parents or teachers will have to explain it to them, which again is a uncomfortable topic they don't want to broach. Maybe I'm getting too political again but it seems to me if something makes us uncomfortable as a society we sweep it under the rug and refuse to talk about it. Anyway, I've decided to read through the Banned Books list, because I want to know what everyone is making such a fuss about. And it'll make for some very interesting reading.

First Post

                Hello! My name is Kelly and I am an intern in the reference department this semester, which is very exciting. I was thrilled when I found out that I was going to be working here this semester. This is exactly what I wanted to do during my senior year, since next year I am planning on going to grad school for library science. But before I applied, I wanted to make sure I had some experience under my belt, and that I had some idea of what I was getting myself into. Which, as it turns out, I only had some idea of. Library science and reference are harder than I thought. There is a lot of technology involved as well as a thorough knowledge of research techniques and the library catalogue itself.  It may look easy when you see a librarian finding a book or pulling up information, but it's not. There's a reason I have to get a degree to know how to do it. The more I work, the more excited I am to go to grad school and experience it myself.
          As a librarian I can work at museums, public libraries, colleges or universities, corporate libraries. A ton of places, and all of them I get to work with books and information that I normally wouldn't have access to and would never find on my own. The other day I found a database with images of paleolithic paintings for my art history class, there are several databases for primary sources from the civil war, one devoted to the author Thomas Hardy (which will come in handy for my senior seminar next semester), and I found an Arthurian dictionary on the shelves from the 70s. This is why I love libraries and I want to be a librarian. There is so much information to be found on the most random and wonderful subjects. Every time you open one of these books you discover information that you never would have encountered before and will change you in some small way, if only because it is so unusual. And I get to share that with people. With students and community members and families and faculty. It is so thrilling to learn about the catalogue in this library and all of the ways it can be used and appreciated.
            So far, I've been working on reference training. Getting an idea how to answer research questions, and all the databases students can use to find them. I am also starting to plan Banned Books Week with another intern, which I am very excited about. There are a lot of books that I was surprised to discover were banned, especially considering why they are on the list. But more on that soon. There will be some exciting activities involved, so I'll keep you posted. I'll just wrap this first post up by saying that I know this internship is going to be amazing and I look forward to posting all about what I learn and experience.

Last Day, Final Reflections

Well, here we are: my last day of summer internship. I am quite proud of what I accomplished this summer, although I had hoped to be just a little bit farther on the cataloging. Oh, well. It’s not like the books are going anywhere, right? And I’m not going anywhere, either, so hopefully I can finish the cataloging over the course of the fall semester, and continue to add to my LibGuide.

Speaking of which, I think the LibGuide is the most tangible product of my internship, and therefore my favorite part. Sure, I updated hundreds of item records in Muscat, and categorized hundreds more to await my cataloging attentions, but that’s a lot harder to pin down. The LibGuide is all in one place, and is the consolidation of all my research, catalog-updating, and fun with hex values. I really hope that people use the LibGuide; I want to have a positive impact and something to contribute to the Gettysburg community, especially the not-always-visible LGBTQQAI portion of that community.

No matter the impact or lack thereof my work has on the community, this job has had an incredible impact on me. I have learned so much about how libraries in general work, and also about Musselman Library in particular. I have become so familiar with the collection, especially the LGBTQ-related parts, that I could probably direct you to the specific shelf an item is on, given the call number. Given a title and subject, I could probably give you the first letter of the item’s call number. These skills will probably be useful in my (hopeful) future as a cataloging librarian, if nowhere else. Just one more reason I want to live in what is affectionately known as Library Land for as long as possible.

Aside from that very specific skill set, I think that this internship has greatly improved my self-sufficiency skills. Aside from occasional consultations with Jess and Amy about the technical parts of LibGuide design and cataloging, and the instruction I got at the beginning of the summer, I have largely determined the shape and course of this project on my own. I decided where to start, what areas needed expanding, what topics and sub-topics I assigned books to, and the overall design and function of the LibGuide, with only occasional check-ins for approval. At first, not having a structure or a specific task was a little daunting, but as I got the hang of everything, I found that I enjoyed my semi-autonomy. Hopefully this will make it possible for me to drop in and do a couple of hours of cataloging during the semester and work on the LibGuide whenever I have a few moments free.

In short, I am grateful that I have been given so much free reign over this project, and proud of how it’s turned out so far. I am excited to keep this project going, and to see where it takes me over the next few months. This summer has been great; thank you, Musselman Library, for the experience. J

Note: my LibGuide can be found at http://libguides.gettysburg.edu/LGBTQ

Last Day & Farewell... Sort of!

My summer internship experience at the library is officially done. It’s odd to think about just how much I’ve accomplished this summer—I’ve researched Civil War genre painters, learned about nineteenth-century sheet music, installed frames, arranged Union soldiers’ swords—the list goes on. I truly am fortunate to have had such a unique and stimulating experience this summer.

I installed the last bits of several exhibits on Friday. I took tons of photos—I’ve included pictures of each below, so you can see the final results. I’ve also included a few sentences about each one, to give you a recap of what I did and what I liked most about each project.

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James A. Beran Collection of Civil War Artifacts

This is a collection of Civil War artifacts from Special Collections. It was actually curated into an exhibit a few years back by Joshua L. Stewart, who graduated in 2011. The items are really interesting—my favorite part was definitely getting to hold all the swords! Arranging the display was a blast. I didn’t do as much research for this exhibit since we recycled most of Josh’s materials, but I still got to revise some things, like when we decided to clarify which items were models/replicas versus authentic.

Webpage
NOTE: I did NOT design this webpage—this is all recycled from Josh’s work.

Mort Künstler & Dale Gallon: Painting the Battle of Gettysburg

Künstler and Gallon! I’ve talked about this exhibit frequently in past posts. Here you can see the text and title I installed on the wall—I have to say, seeing my handiwork up there was pretty rewarding. I loved this exhibit because it was probably the most traditional “art exhibit” that I got to work on this summer, but it also gave me a lot to think about in terms of high art standards versus kitsch.

Webpage

The Race for the Presidency: Then & Now

This was an especially rewarding end result for me, as it was the one exhibit that I had complete control over from start to finish. I chose the artifacts, did the research, planned the display, compiled the text—everything. It was also interesting because it gave me a very different kind of “curatorial” experience, because it forced me to consider current events and politics in relation to my exhibit material. I love how it turned out.
Webpage

Civil War Sheet Music

Not as strong a picture due to the glare, but I wanted to give you an idea of what the space looks like for this one. I struggled a lot with the arrangement of the sheet music, but I’m pleased with it the end results. What was cool about this exhibit was that it related more to my Art Historical interests than I originally thought—there’s the whole cover art aspect. Did you know that middle-class families made up a significant portion of patrons in the nineteenth-century sheet music industry? People kept extensive collections!
Webpage

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I’m sad that my summer here is drawing to a close, but I’m excited to see what kind of new projects I’ll be working on in the fall! I’m sure I’ll keep nitpicking at some of these exhibits, but I’m anxious to get started on other things as well.

I’m so glad I was able to be the Exhibits Intern “guinea pig” this summer. It was wonderful to be part of such a fun team, and to get to know each of the Exhibits & Programs committee members—thank you so much Meggan, Lisa, Jim, and Susan! I’d like to say thank you to Robin too, for helping me to forge this amazing connection with Musselman Library. I look forward to the fall and the further adventures to come!

More Cataloging, More LibGuide

The past two weeks have been a flurry of cataloging. I finally finished my huge list of LGBTQ books, as I reported in my last post, and last week I put the finishing touches on organization of the list and prepared to catalog.

However, one can’t just jump right in to cataloging. First, with Amy’s help, I had to find Library of Congress subject headings that corresponded to each of my categories. Some of them were easier than others; for example, Gay Culture is a Library of Congress subject heading, but my category of homosexuality in other countries around the world is harder to classify. I’ll probably have to break some of the categories up when I assign them to subject headings, or just be content with the headings they already have. I’ll find a way of posting my list of titles, or have a part on the LibGuide that shows the different subject headings that are pertinent.

The way I have unified the LGBTQ titles—all 700-odd of them—is by using a local information field in the catalog. Quick cataloging lesson for you non-librarians: when I talk about subject headings, for example Gay Culture, those go in a field designated by the number 650. This means that it’s a universal, standardized field and that the headings in those fields will be recognized anywhere. For local subject headings, those that are only used within one library (ours, in this case), the field is designated by the number 690. I’m using one of those 690 fields with the heading “LGBTQ Resources” so that if you want to see all of the books in the collection that relate to more than one part of the LGBTQ acronym, you can do a search for subject and input LGBTQ Resources, and you’ll get the list.

Okay, now you can feel free to rid your brain of that lesson. There’s no test, I promise.

I started cataloging the Gay Culture books, and I’m almost finished. Those books will probably be finished in the next week, and I’ll either start a new category or pull together enough other sources to make the LGBTQ Culture LibGuide page.

Speaking of my LibGuide, I made some changes to the landing page so that it’s a lot more helpful. Now available on the main page are links to websites, databases, online reference books, and magazines and journals. Plus, it’s rainbow-colored. (I probably had too much fun making it rainbow-y, but I have to amuse myself somehow, right?) I also changed the URL to make it more user-friendly. You can now find my LibGuide at the easy-to-remember address:

http://libguides.gettysburg.edu/LGBTQ

I only have one more week of working in the library before I take a few weeks to gear up for the coming semester. I will of course continue working on this project during the year, but I unfortunately can’t devote as much time to it with all those pesky classes to attend and such. (Just kidding; I’m super excited about the semester.) I’m happy that I’ve established the LibGuide, and I look forward to adding to it. Check in next week for my summer wrap-up post! J

Installations, Check!

All the exhibit cases on the main floor are now officially filled! I still have some tweaking to do tomorrow (adding labels to the Civil War Sheet Music cases, for example) and  I still need to put the number cubes in the Beran exhibit. I have to say, installing these exhibits has been a lot more challenging that I thought it would be.

I guess I assumed the most work was always put in BEFORE an exhibit went up (planning, researching, etc.), but I’ve realized now that it takes the same amount of time and effort to make an exhibit look good for the public as it does to plan it. Maybe it’s because I’m both an artist and a perfectionist, but it took me at least a good hour on each exhibit before I was satisfied with the results.

Arranging items in cases is very different, too, from the wall installations we’ve done (for Kunstler & Gallon and the Fink paintings, for example). With the cases I had to consider things like background fabric (in terms of color and texture), whether I wanted reproductions to be set at angles or parallel with the case, and what kind of level at which I wanted to prop certain items. Balance, variety, contrast—I was forced to use all my visual skills as an Art History major (and Studio Art minor, for that matter)!

One day to go now. I can’t believe it. Like I’ve said before, this summer has just flown by so fast…

Note: I also finished the rest of the exhibit webpages earlier this week. Check them out here:  http://www.gettysburg.edu/library/news/exhibits/welcome.dot

Stay tuned for photos of the work I’ve done on these exhibits. My camera died today, and the library one was being used this afternoon, but I’ll make sure to take some good ones tomorrow!

Exciting News!

Time just keeps flying by. I have one week left in my internship—can you believe it? After this week I’ll be going home for a bit of a break. Before I know it there will be new first-years invading the campus, and after that it will be time to start classes.

I have some great news—as it turns out, I won’t have to say good-bye completely to my job at the library this fall! Meggan told me that they’d like to keep me on to work next year, if my schedule allows. I’ll get to work on my Political Cartoons exhibit after all! I might also get to help out with Jim Agard’s work that’s going on the second floor, and I’ll be here for all of the ALA exhibit preparations too. Meggan also said they were interested in having me do some Public Relations stuff—my official title will be along the lines of “Exhibits and PR Intern.” Pretty exciting!

There’s so much to do here—it’s all coming down to this last week. The most exciting part of this past week was when I finalized the format for the Kunstler and Gallon wall text and printed it out. It was fun visualizing the wall space, and I loved the design aspect of the task. If I ever become a curator, the design aspect will probably be my favorite part, aside from the research. It’s the graphic designer in me. But hey, I’m putting those visual skills to good use!

I finished mounting the text for Kunstler and Gallon on Friday, and hopefully I’ll get to install it tomorrow—my first complete exhibit! The Election exhibit will go up after that, followed by the Civil War Sheet Music. Speaking of which, I need to get working on the web content for those before we put them up…

Keeping busy, keeping busy…

^The mounted text for Kunstler and Gallon and the mounted Civil War Sheet Music reproductions.