Field Experience
Deborah Jacob
Library Diary
The National Library and Information System Authority (NALIS) of Trinidad & Tobago
Supervisor: Mrs. Diane Simeon
April 19, 2009
On paper, NALIS is the umbrella organization for the national
library system of the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, the
southern-most country in the West Indies.
In reality, NALIS oversees libraries on the island of
Trinidad alone.
The Tobago House of Assembly is responsible for libraries in
Tobago.
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago formed NALIS in 1998.
Before then, there were three autonomous library systems:
the Central Library, Carnegie Free Library and Public
Library.
"Each library sent in its requests for budgeting and each
library ordered materials and staffed its own library.
It was a clumsy way of working and government felt all the
libraries should come under one body," says Mrs. Diane Simeon, the
Director of NALIS.
NALIS has a total collection of 305,000 resources. The
population of the island of Trinidad is about 1,000,000.
There are 20 branches of NALIS throughout the island.
Most branches are in rural areas.
The main library is located on the corner of
Hart and Abercromby Streets in the heart of Port of Spain,
the capital of Trinidad and Tobago.
NALIS
in Port of Spain has the following divisions:
NALIS has many activities including storytelling, which is
held in an outdoor forum on the steps of the library.
The library runs literacy classes with COSTATT, a tertiary
institution in Trinidad.
There are classes in crafts, Spanish conversation and computer
literacy.
Patrons can use computers, but they are limited to one hour a
day for Internet.
Patrons can check out a book for 28 days.
There is one renewal period alone and that is for an
additional 28 days. Fines are 25 cents TT (4 cents US) per week.
Currently the library is constructing an audiovisual room in
each section of the library.
These are called VIP rooms (Visually Impaired Patrons).
Library hours are from
8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. M-F and 8:30-4 on Saturdays.
NALIS has many challenges, mainly recovering overdue and lost
books and dealing with patron's unruly behavior. A guard service
acts as a deterrent for students who bring weapons into the library.
NALIS also has the challenge of staffing its libraries with
certified librarians.
Right now, there are only 16 certified librarians. Other staff
members receive in-house training.
The library is best known for its West Indian resources and
national curriculum support.
Every student in Trinidad and Tobago follows a national
curriculum. The library knows exactly what resources to get to
support the curriculum.
The library is also a big supporter of West Indian culture.
Displays on current events and holidays along with famous
West Indians are always prominently on display in the library and
NALIS also features guest speakers to coincide with major West
Indian events or cultural activities.
Working at NALIS, the National
Library of Trinidad and Tobago, offered an opportunity to complete
the following activities:
4.
Organize a Carnival costume for the Carnival display at the Young
Adult Library
library
event
10.
Assist patrons in finding
information in the Heritage collection and on the Internet
11.
Index newspapers and books in Heritage library
12.
Register patrons for library cards
Arrival Time: 9:00 a.m.
Departure Time: 4:00 p.m.
Total Time This day: 6 hours
the area is organized.
Observations:
The Adult library uses the Dewey Decimal system for
nonfiction books and the first three letters of the author's last
name for fiction. The library is organized according to usage with
the business and medical material being up front and Braille in the
back of the library.
Other nonfiction and reference books are located in the middle of
the library. There is an extensive section in History and the Arts.
Activities: I spent two hours exploring the
NALIS Website, which is
used to catalog West Indian material at the International School of
Port of Spain (ISPS) library.
(Standard 1). The
web site has links to information about holidays such as Eid-ul-Fitr,
Diwali and Shouter Baptist day and celebrations such as Carnival,
which the ISPS library uses as a resource for power point
presentations (Shouter Baptist Day) and display board presentations
(Carnival). (Standards 2, 4 and 6 and 10). One useful link can be
found in the NALIS EBSCO site where NoveLinks allows an evaluation
of Young Adult novels. (Standards 5, 14).
After becoming familiar with the website, two assignments
were given: to produce a
bibliography on the writing of Michael Anthony and produce a
bibliography on Carnival books in the Adult Library using the NALIS
OPAC.
Practical Experience for the Day: After learning the OPAC,
I worked at the desk helping
to register patrons for new library cards
and I worked at the
circulation desk checking material in and out. A patron was trying
to choose a book by South African Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee
and assistance was offered based on books previously read.
(Standards 1, 3) The head librarian had to deal with an irate patron
who didn't want her bag searched and she had to track down the last
person who checked out a book that was filled with book worms. I was
taught how to keep track of various types of inquiries for the
library’s monthly report.
Analysis: Librarians spend a great deal of time trying to enforce
library rules: no checkouts because patrons have overdue books;
no food, drinks and weapons.
Many patrons come to sign up for a library card and many patrons
argue about not being allowed to take out books when they have
overdue fines. Inquiries tend to be low level: where can I find the
shelf with dictionaries...? Librarians have to contend with many
difficult situations.
Date: Thursday, January 22, 2009
Arrival Time: 8:30 a.m.
Departure Time: 4 p.m.
Total Time This day: 6 ½ hours
Total Time: 12 ½ hours
Activity: At 11 a.m. the supervisor said to go to an office and
start working on the Carnival Bibliography. (Standard1 and 10) The
NALIS web site has information about Carnival produced by the
Heritage library. The
Adult Library wants to produce a bibliography of all Carnival
material that is housed in that library.
On my first day, staff
gave a tutorial on the
library OPAC, and how to retrieve MARC records
which I can use at my own
library, the International
School of Port of Spain Library.
Using OPAC a subject
search was completed for Carnival, Calypso, Steel Pan, Steelband and
J’ouvert. For
the assignment, the
bibliography was produced along with a separate page
noting call numbers.
(Standards 1, 2, 14).
Observation: The Adult Library has 55 sources on Carnival, many of
which have been produced outside of Trinidad. There is some music.
The music collection needs some considerable work.
Activity:
From 3 to 4
pm I observed
how books are processed to go
to Technical Services.
There is a chute in the room where books are sent downstairs. All
books are logged onto a sheet that records the problem.
Technical services get a copy and the library keeps a copy of
this form. A note is put
on the book’s record on the OPAC so that the librarians know if
books that show available status but aren’t on the shelves are in
the technical room.
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2009
Arrival Time:
9:00 a.m.
Departure Time: 1 p.m.
Total Time This day: 4
hours
Total Time: 16
1/2
Activity:
This was the first Saturday in the Adult Library of NALIS and
it was unbelievably busy.
The checkout system was down.
It came up and went down periodically.
In between working at the
front desk, I pulled
the Carnival books from my
bibliography. (Standard 6)
Observations:
It is pleasantly surprising
to see how many people come to the library to find Trinidadian
resources and West Indian literature. One man asked for help to find
books on motivational speaking only by Trinidadians. A young man
asked for help him fill out a form for a library card.
He said he couldn’t read the form properly.
He wanted a book on Hinduism. West Indian nonfiction is on
the shelves according to Dewey Decimal system, but West Indian
literature has its own section near the circulation desk probably
because there are so many requests just for West Indian literature.
(Standards 1, 14)
Tuesday, January 27
Arrival Time: 9 a.m.
Departure Time: 5 p.m.
Total Time today: 7
hours
Total Time: 23 ½
hours
Overview:
The Young
Adult library at NALIS has general reference material –
encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc. and support material for the
national curriculum. There are past papers for Caribbean Exams – all
subjects math, science, English, history, business, etc. There are
also many Caribbean textbooks.
About half of the YA library consists of novels for
teenagers. The Young Adult
library gets up to 120 new books a month.
The emphasis is on student support and literacy.
The YA library offers Spanish and computer classes.
They have Teen Talks with famous athletes people and
musicians from Trinidad and Tobago.
Right now they have a soca (calypso) lyrics competition.
Seven students have signed up for the YA Book Club. After 3
p.m. in the evening, many students come to do homework. Students
with uniforms are not allowed in the library before 3 p.m.
Practical Experience:
On the first day in the YA library I
worked at the checkout
counter. In between checking out books, work was done on a
bibliography on Trinidadian writer Michael Anthony.
(Standards 1, 4, 6, 14)
NALIS is putting together a brochure on this author for
their annual One Book/One Community project in which they try to get
the entire country to read a local author.
At the end of the day I worked in the literacy program.
Twelve high school students are enrolled in the program run
by the YA library and ALTA – the Adult Literacy Association of
Trinidad. Students had a lesson about turning Trinidad creole to
formal English. They played a game matching Trinidad creole words
with their meanings, and I was able to assist in this game.
(Standard 3)
Observations:
It is
surprising how many overdue books there are when the checkout period
is 28 days. Graphic novels
are popular in the YA library.
Many students who have problems reading are interested in the
library. In the literacy class, many students don’t know simple
sight words like “the”
because they speak and think in creole English. There are also
patois words left over
from the French that students use but don’t know how to spell or
recognize when they’re reading.
Thursday, January 29
Arrival Time: 8:30 a.m.
Departure Time: 4 p.m.
Total Time today: 7 hours
Total Time: 30 1/2
hours
Practical Experience:
Today
the YA library put up the
Carnival display of old-time Carnival characters, Dame Lorraine,
Bats, Burrokeets, Jab-Jabs, Jab Molassies, Moko jumbies, etc.
in the YA library. (Standard 4, 7, 8, and 16). I assisted in
organizing the information.
Later, while filling in at the circulation desk in
the Adult Library, when I was
working in the adult library, there
was time to teach patrons how to use the OPAC and help them find
books. I recommended a humorous Jamaican book, Alonso and the Drug
Baron, for someone who
wanted a funny book.
After leaving the
circulation desk, I
separated the West Indian novels from the other novels that
had been returned and shelved all the West Indian novels. (Standards
1, 3, 6, 12,14)
Observations:
Two patrons took out Don Quixote within five minutes of each other.
Assistance was offered in finding the books. Some of the
classics are in a section by themselves and some of the books are
mixed in with the fiction so you generally have to look two places
for classics. It was evident from shelving books that West Indian
novels are very popular.
Tuesday, February 3
Arrival Time: 8:45 a.m.
Departure Time: 4:15
p.m.
Total Time today: 7 hours
Total Time: 37 1/2
hours
Place: The
YA Library
Activity:
The first 45 minutes of work were spent in the
YA library organizing the Carnival CD I prepared for the
history of Soca Music.
(Standards 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9,12)
Before going to a meeting, one of the librarians pointed out
the professional development section for librarians.
After browsing through that, I noted some titles I’d like to
check out.
1.
Booklover’s Repair Manual
2.
The Real Story A Guide to Nonfiction Interests
3.
Puzzles and Essays
4.
Success at the Inquiry Desk
5.
From Cover to Cover Evaluating Children’s Books
6.
Talk that Book (Book Talks)
7.
Infoquest a New Twist on Information Literacy
From 9:30 until almost 1:00, I
attended a Youth Lit meeting where members of NALIS and ALTA (the
Adult Literacy Association) discussed progress as well as the
behavioral problems they had with high school students attending
literacy classes at NALIS branches throughout the country. NALIS
decided it would step up its efforts to provide snacks for the
students since this is the students’ biggest request. I participated
in a discussion about sourcing appropriate literature.
Dr Ali, from the
Graduate School of Research Studies at the University of the West
Indies, presented a new, interactive reading program called Project
X produced by Cambridge University and launched in the UK in
January. The program
consists of graded readers. Students can read along with the British
reader voicing the story.
They can delete text and write their own stories based on the
pictures.
After much discussion almost everyone present
decided that the readers
could be useful for students who already can read.
The problem with students in Youth Lit is that many can’t
read at all or they need low reading level high interest material.
The subject matter of these readers is age appropriate and
doesn’t fit the profile of hi/lo readers. (Standard 5)
After ½ hour lunch, I spent from 1:30 to 4:15 in Young Adult
library shelving books and checking out books.
Thursday, February 5
Arrival Time: 9 a.m.
Departure Time: 4:00 pm
Total Time today: 6 hours
Total Time: 43
1/2
hours +
Place: Children’s
Library
Activity:
I shelved books from the
sorting shelf and worked at the front desk observing how to sign up
patrons for library cards.
After lunch I worked at the front desk until 3:00
and then attended the arts
and craft class. (Standard 14)
Observations:
The library was constantly busy.
Some small children were left in the library while parents
went to work. This poses
a challenge for librarians who have to keep an eye on these
children. Children have to leave their lunch in their lockers so
they have to leave the library to eat. The arts and craft room in
the back of the library is huge and can seat about 30 children. The
children’s library really tries to attract patrons through its arts
and crafts and other activities.
Saturday, February 7
Arrival Time: 9:15
a.m.
Departure Time: 1:45 pm
Total Time today: 4 ½ hours
Total Time: 48
hours
Place: Children’s
Library
Activity:
The day began with cutting out flyers for a Valentine’s Day event.
Then I went to the storytelling class at 10:00. From 11 until noon I
registered patrons for library cards and spent the rest of the day
checking in and checking out books.
(Standards 8, 14)
Observations:
The storyteller, a Rastafarian woman named Theodora Ulerie,
was excellent.
There were about 75 children in the session and she was very good at
keeping them quiet and attentive.
She read a book about Carnival to the children, but she
started by telling them stories about anansi, whom she called the
first superhero. The
lesson was meant to develop a sense of history, an appreciation of
the library, a love for stories – both oral and written—and a sense
of pride in self and West Indian heritage. I know Theodora from when
she acted in my TV drama, Sugar Cane Arrows.
The storytelling room is a magical setting for stories.
Children walk through a maze that looks like a forest to
enter the room where the walls are painted to look like the forest
with monkeys, hummingbirds and local fauna.
On one wall there’s a wooden house with stilts. The ceiling
is black with some lights in between.
When the lights are turned off, another switch makes the
ceiling look like a nighttime sky with thousands of stars glittering
in the sky.
Monday, February 9
Arrival Time: 9:00
a.m.
Departure Time: 4:30 pm
Total Time today:
6 ½ hours
Total Time:
54 ½ hours
Activity:
While working at the checkout
counter, in the Children’s Library
assistance was given to a parent
looking for
books on fables. The parent
wanted to understand the difference between a fable and a folktale.
After asking questions so that she would come up with the answer,
I gave her a definition from
Internet.
Then she wanted to know if anansi stories would be fables.
After talking about the components of an anansi story, she
decided yes, they would be fables.
(Standards 1, 3)
After about 45 minutes in the Children’s Library I went to
YA’s to work and helped library assistants to cut out flyers for
upcoming activities including the soca contest and assisted patrons
finding information. (Standard 4)
I assisted a boy who
wanted information on slavery throughout the Caribbean by locating
information on the OPAC in the Young Adult Library,
the Adult Library and
Heritage library.
In the Adult library I found a small, manageable book for
a teenager about a very famous slave rebellion led by the slave
Bussa in Barbados. This book had primary source documents,
first-hand accounts of the rebellion.
(Standards 1, 3, 6, 14)
Observations:
In the children’s library many
parents come to borrow books
for their children’s class projects.
Librarians try to discourage this and encourage parents to
bring their children to gather their own
information. Parents usually
don’t know exactly what the assignment is so paradoxically when we
use a librarian’s method of inquiry, we sometimes
confuse them more. They start
wondering, well, could it be this or could it be that…
It is important to
use questioning techniques so that the parent can try to clarify the
assignment in his or her own mind so that they
can help the student
more effectively. (Standard 3, 7)
Students should be
encouraged to use as many of the libraries as possible. For instance
the student who wanted information on slavery could find resources
in the Young Adult library and the Adult library.
Because teenagers are not allowed to take fiction from the
adult library, they don’t feel comfortable in the Adult library, but
there are resources that are good for them to use.
Thursday, February 12
Arrival Time: 9:00
a.m.
Departure Time:
4:30 pm
Total Time today:
6 ½ hours
Total Time: 61
hours
Place: Children’s
Library
Activity:
I brought the music for the
soca presentation to the Young Adult Library and then manned the
front desk while the other library assistants made photocopies of
Old Time Carnival characters. One of the assistants was getting
ready for the calypso competition. About eight adults came in for a
project they were doing on a class about children’s literature from
around the world. In between checking out books I read Neil Gaiman’s
Coraline and
The Whipping Boy by Sid
Fleishman and took down vocabulary words for my bookmark project at
the International School of Port of Spain Library.
(Standard 7)
At 2:45 we closed
the Children’s Library to attend the NALIS employee’s calypso
competition.
Observation:
Most of the patrons are still
looking for Carnival information. They are also looking for a list
of all the Presidents and Prime Ministers and winners of various
Carnival competitions. The papers they bring from school tend to
stress traditional mas and calypso and most of the children only
know about modern mas and modern music, soca.
It was surprising that
the adults participating in the project for children’s literature
around the world didn’t think of including Caribbean literature.
The calypso competition and old mas competition was great. It
showed that librarians could really poke fun at themselves.
It occurred to me
today that the pictures being distributed to children have the name
of the web site where they were taken from, but the children really
should get all the bibliographic information so that they can be
trained from small to understand copyright and proper citations.
Saturday, February 14
Arrival Time: 9:00
a.m.
Departure Time: 1 pm
Total Time today:
4 hours
Total Time: 65 hours
Activity:
From 9 to 11 books were
shelved and shelves were read. From
11 to 1, I assisted patrons in checkins and checkouts as the other
library assistants took their lunch breaks. We organized the
Carnival display. Assistance was given to library assistants who
were hanging old mas characters.
My power point on the history of soca music was mounted along
with the Carnival costume I brought for the display. (Standard 4, 6,
8)
A student came for Jane Eyre. A copy was located in the Adult
library. I explained to her
that she can take the numbered copy, but she can’t take the one that
is in the fiction section because of the rules about teenagers not
borrowing adult fiction. I
asked her to come back and tell me if she got through, but she never
came back. (Standard 1, 14)
Observations:
Some classics can’t be found in the YA library. YA patrons are
supposed to be able to take out reference material in the Adult
library and they count any books that are numbered in that category
so the YA patron was sent to
the Adult library to find Jane Eyre.
The library was busy with students still doing old mas
Carnival projects. While
shelving books an observation was made that most of the books
students took out had to do with drugs and alcoholism, AIDS and
depression. Students are
starting to ask for Wuthering Heights probably because Bella is
reading it in the Twilight Series, which is very popular here in
Trinidad.
Monday February 16
Arrival Time: 9:00
a.m.
Departure Time:
3 pm
Total Time today: 5 hours
Total Time:
70 hours
Activity:
Technical services is the place that orders, receives, processes and
catalogs books for NALIS.
They do this for 23 libraries throughout the island of
Trinidad. I worked on the
first level processing for a West Indian novel, putting on the NALIS
stamp and entering the information by hand on the copyright page:
where or whom the book was purchased from, the date the book was
purchased, the library it goes to and the cost of the book.
Then bar codes were
placed on the books. The
information came from a slip of paper that the librarian puts in the
stack of books.
After that, there was a walk through the ordering process
with practice looking up information on West Indian books on Bowkers
and amazon.com and the Internet. (Standards 1, 14)
Most of the information couldn’t be found on Bowkers or
Barnes and Noble where they look for information.
Observations:
The
basement of the library where technical services is located is
filled with books waiting to be processed.
What was most interesting was
the large number of books waiting to have barcodes replaced because
patrons pull them out of books thinking that they are the security
code.
Tuesday February 17
Arrival Time: 9:00
a.m.
Departure Time:
4:30 pm
Total Time today: 7
hours
Total Time:
77 hours
Activity:
After spending the first hour helping out in the YA library,
I spent additional time in
Technical Services to see how NALIS catalogs books.
There was a tour of the
whole Technical service area including where books are processed.
After lunch, work was done at the checkout counter in the YA
library. I registered two students for library cards. (Standard 1,
14)
Observations: Students continue to come regularly for past CXC (Caribbean
Examination Council) tests.
Many students also came for geography SBA (School Based
Assessment) projects on natural disasters.
Saturday February 28
Arrival Time: 10
a.m.
Departure Time:
4 pm
Total Time today: 5
hours
Total Time:
82 hours
Place:
Heritage
Library
Activity: The Heritage Library is a closed reference library.
Working there involves
helping students and researchers who have projects that require
resources about Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean. No other
resources are housed in this library. No books can be checked out of
this library.
Here, a librarian on the floor spends the day finding and
pulling resources for patrons.
During the week there are employees who index newspapers and
books and make newspaper files.
There are six to eight librarians that work on the floor of
this library.
One patron was looking for information on Sniper.
There is not much information, but I was able to locate some
information from a reliable source on the Internet. (Standard 1, 14)
Someone wanted old maps of
Tobago for a research project he was doing on tambrin drumming. We
found maps back to 1690 in the rare document room.
His idea is to trace the
drums to various plantations so that he can show how colonialism
shaped the size of the drum that was banned during slavery.
Patrons can take two resources at a time to use in the
library.There is a sign out sheet and we have to sign in resources
when patrons finish.
Observations: The Heritage Library is a beautiful library with hard wood
floors, a display room that pays tribute to Caribbean culture, a
reading room for patrons and a small computer center for research.
Today, many students came looking for information about the
Carnival winners. Files
have been prepared for this. Students are also doing research on
various calypsonians, mostly traditional ones. I’m glad I have a
background in entertainment journalism
and I know all the names and
sobriquets of calypsonians from the past.
That is very helpful in this library.
Here, librarians don’t have to deal with checkins or
checkouts. There is a
lot of work that has to be done to help patrons formulate their
research ideas and it is challenging to find resources. This library
is less stressful, even though it is constantly busy because the
resources are not stolen or lost. They are where the librarians have
filed them.
Arrival Time:
11:30
Departure Time:
6:00
Total Time today:
6
Total Time:
88 hours
Activity: This day was devoted to helping students with their school
projects – looking up information on all the Carnival winners, doing
research on a calypsonian, soca star, mas band, old time Carnival
character and steelband.
Students needed assistance in determining who and what they were
going to choose for each category and how to organize themselves
into meaningful working groups. Students also needed to understand
the information they could get from the Heritage library and the
information they needed to get from the Internet.
I worked with students to find information on the Internet
and taught them how to evaluate the information. Students also
needed assistance in how to create a bibliography.
(Standards 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 14)
Saturday, March 7
Arrival Time: 8:30
Departure Time: 3:30
Total Time today:
6 ½
Total Time:
94 ½ hours
Activity: Indexing newspapers in between helping patrons was the focus
for today. The Heritage library uses the Library of Congress
Indexing system when applicable and makes up many of their own
categories. Students are
still working on group Carnival projects and need assistance at
every level from identifying and organizing their topics, to
accessing information on the Internet, and checking newspaper files
(Standards 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 14).
Observations: Students feel overwhelmed and intimidated by the size of some
of the files.
Information in newspaper files is kept for the year so many of the
files are thick.
Students are reluctant to read through very much information to
locate the facts they want.
Monday, March 9
Arrival Time:
9:30
Departure Time: 6:00
Total Time today: 7 ½ hours
Total Time: 102 hours
Place:
Heritage
Library
Activity:
Indexing books for the Heritage Library
Observations: This was the first opportunity I had to do indexing on this
level. I really enjoyed
trying to figure out all the subject headings I could add to the
MARC records. I liked
creating the indexes and applying what I learned in the cataloging
class. My biggest
challenge was the book by Stokely Carmichael because it was written
with someone and I had to find the rule for that. I also had to
create references for Kwame Ture because most people in Trinidad
would know him by that name. Indexing takes a lot of patience and
thinking.
Monday, March 16
Arrival Time 10:30
Departure Time:
6:00
Total Time today:
7 hours
Total Time:
109 hours
Activity:
The day was spent indexing history books from Jamaica and Grenada,
and a West Indies architecture book.
I went through cricket and
Carnival newspaper files to re-index Sri Lanka vs. West Indies
cricket tours into individual tours per year.
Then I divided Carnival files into various bands and decided
what should be kept in the general Carnival band file. (Standards 1,
16)
Observations:
General files get very large and cumbersome and have to be
subdivided as time goes on.
It is important to do thorough indexing of books since the
Heritage Library is a completely closed reference library.
Patrons cannot browse through books on shelves; so the added
subject titles are the only opportunity patrons have to pull up
information on a topic.
Wednesday, March 25
Arrival Time 10:00
Departure Time:
6:00
Total Time today:
7 hours
Total Time:
116 hours
Place:
Heritage
Library
Activity:
Today I indexed more history and music books
from the Caribbean. I
learned the section that the books go to: Caribbeana, TT collection,
Student Pool, Indo-Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean sections.
Observations:
The books in the Student Pool
support SBA’s (School-based Assessments. After copying the general
subject headings from the cataloged books, I have to come up with as
many subject headings that I can think of that researchers might use
for these books.
Sometimes there are 16 headings.
In general we look for information about creolization,
slavery, economics, religion, ethnicity – and any specific subject
headings.
Thursday , March 26
Arrival Time: 1:00
Departure Time: 6:00
Total Time today: 5
Total Time: 121
hours
Place:
Heritage
Library
Activity:
Indexing books—Among the books indexed today were
Trinidad Village, an
anthropological study of Toco done by renowned anthropologist
Melville Herskovits; Pirates
of the Caribbean, a book by Tariq Ali about Hugo Chavez of
Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba; and
Silver Workmen, a book
about West Indians working on the Panama railroad and Panama Canal.
(Standards 1 and 16).
Observations:
Working in the Heritage
Library has shown me the importance of local and regional resources
and the importance of collecting books that give alternate points of
view. For instance,
almost everything written about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is
negative, but it is important for patrons to be able to access
information about both sides of the picture.
During Internship
Standard 2 - 5
Standard 3 - 7
Standard 4 - 6
Standard 5 - 2
Standard 6 - 9
Standard 7 - 4
Standard 8 - 4
Standard 9 - 1
Standard 11 -
0
Standard 12 -
4
Standard 13 -
0
Standard 14 -
15
Standard 15 -
0
Standard 16 - 3