Blog Every Day in June Day 17 : Winning the Library Lottery!

Three and a half years ago I won the lottery! Well not the NSW lottery or even Ozlotto but I was successful in applying for a traineeship at my local library. As a library trainee I embarked on a six year adventure including full time work and university studies through CSU. Although initially daunting and scary, enthusiasm and naivety assisted me through the first year. Working with a wonderful staff in comfortable, happy library environments has confirmed my suspicions that librarians, library assistants and library technicians are a special group of people.  Recently I attended a four day study visit in Melbourne where I found further evidence. The librarians we spoke to shared their experiences with us and were happy to answer questions and present examples of what they did and how they did it. I left Melbourne encouraged by their passion and confidence that libraries would survive into the future and that I could be a successful part of it.

One of the subjects I have recently completed was Marketing in libraries and information agencies and I feel that this is an area that requires further investigation. Every staff member is involved in marketing every day but may not realise it. Each transaction is an opportunity to offer additional information to our valued customers. When a person asks where our language books are I can offer other alternatives including our online resources such as Mango, which include English and our other language collection that we borrow from the state library. Can’t find an audio fiction you haven’t listened to, then have a look at our online Overdrive and Oneclick options and enjoy the convenience of borrowing from home at your leisure. Technology has forced many changes but also offered a vast array of options that our customers may not be aware of.  It is exciting to introduce these concepts and gratifying to receive positive feedback from a successful experience. We are a resourceful, problem-solving bunch with great ideas and creativity. I am proud to be part of such a special profession.

-Leanne Wright

CSU Student and Library Lottery Winner

Blog Every Day in June Day 12: Roxanne Clare

Today's post comes from Roxanne Clare, Library and records assistant plus student. You can follow her on twitter @rrclare2011  -Caitlin Williams

My name is Roxanne Clare and my decision to pursue a career in the library and information industry came after trying two other career paths, childcare and administration. I am currently working part time as a library and records assistant in a large corporate law firm in the CBD of Sydney.

Presently I work with six other staff in the library and records department with my duties being spread over three days, 50% of the time in records management and 50% library work. My library duties include interlibrary loans, accessioning and acquisitions, distributing currently awareness material and the basic shelving and shelf tidying. The two main things I love about my job is that I get to go offsite to retrieve interlibrary loans – (we try to keep costs down so I physically go to various library to retrieve these, including both the State Library and the Law Courts), and the people I work with. 

I have also completed the Certificate III and Diploma of Library studies at Ultimo TAFE. Studying these courses on campus was a wonderful experience. Teachers were approachable and the bond and friendship I make with other students developed into a great support network. I am now studying the Bachelor of Information Studies via distance education through Charles Sturt University.

I decided to pursue the TAFE courses before attending university to ensure that I was going to be fully happy in the industry. The biggest challenge with the transition from on campus to distance education has been staying motivated. I know I have made a great career choice due to the diversity and enjoyment of both practical and theory experiences I have encountered so far and will never look back!

Online Study

This year is the first year I have studied online. I wasn't completely sure it was the best way for me, but decided to give it a go. As those two subjects are winding up now, I've had mixed feelings about how successful it has been for me, but would feel confident about tackling it again in the future.

One of the hardest things about online study for me was missing the comments, questions, and discussions that are part of face to face learning. I love it when I don’t quite get something and the person next to me can explain it in a different way to the teacher, and then it clicks for me.

In the classes I attended, the forum is intended to take the place of this interaction, but it didn't always work well. Some students are too reserved to contribute, or don’t put up questions because they worry it doesn’t show them in a good light. Others are just happy to read the forums but don’t want to participate.  When the forums (fora?) are not well used it can be quite isolating for students. I started to think no one else is asking questions because they all get it and I’m the only dumb one, or a more sinister line of thinking, the others are all emailing direct to the teacher and I am missing out. A successful online class fosters an active forum with wide participation, so jump on in.

Another aspect I found hard was linking up with other students. Although I didn’t have any group assignment work, I do love having a chat with other students, giving or getting tips about sources, and even just having a moan about something in the course. From some conversations I’ve had recently with Sydney based students studying at Charles Sturt, they also found that contacting and meeting up with other students locally to form study/support groups was an enormous benefit, and really kept them going. I was lucky enough that some of my online classmates were also in my face to face class in another subject. If your class isn’t fostering this type of interaction, then you need to be the one to reach out.  It’s worth the effort.

One final thing I found was that in one subject, I was just so focused on completing the work, that I really didn’t get a good sense of the whole subject. Keeping to the timetable took up a lot of my attention in this subject, and sometimes it just had to be as mechanical as that, as I had to balance other subjects too, and it wasn’t until I started the revision that I began to see the bigger picture. I always like to try to investigate widely on subjects I’m studying because I don’t just want to pass, I want to understand the subject well. Make sure you try to see the forest as well as the trees. Of course, an active forum, and a friendly cohort can help with this.

Have you undertaken online study? What are your best tips and what would you change?

Lauren Castan