Tag Archives: Work

The Edgewood History Collection

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screen shot, Edgewood History Collection home page

One of the long term projects I’ve been involved with at work was quietly unveiled this week, the Edgewood History Collection.

The project is a collaboration between myself and several other members of the library staff. My responsibility involved designing and developing the collection’s Home and About pages, as well as the page templates for the digital collection management software (the pages that actually display the items in the collection). The software we’re using is a hosted version of ContentDM.

Some of the things in the Edgewood History Collection I found interesting include:

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Why I am a Librarian

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The “Why I’m a Librarian” meme has been going around the library blogosphere, so I thought I would put my two cents in.

Why I Became a Librarian

About a year and a half after I got my bachelor’s degree in business administration, I was struggling to find decent employment and my place in the working world. A very wise man suggested to me that I seek out the services of a career counselor, which I did. After a battery of personality assessment tests, my career counselor went over the results with me. Librarian was one of the top occupations on the list. As surprising as it was to see the word “Librarian” there, the more I thought about it, the more I believed I would enjoy the career. So off to graduate school I went.

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On being a virtual librarian

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Last Spring, my library signed on to AskAway, a virtual reference service. AskAway is the Wisconsin division of the QuestionPoint consortia, which provides virtual reference (via online chat) throughout the United States. That means our patrons can get reference help from a librarian, 24 hours a day, even on holidays. In turn, some of our librarians spend an hour or so per week answering virtual reference questions from patrons all over the country.

It’s been an interesting experience providing online reference help. When I first started, it was a little unnerving and overwhelming (much like the first few times I was working at the reference desk in the real world). But just like that other reference situation, those feelings fade with experience.

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Having Balance

It?s been real quiet at my place of work this week. Graduation was this past Sunday and the summer session hasn?t started yet. With not that many people needing reference help, I’ve been spending most of the work day at my desk in the back room. Even when I?’ at the reference desk, reference questions from patrons have been few and far between.

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A new catalog for Edgewood

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This week, my latest web creation was launched: a new design of Edgewood College Library’s catalog.

Edgewood Catalog screenshot

Visually, I designed the new catalog to have an appearance that compliments the look of the library’s web site (with a similar header and footer on each page). Marketing types would probably use the word “branding” here somewhere. Some new features have also been unveiled along with the catalog’s new look.

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Edgewood Library website

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Today the new website for the Oscar Rennebohm Library at Edgewood College was officially unveiled. It’s been a big project for me, one that had its beginning back when I was hired as the Web Services Librarian this past November.

Edgewood Library screenshot

A great deal of the design of the site was inspired by architectural elements of the library building. I created the header logo to mimic the window and roof lines of the building facade and the graphic at the footer on each page was inspired by the shape of the building. The official Edgewood colors were used (red and black) along with some shades of gray.

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Moving on

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I’m sorry it’s been two weeks since the last post. As you can imagine, I’ve been very busy lately. Today I finished my first full week working as the Web Services Librarian at Edgewood College. After five days, I think I’ve had enough experience to say that I’m going to enjoy working there.

In other news (if everything goes as planned) I should be permanently living in Madison by the end of next week. Speaking of which, I was browsing through some moving and packing websites the other day and found out how to pack hippos (from the US Postal Service, no less). Does anyone have a 1000 gallon tank I can borrow?

Soon to be Web Services Librarian

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I got the job! Oh wait a minute… I should probably back up for those of you who don’t know the whole story.

Last week I had interviewed for the position of Web Services Librarian at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin. After the interview I felt pretty good about the whole thing and was very excited about the possibilities of working there. The position’s responsibilities are an interesting combination of website development and librarian duties.

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