Thursday 12 January 2012

Placement: Pendlebury Library of Music

When we were told to start thinking about the work placement part of our course, I knew that I wanted to go to a music library (my undergraduate degree was in music). I was very lucky that the Pendlebury Library in Cambridge was happy for me to do my placement there, and even better, I was able to do half of the two weeks there, and half in the music department at the main University Library.

I've done my first three days at the Pendlebury Library, and now will be working at the UL for a week before returning to the Pendlebury for the final two days. There is another woman doing work experience in both libraries at the same time (she's over from Germany for two months) and the library staff have been really organised and lined up some interesting projects for us to do while we're here.

At the Pendlebury library, I've learnt how to catalogue CDs, which we don't hold at Newnham so I haven't had a chance to do before. There have recently been a couple of big donations of CDs, so I'm working my way through those (they're in alphabetical order and I'm up to D so far, I don't think I will get through them all!) 

The other project, was to make a floor plan of the library showing the shelves and the classmarks. When we covered Prezi in CPD23 I mentioned that I'd love to try making an interactive library map, inspired by this Prezi by Ned Potter. Luckily for me, Clemens and the rest of the library staff were happy for me to give it a try, and here's the result!



It's only my third ever Prezi so it's not majorly sophisticated, and I did need get stuck and have to ask Ned for help at one point! I'm pretty pleased with it anyway :) It's gone up on the library's facebook page, and I think will go on the main website eventually. In theory I guess the image could also be printed out and stuck on the wall too.

I'm looking forward to working at the UL for the next week, and will try and blog about that too when I get the chance. I've also got a bunch of notes from the Libraries@Cambridge conference today which will hopefully turn themselves into a blog post while I write an essay? It might happen...

6 comments:

  1. Placement sounds great. Are you going to the IAML Annual Study Weekend? http://www.iaml.info/iaml-uk-irl/

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  2. I'd love to but think I'll have to leave it until next year, I've decided not to do much library stuff outside of work/university for the time being!

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  3. This is great, Annie. It's also the first prezi that hasn't made me dizzy!

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  4. Seriously impressive floor plan, Annie - well done! And glad to hear that stuff post-traineeship is going so well :)

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  5. Just seen your prezi - it's great! Glad the placement is going well as well.

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