Collaboration
What is collaboration? Collaboration is the ability to work successfully with a group of people or an organization towards a common goal. Within the world of libraries, it is essential for librarians to work together in order to provide the best services and information material to their users. Collaboration takes many forms in relation to libraries such as with regional systems like the Fontana Regional Library (FRL) system in western North Carolina. FRL spans over three counties (Jackson, Swain, and Macon) with seven branch libraries ranging in collection size and patron base. The Nantahala Community Library is isolated in a valley, serving a small population of locals but due to collaboration, it is possible for patrons to receive library materials from any of the other six libraries and a courier service runs multiple times daily to all seven libraries, exchanging library materials. Collaboration is more than the sharing of resources, it is also the sharing of ideas and services creating networks of librarians over vast areas. Professional organizations are a form of collaboration as part of their mission is to bring librarians together, giving resources to share but also to encourage communication between individual librarians. Collaboration of any kind requires the ability to work with other people, establish shared goals and then work out a system in order to achieve those goals, achieving a better future for their users.
Collaboration Opportunities
ConsortiaIn Collection Management (LIS 610), there was a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of being an consortium. The advantages of being in a consortium outweigh the negative components -- a consortium offers the expansion of one's collection, it offers professional development opportunities, and the creation of a network of LIS professionals who have similar programs and are great for troubleshooting and learning experiences of others.
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Professional OrganizationsProfessional organizations like ALA and NCLA are established to offer the chance for collaboration. It offers opportunities through events like conferences, training workshops, and webinars to meet new people, to present information about topics of interest, to create resources and share them with other librarians.
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CoworkersIn most library settings, it rarely a single person running the entire organization. Good collaboration skills are necessary for the day to day duties and organization of a library. Being able to work with other people to problem-solve and implement changes is vital to a library. It is important for people to be able to communicate effectively and
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Operation Save Penny & Team Fayol
The biggest collaboration project I had to participate in was in Library Administration and Management course where we were assigned into different groups according to personality types and strengths. After the groups were created, we were given a case study of a troublesome employee in a library. Her name was Penny and she had multiple personality traits that made her incompatible with her coworkers as well organizational problems that were causing problems for herself and others. The group was tasked with creating solutions for Penny and offer helpful suggestions for the rest of the library employees in the case study. It required the group to use collaboration tools through Google Suite because as distance learning students, we were too far away to have a physical meeting. We utilized Google Hangouts and Docs as our main modes of communication to come up with a plausible solution with a set of goals to accomplish and then an assessment component. It was a learning experience, as it required many meetings and the work could not be divided like a traditional group -- it was truly a real-world experience in learning how to work with other librarians and how to use tools to produce a final product without too many headaches. The assignment required all of our different perspectives to get the fullest picture of the situation as possible and then to apply viable solutions to the situation. As group leader, personally I found it to be an interesting study in group dynamics and human behavior while also learning many new aspects of my own personality in relation to other persons. It definitely helped me come out of my shell, stepping up to complete a job and to also bring people together to find a solid and good solution for everyone.
Database Selection Project
In my Database Retrieval course, we were assigned a group project where the objective was to evaluate and select a number of databases for Johnson and Wales, Charlotte campus. It required the group to meet to actively discuss the selection process and also what we believed to be the information needed by the programs on the Charlotte campus. In the end, our group was under budget and the database selection matched more accurately with the programs offered.
Digital Library of Appalachia
J.A. Jones Library 50th AnniversaryThe James Addison Jones Library at Brevard College celebrated its 50th Anniversary in the spring of 2017 and for apart of the celebration, new images of the original building were uploaded by myself.
The original library collection was in what is now the Coltrane student union and then James Addison Jones donated funds and his construction company to help build a separate library building for the collection in 1967. The guest pages are from the opening ceremony of the new J.A. Jones Library. |
Part of my job at Brevard College is the assistance in making our archives and special collections more accessible for our users. I attended a workshop, offered by the Appalachian College Association, pertaining to the contributions to the Digital Library of Appalachia collections. It was focused around ContentDM, the software used by all member libraries to contribute their items to the overall collection. DLA is a perfect example of a collaborative effort as the mission to the give a complete picture of the history of the Appalachian area with member colleges spotting the length of the Appalachian mountains. The DLA has its own handbook with a single mission, a controlled vocabulary for part of the metadata input, upload specification, criteria for items suitable for the collection, and promotion information. The collaboration effort has resulted in a continual uploading of new material from each member college, building a spectacular collection of the history of the Appalachian area.
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