Industry+Placements

During the program, I was required to complete 3 industry placements, each went for 15 days. Although, my placements were not as useful as I thought they would be, but they definitely helped strengthen my skills and gave me an insight about how working as a Librarian looks like in the real life.

=Placement 1 - Melbourne Museum-Moreland Storage (Kodak Project)=

This was the first placement I undertook in the second year of my tertiary education. During this placement, I was required to help one of the museum's employees at Moreland Storage on Kodak project. The project mainly aimed to introduce people to the various Kodak financial documents, plans and sketches from the late 1800's and early 1900's til 1970's. Te major levels of this experience was the following: The first stage of the placement was receiving the objects from Kodak and cleaning, measuring and rehousing them into their proper boxes. During this stage, I learned how to the BarCode scanner that the museum uses worked, and how it is able to track where the object is sitting in the storage room. The second stage was probably the most challenging one, which was categorising the objects into series and sub-series. Due to the large amount of objects from different departments of Kodak, it took us a long time to think of how we could categorise those objects to make it easier for users to find a particular object on the database and on the museums's website. At this stage, we needed the help of a professional to help us come up with a consistent method of categorising those objects. The third stage was finding unique objects to photograph for publishing purposes. I enjoyed this stage the most due to my interest of photography. The final stage was the actual data entry into the database.
 * Cleaning the objects received and measuring them for re-housing purposes - About 7 days to do so
 * Classifying the objects into series and sub-series for data entry purposes - About 2 days to do so
 * Photographing the objects - About 3 days to do so
 * Data entry into the museum's database - The remainder of the placement period

Overall, I didn't find the first placement very useful because firstly, it was totally different than what I expected and secondly, we spent a very long time cleaning the objects, which I don't think was relevant in any way to my field of study. I however learned how the database of the museum works, its features and how to find information about a particular object through the database.


 * Placement Documents**

=Placement 2 - Monash Public Library-Oakleigh Branch=

The second placement I undertook was during the end of the second year of my studies. I enjoyed this placement very much because I got to interact with patrons of the library on daily basis. The main learning steps in this placement was the following: I spent the majority of the time issuing and returning items of the library. Although I enjoyed doing this, but later I discovered that there was a lot more to do in the library that I wasn't introduced to. I also accompanied Children's librarians in running their children story time a number of times. The second important stage was learning about the Home Based Library Service. I accompanied one of the senior librarians in choosing items according to the patrons' preference of genres, label them with tags the library tags that had the name of the patron and put them in bags to be ready for delivery. I also helped the team leader to develop a powerpoint presentation about a specific database that the library was promoting for as part of staff training. I was also asked to help in setting up displays promoting an exhibition the library was playing a part of.
 * Learning the system of the library, where all items are entered into
 * Learning more about the Home Based Library Service
 * Learning about Dewey Decimal Classification System
 * Getting introduced to the tasks of Children's Librarians

Overall, it was a pleasant experience, and although I thought it met my expectations at the time, but later when I was introduced to the real role of a librarian, I discovered how much more I could have learnt during my second placement


 * Placement Documents**

=Placement 3 - Kingston Public Library Service-Parkdale Branch=

My third placement was probably the most useful one. In this placement, I learned in depth the role of a librarian. My supervisor gave me the chance to sit on the Information Desk and work like other librarians with and without supervision, which strengthened my confidence in interacting with public and respond to their queries. I also had the chance to spend a day at Cheltenham Library and Chelsea Library and compare the quality of work and the type of patrons that go to each of those branches. The following were the most important learning steps during this placement: In this placement, I had a much broader idea of how the library runs and who's responsible for each type of service that the patrons receive. Through the meetings with different staff members, I had a broad idea about the "behind the scenes" activities of the library. The chance of sitting alone at the Information Desk and acting like a qualified librarian gave me the confidence to find the most relevant item that responded to the patron's query, using the library database. In this placement, I was able to have a clear idea of the daily tasks that a librarian performs and helped me realise that the second placement wasn't actually a good learning opportunity because I was only performing tasks of an unqualified employee. Overall, it was a pleasant experience and came out with many networking opportunities that I believe can help me in the future when a position becomes available at the library.
 * Learning about the process of opening the library at the start of each day
 * Getting introduced to the Genealogy classes and items that the library held
 * Getting introduced to the Computer and Internet classes that the library ran for older generations
 * Getting introduced to the elderly gatherings that the library ran
 * Meetings with branch managers and other staff members who were responsible for buying new collections
 * Getting introduced to the variety of children services and programs the library ran
 * Inter-Library Loans


 * Placement Documents**