Weeks 12-15 Recap

Most of my work (including my 135 hours) were completed by the time I visited the San Francisco Public Library and presented my best practices/recommendations report to the library's Social Media Strategy Team. Since then, I have been working on creating the new YouTube site which unfortunately won't be finalized by the end of my internship because the library has had some delays in designing a custom background and uploading the videos. I offered to keep helping throughout the summer to finish the channel and make it live.

During this internship, I had the pleasure of spending some time with our classmate Karen Scott. We both attended DPLA-West and had a little extra time to explore the beautiful city of San Francisco. We had a great time learning about the future of libraries and archives in the digital age, sharing about our work for SFPL, and talking about life, school, future... also catching buses, trains, planes, taking taxis, eating, and walking! Here are some pictures from our adventure.

Digitizing a Book - Internet Archives

Karen and Madeline outside San Francisco Main Library

Karen and Madeline sitting among the Internet Archives' "terracotta archivists" at  DPLA-West .

Digitizing Film - Internet Archives.

Graphic Artist Taking Graphic Notes at DPLA-West

Lunch Time at DPLA-West - Madeline, Ani, and Karen

DPLA-West

Heart at San Francisco Union Square

Madeline at the Golden Gate Bridge

Weeks 9-11 Recap

Weeks 9-11 were the busiest weeks of my internship. I worked on finishing the best practices/recommendations paper and on creating a slideshow for my presentation. 

I traveled to San Francisco on Friday, March 30^th and spend most of the day at the library. My site supervisor, Joan Lefkowitz, made my visit wonderful. She introduced me to library staff members—including Luis Herrera, the City Librarian. Everyone I met was welcoming and by the end of the day I felt sad I had to leave.

During my visit I attended an all-staff meeting where important library issues such as budget, status of special initiatives, and future projects and events were discussed.  I also attended a staff training session on how to use the library’s content management system.

My presentation went really well--although I was a little nervous. The members of the Social Media Strategy Team were a great audience and after the presentation we all engaged in a nice conversation. Jon Worona, Digital Initiatives Manager, expressed that my findings and recommendations were great “food for thought” and the team right there agreed on implementing most of my suggestions.

The whole experience was enriching and wonderful— undoubtedly worthwhile. I am more than satisfied with my visit to the San Francisco Public Library and with the opportunity to meet my site supervisor and the rest of the team in person.

Best Practices/Recommendations Document


Slideshow

Interior of the Main Library

Exterior of the Main Library

During my presentation.

With Joan Lefkowitz, my site supervisor.

Week 8

This week my site supervisor gave me great feedback on the draft document. She said she was impressed with my work and that I was definitely on the right track. We discussed some minor changes, like excluding some libraries from a comparative table I'm working on. I plan to submit the final paper next week.

On Wednesday I attended (by phone) a Social Media Strategy Team meeting. The subject was blogs just like last time. This time though they invited staff members who write and maintain the library's blogs to get their input and share their ideas. It was an excellent discussion that provided me great insight into team/committee work. After the meeting I sent my site supervisor an email with my notes and thoughts.

That's all folks!

Week 7

This week I continued working on the best practices document for SFPL. During my weekly phone meeting with my site supervisor we talked about the tone of the paper and they want something simple and practical with lots of examples. I sent her a link to my work in progress I posted on Google Docs. I am waiting for some feedback and keep working on gathering good examples for the paper.

Next Wednesday I will "attend" a social media strategy team meeting by phone.

Week 6

This week I continued with my research for the best practices document I need to submit to SFPL next week. During my follow-up call with my site supervisor we scheduled an in-person meeting that will take place on March 30th at SFPL where I will present the document and recommendations to their Social Media Strategy Team. I am super excited about this!--but still have a lot do.

Week 5

My weekly phone meeting with my site supervisor was cancelled this week. I worked on my research for the best practices documents, mainly looking at what libraries are doing on YouTube and Vimeo. I also looked at online and database articles on the subject.

Week 4

I had my regular follow-up meeting with my site supervisor on Monday. Our main subject to discuss was my work timeline. We agreed to work on research and completion of the best practices document during the next month and leave the remaining two months to focus on the implementation phase. Later that day I submitted this document with the proposed timeline.

During this call we also talked about the phone meeting we had last week with SFPL's Social Media Strategy Team on blogs. My site supervisor and I discussed ways to improve my participation and overall "speaker phone meeting" experience. This is what we agreed to do for next time:

• Give a brief introduction/presentation about myself to the team at the beginning of the next meeting. Send them my photo so they can put a face to the name/voice. 
• Find a quieter place and/or mute my phone during the session. 
• Do some research about the subject before the meeting and send them my thoughts beforehand and some feedback afterwards.