anavillaramaservicelearning

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How has the public library’s purpose changed over time?

The purpose of the library, as established in a previous post is: They create an accessible safe-space where people of all races, ages, and knowledge levels can come to appreciate the sharing of information.

MPL’s vision is not far from that: MPL is an anchor institution that helps build healthy families and vibrant neighborhoods – the foundation of a strong Milwaukee. The focus is on the creation of a community through a common foundation. 

What has changed are the ways in which the public library achieves this purpose. I have been to two different city’s public libraries: Milwaukee, WI and Palatine, IL. Each one has adopted newer technologies and programs. Upgrading to the latest computers, providing laptops, tablets, and e-readers for check out, providing e-books, game consoles, computer classes, job search services, musical performances, and so much more. Libraries are capable of providing a wide gamut of services in order to create a space for everyone to learn together. 

According to this article, there are even libraries that provide app development and coding classes.

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What is the point of a public library?

According to an article titled Use of Public Library Services by the Distance Learners of Bangalore University, “Public libraries are the community transformers and intellectual heritage centres of scholarly inheritance of knowledge persons and also the guiding light in fostering resourceful leisure time activities.”

That’s a really fancy way of saying that people gain knowledge and culture from others at the library. What’s interesting about this definition is that it doesn’t mention books. Although libraries are more commonly known for their large collections of new and old books, they embody ideals and purposes beyond that. They create an accessible safe-space where people of all races, ages, and knowledge levels can come to appreciate the sharing of information.

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What could be considered as essential for anyone learning how to use technology?

Through my experience with helping people with technology, I would say that the most important thing to know is: Click it and see what happens. 

Most people are anxious about doing something wrong or they’ve really convinced themselves that they don’t know, and will never know, how to use technology. I learned how to use technology at a young age, but it wasn’t my age that helped me. It was my naturally curious mind that helped me learn. I pressed buttons, clicked on things, type things, Googled things. I observed the results of those actions and learned patterns until I truly understood it. Then I used knowledge that I learned to help me learn more things in the future. It’s the same with learning most skills. Trial and error. 

According to CEB Global, “only 1 in 5 employees are actually effective learners”. This is a topic that would be good to dive into some other time, but I believe that schools are not teaching people how to learn. Schools are just trying to beat other schools with numbers from standardized testing. Students might be able to cram and ace tests but they don’t know where to start when it comes to self-disciplined learning.

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How is teaching elderly people different from teaching younger people?

In my experience, I didn’t really feel a major difference between teaching younger or older people. It always felt like I had to make sure that what I was saying was easy enough for someone who knew nothing to understand. The differences I did notice were how genuinely someone seemed to understand something. If I explained the concept of the limited access (like no ability to install programs) to little kids, they would listen to me and then nod their heads. But their blank stare as they nodded their heads was a sign that they were just telling me what I wanted to hear. Adults, on the other hand, are capable of understanding the gist of what I’m saying even if they don’t fully comprehend how it works. I would say that kids require more intuition to teach than adults. Adults usually know what questions to ask, while kids don’t.

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If the public library didn’t provide computer coaching as one of its services, how would that impact the people who currently use it?

Removing computer coaching would a huge disservice to the patrons who come to the library to get job search informations and apply for said jobs. A large majority of the people who asked me for help were using the computer in a job-related way. Either to apply for a new job or to complete paperwork/timesheets for their current jobs. They didn’t always know the basics of navigating a computer and they often would give up unless I encouraged them to keep trying. 

According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in 2010, 94% of households earning over $100,000 per year use broadband, compared to 36% of households earning less than $25,000 per year.  The report found that 20 percent of those in unemployed households said someone in their household used the Internet at the library, compared with 11 percent of households overall.

So the low-income people are the likely candidates to come to the library where they can get free access to the internet. 

Removing computer coaching would only cripple these low-income people from getting out of that wage bracket. 

Without the computer coaching program, the elderly would have to turn to other locations with computers for use. This mostly consists of copy shops like Digicopy or shipping places like UPS and FedEx. Even then, they don’t offer to teach how to use computers and the use of their computers comes at a cost. 

Source: https://www.ntia.doc.gov/press-release/2014/digital-nation-report-shows-rapid-adoption-mobile-internet-use

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Last Day.

July 2, 3 hours at Center St. All of my hours are officially complete. I ended the semester with about 37.25 hours. My coworkers were kind enough to get me ice cream bars to celebrate my birthday as well as my last day.  

It was a pretty slow day towards the beginning. I spent most of my time conversing with the Nadia, the intern, and Ms. Stewart. Every once in a while, people would come up to the desk for help with faxing or printing. 

Once again, kids would ask for help with loading games up on the computer. They would either not know where to look or they would want a game, like Minecraft, that you actually have to pay for. 

The worst part of the day was one man who somehow decided it was appropriate to lean into me and tell me that I am cute. While I appreciate the compliment, I found it uncomfortable. There is a right way to compliment someone and then there’s stepping over boundaries. Nevertheless, I didn’t let it ruin my day and I was able to help him out until the end. 

I was also asked about how I would rate last week’s Ms. Kim’s Amazing Animals program. I brought up my complaints about how poorly she handled the noisy children. Apparently, it is actually the library staff/volunteers who are mostly responsible for keeping the children quite during the programs. I was not told this in the times I watched the shows. 

Overall, I had a really good time at the Center St. branch. Despite my initial wariness of the location, I really felt comfortable around almost everyone there, including all of the library goers. It actually really surprised me just how comfortable I felt there. Most of the time I knew what I was doing and I felt confident doing it. Almost everyone I spoke to had interesting stories, thoughts, and opinions. The library really felt like a good community space and so I think they accomplished their mission. 

In my time at the library, I learned a bit about staying patient, being clear with instruction, being more approachable, and understanding. Although I won’t be continuing with volunteering, I will definitely look back to my experiences here if I go through with my senior thesis idea. I’m interested in creating some kind of way to help elderly learn computer literacy along with the young. The use of libraries as a community resource for this kind of information would be interesting to utilize further.

Activities

conversed with patrons

helped a few people with the scanner/copier/printer

helped a few people with the computers

Learned

library staff are mostly responsible for keeping children quiet during programs

Challenges

maintaining professionalism when being “hit-on” by patrons

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Eleventh Day.

June 30, 2 hours at Center St. Super slow Saturday. I really didn’t do much. The highlight of the day was seeing a few kids and parents being excited about taking a selfie with Dewey.

Activities

conversed with patrons

helped a one person with the copier/printer

Learned

I really appreciate seeing how my actions can positively impact others

Challenges

nothing much

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Tenth Day.

June 27, 4 hours at Center St. 1.75 hours off-site. The past print-outs of Dewey were missing pages, so I had to print it again at work. I then cut the pages out at home so that I could put them together at the library and get him hung up as soon as possible. 

I had the help of the intern at the library, Nadia. It took an extra hour on top of my usual shift but we got it done!!!

Prior to putting Dewey together, I attended Ms. Kim’s Amazing Animals. She, her son, and her friend brought a bunch of animals: a hedgehog, a chinchilla, a snake, a bearded dragon, hermit crabs, another type of lizard, a tortoise, and more. The animals did some tricks like jumping or scurrying through sand. As the animals were walked around the room for patrons to pet them, Ms. Kim would present us with interesting facts.

There were 2 shows. The first show had only about 7 kids. It was tame and manageable. The second show had about 30 kids. It was much harder for Ms. Kim to handle the loud kids. Unlike the magician from the previous week, she would just speak louder over the kids. Despite this, I had a good time! 

The rest of the day consisted of putting Dewey together and we’ve already seen how that turned out.

Activities

conversed with patrons

watched an animal show!

put together a 50+ sheet tile print

Learned

even small human beings can be powerful if they’re with other small human beings

Challenges

aligning the tile print perfectly

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Ninth Day.

June 25, 3 hours at Center St. Didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, was super tired. Nothing interesting happened this time around. Just the usual computer and printing help. 

Activities

conversed with patrons

helped a few people with the scanner/copier/printer

Learned

nothing much

Challenges

nothing much

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Eighth Day.

June 20, 3 hours at Center St. All of my hours from now on will be from Center St because my supervisor allowed me take on an extra hour on most of my shifts until the class ends. I’ll be able to get all 35 hours which is a small stress reliever. 

This was one of the busiest days. It started off kind of slow, though, so I started reading To Kill A Mockingbird. A few people here and there needed help making copies. One gentleman needed a copy of his green card so I assisted him with getting that. 

Every Wednesday at 2 there is a special event at the library. This time it was a magician! I was able to sit in on it. Although the tricks and showmanship were directed toward the many children who showed up, I was still able to enjoy it. 

After the magic show I helped a few people get information on official computer classes being offered at the library as well as ways to get resume templates online. I made sure to explain my reasoning for picking certain sites over others, as well as how to avoid sites that are scamming or fishing for money. 

Towards the end of the day I helped with a potential craft project for the next story time. The theme was frogs so the intern and I created cardboard jumping frogs. Simple enough for even four year olds to do it. 

Activities

conversed with patrons

helped a few people with the scanner/copier/printer

taught someone how to get a two-sided color copy of an ID using templates in the copier

taught someone how to grab resume templates online and use them in word

watched a magic show!!

Learned

nothing much

Challenges

nothing much

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Seventh Day.

June 18, 3 hours at Center St. Same old, same old. I found out the monster cut out I printed out is missing pieces. It cost a lot of money to print it at the library so I’ll be printing a new one at work next week. Hopefully it’ll work out.

There were a few instances of kids (5-7) trying to download games onto the library computers. The library doesn’t allow that so I was there to tell them about other game sites that would work. One of the kids who seemed like she was the youngest, didn’t seem to understand or accept that the computer wasn’t going to let her do what she wanted to. So after I repeated what I told the other kids and she still insisted on trying to get it to work, I let her know about other game options and walked away.  

Soon after, there was a super hard storm that caused the lights to flicker. The computers started displaying an emergency message and preventing people from logging back in. So I didn’t get the chance to help anyone else even though I started staying an hour longer in order to meet 35 hours by the end of the semester. 

While I was in limbo, I helped Ms. Stewart and the intern. They pushed story time ahead because the rain meant not a lot of people would be attending at the usual hour. There were still a few kids hanging out in the library so Ms. Stewart invited them to story time and a craft project. I helped out with the craft project. We traced our hand, cut it out, and then curled it onto a pencil to create a flower. I liked that this activity was more one on one than the Central kick off where there were almost 10 kids at my station at a time. 

Activities

conversed with patrons

worked with kids on flower crafts

helped kids find games that would work on the limited access computers

Learned

I prefer one on one or small group interactions

the library has procedures involving a storm, but the staff I asked didn’t seem to know what they were ahead of time

Challenges

speaking to someone stubborn can make it hard to maintain patience and calmness

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Sixth Day.

Today was a long day. June 16, 5.5 hours. I started the day at Central. I finished packing the greeting cards last time so I wasn’t there for that this time. Saturday was the kick off celebration for the summer reading program. First of all, the children’s room at Central is freaking amazing. It’s huuuuuuge. Probably bigger than the Student Union/Cafeteria at MIAD. The ceilings were high enough for there to be a tall light house in it. There were large books at the entrance of the area and projectors placed colorful animal silhouettes and moving shapes on top of the books. 

Anyways, at the kickoff event there were several stations for the volunteers to man. These stations included the check-in table, crafts table, face painting, photo booth, kitchen, and cookie overflow area. I decided to volunteer for the crafts table. There we had materials like paper plates, streamers, googly eyes, foam stickers, crayons, etc so that the kids could create their own Super Reader Squad monsters. 

So I started my day off with a bunch of energetic kids that I don’t know how to talk to. It was fun, but it was hard because I can’t talk to kids like most people do. I prefer to talk to them just like I do with adults. I don’t like to praise people unnecessarily or help unless I can see that they really need it. This role wasn’t really suited for me because of this. I don’t really regret it, but I know now that I would rather not deal with super young kids (3-6 year olds).

30 minutes after the kick off, I went to Center St and continued with the monster cut out for the wall. I cut all of the pieces out while also helping a handful of people.

30 minutes after that, I went home, shoveled a lunch down and went to East Branch to continue paging slips. It was super relaxing compared to everything I did before. 

Activities

worked with kids and crafts to create custom Super Reader Squad monsters

continued working on the monster wall cutout for Center St

finished my last day at East doing paging slips

Learned

I prefer not to work with kids

Challenges

staying “happy” and being encouraging towards children

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Fifth Day.

June 14, 1.5 hours. I started doing paging slips at the East Branch. Like I’ve said before: in order to meet 35 hours by the end of the summer semester, I need to take on opportunities at other branches.

I biked over to the East Branch at 10am when it opens (side note: I really hate that all library branches don’t open earlier and close later). I was given a quick overview of what paging slips are and their process of completing them.

Paging is basically the process of going through the library to find books that people have put on hold and then setting them aside to put slips of paper in the book. These slips help people find the book they have put on hold more easily.

I was given a packet of paper which listed all of the books that have been put on hold. It includes information such as the call number, title, author, last return date, location, and if it’s a new book.

I found doing this to be kind of fun and like a scavenger hunt. It really satisfied my desire to check things off.

The most annoying part was finding books in the children’s section. The children’s section is organized the same way as the adult section but there are times where you can’t find a book because a kid has taken it out and then placed it in some spot the book wasn’t meant to be.

Whenever I couldn’t find a book, either because it was in the children’s section or because it was just recently returned, I would just circle it and let the other library workers find it. This is what they instructed me to do and I’m really glad that I didn’t have to waste my time when someone else would’ve definitely been able to find it faster.

Activities

found books, CDs and DVDs on hold to set them aside for the hold shelf

Learned

I never really questioned how my hold books got onto the shelves at the library. I always knew that some worker was probably putting them their but I never really thought about the process of someone actually going down a list and finding each individual book.  

Challenges

getting familiar with the placement of books. Fiction was weirdly split into sections organized by author but then there was another section organized by genre.

Questions

why split things like science fiction, romance, and mystery into separate call tags versus putting them all into the fiction category and listing them by author? In general, what was the decision making behind all of the sections at the library?

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Fourth Day.

June 13 - 3.5 more hours. 2 at Center St 1.5 at Central.

Center St was really slow, so I continued creating the wall decorations using the limited technology and software the library has. I stopped bringing my own laptop and stuff since day 1 due to fear of theft, so I had to use the library’s checkout laptops. I downloaded the .svg file of the Super Reader Squad monsters, edited them in an online Adobe Illustrator-like website, and then set up the tile print. It was interesting trying to problem solve in a situation that I’m not used to. I was also introduced to a new intern at the library who will be helping me put the whole monster together once the printout is all cut out. 

The work at Central was just packing greeting cards again. They’re being given out to members of the Foundation as a thank you. They didn’t give too many details and I didn’t ask for them. 

Activities

conversed with patrons

prepared wall decoration

packaged greeting cards

Learned

that volunteers are the ones who do menial tasks like packing cards

Challenges

working on a laptop with many restrictions to design something

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Third Day.

On June 11, I spent 2 more hours at MPL’s Center Street branch and also started volunteering at Central for 1.5 hours. Since I won’t be able to get all of my hours at one location, I’ve been in contact with MPL’s volunteer director. She has been super helpful and has been emailing me opportunities as soon as they’re available. 

At Center Street, it was another light-traffic day. As I headed toward the reference desk where I typically sit, there was a young teenager talking to Jenny, the summer reading program guru. Apparently he was asking about art careers and colleges, so we had a nice conversation about schools in the area, financial aid, and some good resources to look into. 

I think my favorite part about my experiences volunteering so far are the random conversations I get into with people. Everyone that I have encountered so far are genuinely nice people who seem super relaxed. It’s nice to be in that comforting environment compared to the stressed out and competitive (yet open) environment at MIAD. 

I worked with someone who insisted that they didn’t know how to use a computer. They wanted to get their pay stubs and their employer gave them some information on how to do it. It wasn’t enough for him to feel comfortable doing it on his own, so I asked him a few questions and each time he would say that he didn’t know how to use a computer. I simply replied with “We can teach you,” and then I lead him to the computers. I taught him how to move the mouse, that left click is how you select things, how to type capital letters and special symbols like @, and I taught him what an email is. 

The work at Central involved almost zero interaction with people. I was just putting together packs of 3 envelopes and cards. Each one was then tied together with twine. 

Activities

conversed with patrons

taught someone, who insisted they couldn’t use a computer, the basics of using a computer

packaged greeting cards

Learned

programming for libraries has to be planned months in advance in order to make it into the library’s official printed materials. 

programs that aren’t planned ahead of time are called pop-ups.

Challenges

choosing my words to encourage someone who is intimidated by technology

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Second Day.

On June 6, I spent another 2 hours at the MPL Center Street branch. It was a surprisingly slow day. As I was talking to my coworkers (if that’s the right word in this volunteering context), I let them know that I was a graphic designer. Since it was such a slow day, one of them suggested that I try to figure out how to decorate one of the walls in the children’s area better for summer reading.

The summer reading program has nicely designed characters who make up the “Super Reader Squad”. I thought that it’d be nice to recreate these monsters using construction paper so that kids who complete their summer reading can take selfies with the monsters. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pitch it to the person in charge of the children’s area since they left before I could. I hope to bring it up the next time I come in. 

Activities

helped a two or three with the scanner, the computer, and the printer

conversed with patrons

Learned

the faculty and managers are partly responsible for proposing ideas for programming at the libraries

Challenges

stepping away from a casual conversation with a patron in order to help someone

[anavillaramaservicelearning]

First Impressions.

I spent my first official day at the MPL Center Street Branch on Monday, June 4th from 1pm to 3pm . I’ve been to two other MPL branches, Central and East. Central is obviously the largest in both location and collection. East is smaller in collection size but it’s building is really nice and has plenty of room of study sessions. In comparison to those two, Center Street is not so impressive. 

First of all, it’s located in an area where a lot of crime happens. The exterior is your typical brick building and the interior is simple with a lot of warm colors. It felt like a typical library, but I was often reminded by my supervisor to lock up my belongings before I stepped away from them, to make sure I didn’t leave anything visible in my car, and that the bathrooms require keys that the patrons must request at the front desk. There are also 2 security guards keeping an eye out at all times. Libraries have always been one of my favorite places to relax in. The one at my high school, the one at my college, the one in my hometown, the Central MPL, and the East MPL branch are all places where I feel totally okay with leaving my belongings while I go search for a new book. So the Center Street branch is completely new territory for me.

Other than the safety concerns, it was largely just another library. I initially thought that it would be more like a tutoring center for computers, but it’s actually more like my experience as a lab tech in high school or as a technology assistant in college. 

Activities

received a tour of the place

met most of the faculty

shadowed my supervisor as she answered questions about the fax machine, copier and printer

helped a person or two with those devices (they were older adults but I will be working with people teens and up)

Learned

which sections of the library are most popular

not to do any typing or navigating for the patrons as it hinders their learning

Challenges

staying calm and patient with people don’t have much experience with computers (this wasn’t a challenge today, but I think it might be one in the future)

Questions

how can I change my body language or the way I speak to make the patrons as comfortable as possible?