Full Practicum Journal

September 21-22
My first day at the Paris-Bourbon County Library mainly consisted of me learning the
layout of the library and some of the basic functions of the circulation desk. I’ve never had the
opportunity to work in a library prior to my time at Dominican University so it took a second to
become familiar with their procedures, and how they check books in. I also learned about how
this library separates its books into genres. For non-fiction the use Dewey, and for the fiction
they mainly separate it by age, and have those separated into different rooms. They also have a
lot of audiobooks and dvd’s, and since this is an ageing community, those tend to circulate a lot.
The one section that they had that was unique was their POP section, which consists of all of
their trade paperbacks. These aren’t organized by genre, but they are a distinct section. Genre is
denoted by stickers on the spine. Each section also has a new section where materials that they
have obtained in the last three month reside. All of this is to say that I learned a lot about library
organization and how that can be used to meet the unique needs of an individual community.
This is a smaller library for an older population, and their organization reflects that.
The second day had me spend more time on the circulation desk, but I learned about an
interesting program that the library has that shows outreach and collaboration between public
and school libraries in the community. Apparently the Paris-Bourbon County library partners
with the Bourbon County Public School and the Paris Public School to get public library cards
into the hands of every student. The cards are then given to the students in class, and don’t
require the parents to come in and fill out a form with them or travel to the library to get a card. I
filled out a spreadsheet matching students to their library card number, and even though it was a
small contribution it was interesting being part of a process that I bet helps a lot of students get
more access to library materials. It was interesting to see this link between the school and public
library systems and take part in helping the program run for a short time.

Sept 28 - 29
My second week had me learning about the outreach work the library does for its patrons
in this community. I mentioned before that this area has a large aging community, and one of the
interesting things that the library offers is that instead of using a bookmobile, they get requests
from specific patrons and the outreach coordinator will personally go out and deliver the books.
This is a small enough community that the number of people requesting this service is relatively
small, and they can keep up with the demand. For many of the older people in this community,
the visit from the library outreach coordinator is one of the few visits they get. This makes this
an invaluable service, and it was devastating to hear about how the coordinator is no longer able
to have those same conversations with patrons due to COVID concerns. It’s a necessary
restriction, but I still feel for the people who lost that little bit of communication. Regardless they
still get access to library materials, and I had the opportunity to do some readers advisory. The
patrons that use this program have a list of genres that they like, and with that list I got to pick
out books for them to read, with guidance from the outreach coordinator.
 On the second day of this week I got to look at a different outreach project, where the
library is attempting to open up a new branch in the neighboring community of Millersburg.
There was not much that I could contribute to this, but shadowing the site visit I was able to get a
look into all the considerations that have to go into opening a new location. From designing the
library room to how the electrical and wiring is done to allow the library tech to run, but not go
over budget. The director and assistant director also told me a bit about how the library was
funded and how this differs in KY compared to other states. After getting back I was also given a
rundown on how interlibrary loans are done, and got to see this process. I also got my first look
at the KY genealogy room, which has a lot of local history. Patrons can come in and research the
local files of the area to find information of their ancestors. Not only is their access to
ancestry.com, but the unique local materials that they have can supplement and add to what they
find on that site. Making the library an important place for genealogical research.

Oct 5 - 6
For my third week things have started to settle in. I’m working the circulation desk more,
with bigger projects happening more intermittently. For this week, aside from circulation, my
main interests were the seed library and pulling holds and reserves. I had initially leared about
the seed library in my first week, so I knew what it was, but this week I was tasked with
restocking it. Someone has to put all the seeds into little pouches for one person, and while I
wasn’t doing that exactly, it was something I became aware of as I pulled out pouches to put in
the desk of drawers behind the information desk. Now I got to see the amount of variety that the
library offered, and it was kind of amazing how many seeds they needed to restock it. Paris
Kentucky is a rural community, so it’s not very surprising that the seed library is extensive, and it
seems like the library has done a lot of work to promote it. I even learned my own mother had
taken out some seed recently. It’s nice to see this fun idea continue to be successful in this
community despite Covid setbacks.
The other new task I got involved pulling holds and reserves. This was mainly part of my
training on the circulation desk, but I still thought it was interesting enough to put here. Every
week the library takes their materials that are labeled new on the shelf and removes the books
that have been on the shelf longer than three months. It’s interesting because there are less
patrons physically in the library, but I have noticed that when patrons come in, I don’t usually see
them browsing the shelves. They tend to congregate near where all the new books are. Which
makes sense, but I just thought it was interesting to see. I also got to pull books off of the shelves
for people that had put holds on books. What was interesting to me about this task was the books
I could not find. I didn’t ask for exact numbers, but it was really apparent how easy it is for a
book to get lost, especially in the children’s sections. I did my best to find the books that other
people had trouble finding, but did not have much success. I forgot to ask, but next time I
remember I’ll see what they do when they have a book on hold that is missing.

October 12 - 13
 For week four, aside from my time on the circulation desk, checking in and out books, I
got to spend a bit of time by myself on the Information Desk upstairs. The info desk differs from
the circulation desk in that books don’t get checked out there, people can go to it to ask
genealogy questions, and the person running it is also monitoring the time for the people who are
using the computers upstairs. There was a short portion of my practicum this week where I got
the chance to work this desk by myself. It was mostly uneventful, but I was on high alert because
I had never been left on something alone, and was worried about possibly making a mistake.
Nothing happened, I only had a single phone call, but I was worried I would get asked a question
and flounder. It’s the information desk, but I felt like I didn’t have all the information. Sitting
there alone, thinking of all the things I could be asked, it was just interesting to see how much
information the librarian on the desk has to have on hand for patron’s questions. They have to
know the systems for the computers, how to run the copier, and answer basic questions about the
genealogy section. It feels like a lot, and I’m sure I’ll get more comfortable with it the longer I’m
up there.
They also put me in charge of adding invoices to patrons accounts for this week. The
Paris-Bourbon library did away with fines during Covid, and that has stuck since they’ve been
open in person. However patrons can still get fined for the cost of materials if they don’t bring in
items after a certain point. My job this week was to manually block their accounts from being
able to check out and then adding fees to their account. It was just interesting seeing how much
work was involved with keeping up with all the items that are out of the library. Also, for a small
library that runs these invoices every week, I was surprised by how many people needed to be
invoiced. I know it’s not uncommon for patrons to not turn back in materials, but knowing
something and seeing it feel completely different. After that I created letters to send to the
patrons informing them of their overdue items. Overall, I’m enjoying getting to see all the
various bits and pieces that come together to help a library run. Even this small library has so
many little systems that need to run well in order for the place to function, and I’m glad I can
help with that.

Oct 19 -20
This week had me at another meeting regarding the new branch that the Paris-Bourbon
library is opening in the nearby community of Millersburg. This one was mostly about how they
were going to best utilize the space that was available to them, since they only have one room for
their new branch. There was a lot of thought that went into what types of books are most needed
for the community that lives there and how to space things out in that small room so that Covid
distancing is possible. In addition to that, the assistant director pulled me in to talk to me a bit
about how the library gets its funding, and what resources exist in the state of Kentucky. The
Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives (KDLA) is a great resource that has statistics for
all of the libraries across the state. She told me a bit about the process that the library has to go
through to make sure that the KDLA gets that information, but mostly made me aware of where
these records were publicly available.
 At one point during this week, the director pulled me in to talk about the Board of
Trustees and some of the forms that the library needs to fill out every year to get funding and
remain operational. We went over his schedule of topics that he goes over with the Board every
month, and he explained the role of the board, how people are elected to it, and how state
legislation can drastically affect the opportation of the library. I’m not sure how he keeps all his
forms straight, but it gave me a taste of the necessary work a director needs to do to keep a
library operational. Lastly, I learned how the library labels and stamps their new books. A lot of
books come with a barcode directly from their vendor, Baker and Taylor, but when books don’t
already come shipped with those thng, there is a process to get them ready to be on the shelf. I
got to help get a few of these books ready, and the process involved a lot of stickers. Also
learned how to mylar a book, before I left for the week.

October 26 - 27
I’m lumping these two weeks together because I’ve been put on a project that is time
consuming, but does not evolve much the further I get into it. For the past four days of my
practicum I’ve been on a project to help catalogue and take stock of the library’s inventory of
microfilm. While most of the library’s microfilm do have barcodes, they haven’t actually been
put into their OPAC system. My job has been to fill out a spreadsheet to make the Head
Cataloger’s job easier when she does add these things to the OPAC system. The spreadsheet
takes account of the title of the microfilm, and what kind of data the microfilm has on it, the
number on the microfilm that keeps it in order in its physical cabinets, the barcode number, and
whether that number corresponds with anything in their OPAC anyway. There are a couple boxes
of microfilm that are cataloged in the system, but most of them are unavailable. So I have to
cross-check with their OPAC whenever I add a box of microfilm to the spreadsheet.
The process is very time consuming, and I can usually get through two draws in 3 to 4
hours. Looking at the two chests of microfilm it doesn’t seem like it would take that long, but
there is a lot of history packed within those two chests. What I think is most striking about
looking through all this film, is just how localized it is. There are records in their from the 1800s
that detail Land Ownership and Deeds. There are full scans of various local newspapers. There is
a comprehensive list of death certificates that cover decades of the 1900s. The Death Certificates
alone have taken up five drawers and I’m still not done with them. I just think about how much
of a resource this is to the local community, and how much historical preservation must be
happening in these small town local communities, that aren’t usually thought about. If I didn’t
grow up in Paris, I wouldn’t think much about how much history this tiny town has, but it’s nice
to know that if I wanted to know, the local library is keeping a record.

Nov 9 - 10
This week at the library I spent Tuesday completely finishing up the microfilm project.
By the time the previous week ended I only had a couple more drawers left. So I used my time
on that Tuesday to power through the rest of the microfilm so it could be properly cataloged.
Getting to the end of their records, I noticed that they have records that go up past the year I was
born. It’s interesting to me that they were keeping microfilm records during my lifetime. What I
mean by that is, microfilm to me feels like an older technology, and with everything being
digitized it seems like microfilm may slowly become obsolete in some cases. One of the
librarians who works in Genealogy said that at some point the microfilm reader will probably be
phased out. However, during my own lifetime microfilm was being made pretty regularly. I think
it definitely shows how quickly tech is moving forward, and how it must be a struggle for some
libraries to keep up with newer ways of digital archiving. I hope that microfilm sticks around for
awhile though.
The other project I worked on this week involved the seed library. The seed library is
opening up again this coming January, and because of this there are a large amount of seeds that
need to be put in envelopes and packed. I did a bunch of work on this on Wednesday, but it is not
solely my project. The entire part-time staff at the Paris Bourbon County library chip in. When
people are stationed at the circulation desk, it’s not uncommon for someone to be sitting there
packing seeds into little envelopes and putting sticker labels on them. This really shows to me
the sheer number of seeds that the library provides to the community, and how much work is
involved with keeping the seed library up and running every year. I’m glad I can help take some
of the burden off the staff by packing seeds for them. It would definitely be a hard job to do if
you had to do it by yourself.

Nov 16 -17
This week, as a followup to my microfilm cataloging project, the head of the Genealogy
department showed me how to use the microfilm reader. During my cataloging project, I didn’t
actually handle any of the microfilm in the boxes, I just catalogued the titles and barcodes. I was
a bit nervous considering I had never handled microfilm before, but Suzanne Dungan, the head
of Genealogy, assured me that microfilm is a pretty durable medium. She showed me how to
load the reader and use their digital viewing system, and grabbed a couple different roles of
microfilm for comparison. The first was a scan of a Paris, KY newspaper called the Paris Daily
Enterprise written in the 1800s. It was interesting to see all the local historical information that
could be gleaned from this newspaper. She compared that to a microfilm of a 1997 local
newspaper. 1997 is the year I was born so funnily enough we were able to find an article written
by my grandmother in the paper the day after I was born. It’s experiences like that that show me
the value of keeping these old local documents archived, I can’t imagine how amazing it is for
some people to look back and see records of their family that they weren’t even aware existed.
Another thing that was important this week was that the library director invited me to sit
in on a Board of Trustees meeting. These meetings are open to the public, but if I hadn’t been
invited I don’t think I would have thought to go. The topic of discussion was a yearly audit of the
library. Paris-Bourbon County Library did well on their audit with no errors, but it was still
interesting to look at because it gave me a glimpse of what goes into the upkeep of a library
civically. The big issue in Kentucky is the underfunded pension system. The library is really
concerned with the possibility that the local government might make them responsible for paying
into more of the pension system, even though they’re already paying a huge chunk. I can see
how this affects the library in its day to day operations because it incentivises hiring part-time
employees over full-time ones. There are a lot more part-time people employed than full-time
people.

Nov 23 - 24
This week I spent a lot of time on circulation, but the main thing that was different is that
they put me up on the Information Desk instead of having me downstairs checking out books.
Normally the person working on the information desk is up there by themselves, and their main
job is to shelve books that are brought upstairs, oversee the computer lab, and take down any
information for genealogy requests to give to the head of genealogy, Suzanne Dungan. I had
someone up on the desk with me, but I was a bit nervous about it. The shelving and overseeing
of the computer lab I was confident about. Those things are pretty standard, giving people that
don’t have library cards access and more time on the computer, and shelving is shelving. The
thing that really made me nervous was genealogy. The PBCL has a section of their upstairs
dedicated to the topic called the Kentucky room. This room is full of local files and history, and
the head of Genealogy knows it very well. However, most of the documents in that room have
not been digitized or catalogued so if someone came up to me requesting something, I don’t
inherently know where it is, and I can’t look it up.
There is a procedure for this if someone comes up or if you get a phone call asking for
information. There is a form that you're supposed to fill out and then give to Suzanne, that takes
down information like names, dates, and any other specific notes that the person making the
request wants to add. My worry mostly was making sure I could get down all this information
while on the phone with someone. I do have a phone anxiety that I’m working my way through,
but with the area I’m in and people living here sometimes having thick southern accents, I have
taken many phone calls where I have not understood a single thing someone said. I didn’t get any
requests on this particular shift, but it was still something I had to think about and prepare myself
for. The procedure makes sense, and even though the person on the Information Desk might not
be directly dealing with someone’s genealogy request there is still a required amount of active
listening and remembering that is needed to work the desk effectively.

Nov 30 - Dec 1
This week, the Paris-Bourbon County library was doing a lot of prep work for the new
Millersburg branch that is planned to open in the new year. Even though the new branch is just
going to be one old school room in the former Millersburg highschool, there is still plenty of
space to fill up with new books. This week a lot of book orders came in all at once, and with
boxes taking up a lot of the office space, I helped the librarian in charge of cataloging get a lot of
the books prepared to go to the new branch. At the PBCL, they stamp the top of the book with
the name of the library and it’s address, and on the inside they stamp it with the date that the
book was processed. For the Millersburg branch, they also have a set of stickers that have to go
on the back and spine to mark the books obviously as belonging to that branch. I spent several
hours each day this week doing this process to boxes full of books. It was repetitive, but I found
it interesting to look at what books were being bought brand new for the branch.
Millersburg, like Paris, is an ageing community, so not only were there a significant
number of large type books in the batch, there also weren’t a lot of middle grade and young adult
books. Most of the decently sized books that I processed fell into specific genre categories as
well. Not only bestsellers, but there were a lot of western books by William W. Johnstone and
Amish romances. I’m not sure how popular these genres and authors are nationally, and I know
this is a bit anecdotal, but my grandparents live in Millersburg and those are definitely the things
that they tend to read. I just think it’s interesting seeing how the books that the population tend to
check out reflect on their interests and culture. It was also interesting considering the space issue.
As I said before, middle grade and YA was not very represented, but there were a good number
of picture and board books. Even though the librarians of the PBCL don’t think there will be a
lot of young children using that branch, books for young children tend to be so thin that you can
fit a good amount on even one bookshelf. The library director had me count how many could fit,
and the average I got per shelf was anywhere from 50 to 70. It’s nice to see this branch coming
together.

Dec 8 - 9
This week was my last at the Paris-Bourbon County library, so it was a pretty relaxed
couple of days. They didn’t put me on any new big projects because I wouldn’t be there much
longer, so they mostly had me working circulation and helping process new books. I really grew
to like a lot of the people that work there so it was a bit sad to think about the fact that this
practicum is over now. Thinking back on my time there, I feel like I really got a lot out of this
experience. Not just with the bigger projects that I helped out with, but also the opportunity to do
the mundane tasks that have to be done everyday to keep a library up and functioning. There are
so many services that the library provides for the community, and even though I was there for
months and felt like I had just started to grasp what was going on, I also felt like there was still a
lot I could have learned had I stayed there longer. There are just so many little bits of the job that
really only come intuitively after they have been experienced.
Before leaving on my last day I talked with Mark, the library’s director. I was hoping that
I had done a good job with all of my time there, and when we spoke her told me that he was glad
to have me for the few months that I was here. I’m really glad that I was able to be of use to this
library that I’ve been going to since I was a little kid. I really feel like I owe a lot to them for
getting me on the track to wanting to be a librarian in the first place. This experience is
something I will take with me into my future career. I believe they run things as well as they can
at that library, and it will be the basis on which I compare my other library jobs. I know that each
library is different as each have a different community to cater to, and I’m excited and interested
to see what library I end up in next.