Maine Media College Internship

It will be sad to see my library practicum at Maine Media Workshop + College come to an end. The staff there have made me feel right at home and the many hours I have spent re-arranging the materials has been therapeutic. It is a wonderful meditative environment, classical music playing in the background and a friendly casually professional staff interacting with each other, students, and always encouraging me with praise and appreciation for my efforts.

On Monday I am going to push to finish everything since the weather seems to be flirting with snow showers and an early winter seems around the corner. I can't drive long distances with my un-winterized car. I am bringing my daughter and her friend Amelia (both college aged) to help scan film scripts involving a time consuming process using the copier, naming files and storing them on the main drive.

Also working on two or three grants, one with a deadline of November 10th! I was happy to come home last week and find another assignment from School Library Journal on my doorstep waiting for me. I read a book about Biotechnology this morning and will begin the review soon.

Here are some photos showing the library "in process"

My first Book Review

On Sunday I emailed the book review editor of SLJ my first book review. It was for a children's art book. I hope they publish my review. It was fun writing it. Before 10/25/2011 I have to finish 3 reviews of non-fiction materials. I have perused them and find them acceptable but rather customary and predictable.

Back to Work

Last night I spent the night in accommodations provided by MMC so that I can get a bright and early start on finishing the inventory of the library collection and culling rare books so that I can start the actual process of re-shelving and in this re-organizing the library so that it can be more functional. Issues of space will immediately come into play.

I think I can make better use of the back wall of shelves by removing magazines and placing them in another space. As the collection is now, the biography section is separated (not all shelved in one space) and reference items are intermixed with other categories. Today I will continue with the inventory but will also make a list of my proposals to date. Before acting on them I will check with my site supervisor, Chris Urquart. I will also ask her if I may take some boxes of uncatalogued materials home with me to catalog over the weekend.

At breakfast this morning I met a lovely woman from New York City who is attending photography workshops with her husband. She is planning on soon retiring from real estate to pursue her hobby of photography. We talked about places in Maine that are picturesque, about the air quality which led to conversations about Portland, Oregon, my hometown where most of my family members still reside. I feel so fortunate to have lived most of my life in two healthy, beautiful states, Maine and Oregon.

I began my work day by clicking some digital photos of the library in order to gather some "before" photos which I can later upload for my graphic documentation of this internship.

Fighting for my Education

Traveling down the road, windows open, the breeze flowing through your helplessly chaotic hair, you delight in the limitless potentials lying ahead of you (all dappled in sunlight) when suddenly you hit that disastrous bump in the road that sends you careening to the right or left of your dreams.

Well, that happened to me this past week. I was thrilled and happy to begin my internship with the Maine Media College and even more thrilled when my first book review assignment from School Library Journal arrived by UPS on Thursday. But in the midst of all of these successes a devastating financial development cast a pall over everything as my future (and my college aged daughter's) hangs tenuously in the balance.

May I lie down on your couch as I tell how my troubles all began? All summer long my used vehicle intermittently flashed its engine light on; first it was the thermostat, then the brakes, and then (after letting one of my daughter's friends who is just learning how to drive gun the engine through a mine field of pot holes in the parking lot at the Ed Center) a huge piece of plastic molding from the underside of the car fell off leaving the underbelly of the vehicle wide open for disaster. All of these repairs took an unwelcome bite out of my summer earnings but I managed to squeak by and still finance my daughter's vacation to Florida. (She had a very rough junior year in college and deserved a get away). Her vacation paid off by the way, she was able to meet see interesting people and see some interesting things while getting lots of rest and rejuvenating sunshine. However, near the end of the summer the car broke yet again (this time it needed an adjustor kit and a new starter) and I had to resort to taking out a short term payday advance from one of those loan companies. Well, I finally found a company online which seemed credible and which had reasonable terms. I took out a series of three loans and successfully paid each back (with interest). However, in all of my shopping around online for the perfect loan scenario, a couple of these companies processed my inquiry for a loan as an automatic acceptance of their terms and loan amounts (see http://www.consumeraffairs.com/finance/cmg_group.html) for more details of this terrible company and to view similar complaints about them. Now I, who have been just barely making it from paycheck to paycheck, am in deep financial "dew dew". They have apparently hired a mediation company called "Worldwide" to serve me with papers to appear in court for a charge comparable to writing a bad check. I never approved this loan and when I tried to repay it they would only accept a debit or credit card. I wasn't about to give them this information and didn't think at the time about the alternative of purchasing a prepaid debit card. Anyway, they have humiliated me at work and threatened to serve me with papers in the workplace. I had to call in sick from work yesterday to avoid them. I work at a retirement community as a waitress in the dining room where 3 centenarians and other elderly enjoy fine dining. I'm not about to expose them to a potentially dramatic and/or traumatic scene in which I am served with papers by a bounty hunter. I feel like I have lost this job and my hours were being cut back anyway. Now, on top of this I have learned that the Maine Department of Labor did not approve my application for unemployment stating that my leaving a part time seasonal job I had processing blueberries on the pick over table (in addition to my waitressing job at night) in order to attend school full time was a personal reason. Huh? Obtaining a degree is a personal reason, not a legitimate reason to leave a PT seasonal job? I explained to the adjudicator that this semester I am taking Biology with a lab, and Statistics (which is hard for me as I have never really liked math all that well) and a library practicum which is a 2 hour drive from my home and requires me to work 20 - 30 hours per week. Needless to say I am discouraged. I don't even have enough money to pay rent on time or the rest of my daughter' tuition. She wasn't all that happy living on campus in Machias, Maine so we have mutually decided to withdraw her from her classes and to regroup. This is her senior year yet I feel relieved to have her leave the traditional college scene which customarily includes overindulgence in alcohol and casual or experimental sex (things which she has blessedly escaped to date).

So, I need to deal with these things and gain control of my emotions and fears and study math and prepare for a test in Biology and make a plan for the future and decide how to make everything work.

Wednesday, September 21st

Today was another sunny clear autumn day in Maine which found me traveling on the road from Blue Hill to the Camden-Rockport area to work on site at the Maine Media College. I arrived on the campus around 9:30 after stopping in at the Ed Center in Rockland to print some inventory forms. After saying hello to Chris Urquart (who continues to be a phenomenal contact for me there - getting me set up with housing and free meals, and connected to IT personnel like Peter Kuhns who issued me a complimentary laptop today in order to work) I jumped right in and went to work. My first objective is to take an inventory of the current collection, getting an idea of what kind of order it is in while becoming familiar with their classification of books. The collection seems to have most everything classified as TR = Photography (using the Library of congress classification system- instead of a more detailed Dewey Decimal organization which separates books by type and topic more than the general designation of "photography". While sorting through the very interesting yet haphazard shelves of books, I culled the Rare Books (as per the advisement of Charles Altschul) and placed approximately 10-12 rare books in his office where they will be safely stored until we can purchase some type of lockable book case which will display them nicely. I told President Altschul that I will keep my eyes open for yard sales and estate sales, looking for an affordable yet distinguished piece of furniture in which to store the laudable collection of rare books.

Tonight I am weary from the drive and from working a waitressing shift this evening. The call to study math and biology fades as my heavy eyelids answer the beckoning voice of sleep. I have a lot to do tomorrow and am so happy with my progress today though I will be more focused on my project next week when my hours at the waitressing job are cut back to a minimum.

When Peter Kuhns issued my laptop today we had a chance to discuss my objective to create an online presentation of the print collection and photo collection using Omeka. He suggested that I research using the college's current proxy which is Drupal instead so that whatever I do will be integrated with the college's website. It makes perfect sense and by using Drupal he may be able to help me troubleshoot and implement open source API's as necessary.

I have a lot to do tomorrow! Stay tuned!

I'm Here

The drive to Maine Media College was lovely this morning. It is approximately one hour before my meeting with college personnel. The college doesn't currently have a librarian so I am hoping that the internship will still meet the requirements which state that I should be supervised by a person with a MS in Library Science. I think this specification can be waived.

I am going to suggest that as part of my internship I implement an online presentation of the photos and film clips which are part of the library collection at Maine Media Workshop and College using Omeka software as a web publishing application.

Wish me luck!

Thursday 9/15/2011

Tomorrow I will meet with personnel from Maine Media College. I have map quested my driving route and learned that the trip will take approximately one hour and twenty nine minutes and is 57.12 miles. Although this afternoon is a gray, rainy day tomorrow is expected to be "Sunny and breezy. Highs around 60. Northwest winds 15 to 20 mph with gusts up to 30 mph." My car is in relatively good working order although it doesn't like to start on the first, second, or third try and the engine light is on which is inconvenient right now to say the least. I just keep driving it and saying my prayers everyday, thanking God (my higher power) for His benevolence in all things including my poverty and neediness.

I hope to make a good first impression on the personnel I wil be meeting with. I am reminded that before going home for the night, I should stop by Wal Mart to pick up a small plant for the desk of Christine Urquart as a thank you for all of her efforts to coordinate this internship on short notice.

Another development in the ongoing saga of me completing my library practicum is that Trevelyn Jones, an editor of School Library Journal, will be sending me my first assignment tomorrow in order to conduct a book review for said journal. This is very exciting for me and I hope to incorporate into my practicum.

I wonder how my fantastically sweet and brilliant daughter is doing at college. We talk briefly every night before going to bed yet still throughout the day I think of her.

I am on track with my Biology class but will have to press in order to stay current in my Statistics class. Adieu for now friends.