Essentially, Indiana University Libraries serve as a “teaching hospital” for students enrolled in the library and information science programs at IU. The libraries provide employment opportunities where library students are able to gather real-world, “boots on the ground” experiences in library operations. Library students in even the most banal positions are often given additional responsibilities to get a well-rounded understanding. In addition, many students seek internships in the libraries, and the music library is no exception. Therefore, it is our privilege and responsibility to the profession to provide such internships, offering our wealth of knowledge and expertise to our students. And I consider mentoring to be a crucial part of my relationships and interactions with those who have come after me in the field.

Even before coming to IU to serve on the library faculty where teaching is part of what I get to do, I was already focused on providing similar opportunities to librarianship students and recent graduates. At SMU, I employed recent grads in music cataloging for some paraprofessional positions with the intention of allowing for greater flexibility in responsibilities than outlined in the job duties. Yes, professionals in paraprofessional positions is not ideal, and can easily be interpreted as counter-productive, but may actually be a useful step in the career path of a degree-carrying librarian (see my research and presentations to that point). At the time, the market was tough with fierce competition and I understood that practical experience post-MLS was crucial to getting a leg up on the competition. And I went in knowing that anyone coming in with the degree would be transient–in fact, I encouraged the transience, specifically treating the position as an educational opportunity that was intended to be temporary. Birds have got to leave the nest!

Also, teaching and helping others has always been one of my natural abilities (you will hear many teachers and librarians say the same), and has led to the basis of my own career path, starting with an undergraduate degree focused on music education and therapy. Being at IU and being able to be a librarianship educator/mentor is essentially what I have been working toward in 8 years of higher education and 8 years in the profession.

I have spent most of my first months trying to find my way in the day-to-day of my position (see Trial by Fire: On-Boarding Edition for more on that). I have also been called upon on many occasions to provide direction, expertise, and explanation of miscellaneous tidbits of information. For a lot of it, especially cataloging in the local system and the still-unsettled RDA, I’ve had to adopt the mindset of just jumping in and figuring it out as I go–trial by fire. Ironically, that is what I disliked the most my undergraduate experience (which I’m sure I will talk about in good time), and quite different from my cataloging education while I was a student here.

Trial by fire was also the mindset I took when, within the first week of work, I was approached by a student to do an internship in the summer. Of course my initial reaction was, “wow! I feel so honored to be asked!” And when the first word out of my mouth was, “sure!” I immediately started justifying the situation, telling myself “I’m going to have to do this eventually, I might as well jump right in” and “it’s not until the summer, I’ve got plenty of time to get myself settled and beef up on my own knowledge” and also “this will force me to spend more time cataloging in RDA myself.”

I have certainly beefed up on my knowledge, that is for sure. I *think* I am even a lot more comfortable maneuvering around and working in RDA–now I just have to make more time. And it has also jump started my efforts in the NACO Music Project again. But it’s also shown me a lot of examples of how I should do things differently next time.

When I was learning, I spent at least the first 2 weeks of my time reading–the rules, the books about the rules, the framework, the books about the framework, the resources about music-specific issues–surely thousands of pages worth of information. Without a lot of practical exposure, though, so much of it was utterly lost on me in the moment. After reading, I started reviewing, editing, or creating records as needed, each one from start to finish in a day or two, under the very close watch of my mentor.

Instead I decided to take an approach that sort of followed the inherent path of RDA, pairing relevant readings with practical applications throughout the semester. This would mean that we would work through a group of records all at the same time, but the complete process would take weeks to complete entire records.

Because RDA is still fairly new and many records for the items we need cataloged have been done under the previous rules, I thought it would be confusing to have to go through creating new records in one set of rules while also copy cataloging in two sets of rules. So, I decided to just create new records where needed. I also decided to do some repetitive tasks on multiple records at once, to promote “muscle memory” of sorts. This meant reading about how to describe certain elements or characteristics, then applying what we learned to several records, but not completing a record until we had read and applied all of the characteristics to all of the records. We also started off-line, dumping descriptive data elements into a worksheet I created, where we first input RDA-based info and then went back and paired it with MARC.

The upside of this is we get to explore multiple different scenarios and see how they compare. The downside is that we don’t get very far very fast. By the end of my internship I had created at least a dozen original records and done a bunch of editing/upgrading as well. I kept a portfolio of every record I touched, and filled a 2-inch binder. This summer, we will get through 5, maybe 8-10 original records at most.

I was also keen on giving a broader perspective on what it means to be a cataloger. So, my intern has been working on some collection management and database maintenance projects as well, which also take up some of the time. I tried to create some variety in the schedule (M-F, 1p-5p) by designating Mondays as alternate project days, and Fridays as reading days. The best laid plans…add in holidays and vacation time and other sundry summer obligations, and I found that I had to be much more flexible in when we did what. And in reality, the one project which is on track is one of the “broad perspective” projects.

This trial has certainly been educational for me. I understand more of what I need to learn and do to better myself as a cataloger and teacher. I have added to the list of expectations I will lay out for future interns, and for myself. I only hope the same can be said for the poor intern who had to deal with my growing pains.

Lessons learned:

• Lay out expectations at the beginning, and be considerate of my own needs (every day is probably not the best schedule for me!)
• Start with ALL reading, and assign review readings throughout the semester
• Pre-select the recordings to be completed, and do a trial run of each to know what’s coming (this practice can probably be abandoned after a few years as my confidence grows)
• Start with copy cataloging (using pre-selected RDA records) to get familiar with MARC first
• Be more flexible in the semester schedule

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Disclaimer:
All words and images are my own. If they are not, they are cited as such to give proper attribution to the intellectual property owners.
No words or images reflect the opinions or viewpoints of my current, former, or future employers and educational institutions. They are from my own viewpoint.