Greensboro College Practicum, Day 2 (5/21/09)

I began my day at 9:00 a.m.

This morning I worked with Unicorn WorkFlows which is the Jones Library's cataloging software. It is a product produced by SirsiDynix. After I read through the Cataloging and Authority Control training guide I began to explore the program. I pulled up some MARC records with it, and studied them to compare which fields were used and which were omitted. When I felt comfortable, I created a MARC record of my own from some books we will be cataloging this summer. The Jones Library is having problems with Classweb, so I used WorldCat to access classification information. From there I was able to compare the record I had created to other libraries' records.

After lunch Jennie and I went down to cover the reference desk. From there Jennie let me take care of the ILL requests that had came in this morning. Using FirstSearch I located and requested the books that a professor needed for his summer research. I also prepared a book to be sent out to a requesting library. Also during that time two professors came in to pick up books they had requested through ILL.

When we were finished covering the reference desk, Jennie and I went up to her office so she could look over the MARC records for the books I had cataloged. My records were all correct. Jennie then walked me through different aspects of Unicorn WorkFlows. She showed me a template that I will be using later when we catalog the theses.

After Jennie left, I continued to work with Unicorn WorkFlows and I also read over the TSARS manual that Jennie made available to me. TSARS stands for Technical Services and Resources. It is a group of technical services librarians that represent each of the NC-PALS institutions. The TSARS manual goes over different rules or standards for using WorkFlows at one of the NC-PALS institutions. Different NC-PALS institutions are assigned different MARC fields for different uses. Greensboro College is assigned fields 970-979.) Each institution is given a "call number" to represent it. (Greensboro College's is KQX.)

I left the library at 5:30 p.m.