A View from the Stacks - Intern's Journal Week 3

Our wonderful interns Casey and Chelsea have completed their internships and are headed back to school, but they left us with a vivid journal recounting their summer adventures in the Library.  Stay tuned for future editions of  "A View from the Stacks" which will continue to appear on the blog during the next few weeks.

Week 3 – Collections Development and Management


At the beginning of the week, Laura told Chelsea and I we would be helping with collections development by choosing one shelf in the library for an up-to-date inventory. The Library completed a full inventory in 2008, but the shelves are always shifting and changing. We were to go through the shelf, enter basic information about the books into a spreadsheet, flag books in need of relocating or repair, and suggest new books for the shelf. For time and sanity’s sake, Laura encouraged us to choose a shelf that housed books mainly on one subject or a single artist. Since we would be suggesting new books to add, Laura advised us to choose an artist we were familiar with. Based on this information I couldn’t imagine this project taking more than a day – it’s only one shelf, right? The library quickly erased my preconceptions once again.

First – choose one shelf from the painting section of the stacks. This should be the easy part, right? But how does one choose a single shelf in a library of nearly 2,000 shelves! My traditional taste led me towards the exquisite Flemish painters, but choosing a single painter among the thousand of painters within the stacks felt like asking a mother to choose her favorite child. I was afraid of hurting some poor artist’s feelings and worried they would impair my painting skills from the grave forever! So instead of risking any forsaken future, I decided to choose a shelf no one could argue with – 15D – Vermeer. The Chrysler Museum currently has a Johannes Vermeer painting on display in the gallery. Surely there could be no better time to scour through his shelf. I loaded the contents of 15D onto my book cart and went on my way without a trace of guilt.

Several hours into this project, I began to ask myself why I had foolishly neglected to learn French, German, and Dutch. These staples of Flemish art served as roadblocks when trying to read the book titles, but thank goodness Google Translator!

Although this project took much longer than I had originally anticipated, all the listing, flagging, bar-coding, pulling, and re-shelving of books taught me the importance of being meticulous and organized when working in a library. Also, that I need to invest in Rosetta Stone before entering graduate school.

The Vermeer contents of shelf 15D currently sit on the shelves of the library’s reading room for easy public access. Seeing these books specially displayed in the library’s entrance has reassured me that our work as interns is indeed valuable to the Chrysler Museum’s visitors.
 
- Casey Nye, 2010 Summer Library Intern