Practicum Log (Summer 2026)

 Introduction:

    My 8-hour increments will be divided between 2 4-hour workdays on Mondays and Tuesdays from 4pm-8pm, and full 8.5-hour shifts on Fridays from 9:30am to 6pm. I will note any exceptions and/or special circumstances.

My supervisor for all entries will be my practicum's host: Roanoke Public Library's assistant director, Alicia Holston

Log #1: 5/18 & 5/19: "A Steady Start"

I had done a lot of volunteer work at this library prior to starting this practicum, so wearing into my duties and activities was easy. They had me doing a lot of shelving and straightening. It had been a while since I'd done any work at the library, so this slower start was likely to help me get back into practice.

I mostly did this work in the kids' section, as that's the area that gets the most activity. Something I hadn't been asked to do prior until now was take damaged books to the staff area. One of the circulation clerks, Su handles damaged resources, so I take them directly to her, or give them to Alicia if Su isn't here. I'd found a couple, all in the kids' section.

This is one of the damaged books I'd found. It's an Early Board book meant for babies.

Log #2: 5/22: "Start of the Series...Check"

The circulation clerk I'd mentioned, Su had me start working on a bigger project beyond what my volunteer experience entailed. She logged me into the library's online catalog and it's resource management software, Koha so that I may start a series check for the library. What that means is that I'll be scouring the shelves for serialized chapter books to make sure no volumes are misplaced, unowned, etc., and make a note of any issues accordingly.

I started with the kids' section, as that's where a lot of books go missing or just get mismatched. Su showed me how to use Koha's advanced search feature to help me search for items that should be available, and how to check if they're withdrawn, overdue, etc. It was daunting at first, but I eventually got comfortable using the software and was able to effectively search with it alongside the online catalog to help me carry out my task.

Here is an image of me using the Koha system in question. As an example, I was perusing the library's collection of volumes from the Magic Tree House series of kids' books.

Log #3: 5/25 & 5/26: "A Shift Half-Full"

That Monday was Memorial Day, so the library was obviously closed, but I'm still counting this would-be 8 hours as a full 8 hours for the sake of consistency. It's still worth mentioning, as it created a clever opportunity to make up those lost 4 hours early on, which I'll mention when relevant.

But onto Tuesday. Su had me resume the series check. I made a lot of progress but couldn't quite finish the kids' section. This was due to both time and the fact that the laptop she's got me using doesn't have the best battery life, so I had to find something else to do.

Something the library does have is what's called the Formal Book Shop. It's a shelf of books near the service desk where weeded resources are offered for purchase at tiny prices, as a way of supplemental income. Problem is that it's often woefully unorganized, so Alicia and Su asked me to help reorganize it a little.

This is the Formal Book Shop in question. A chaotic assortment of genres and formats line it's shelves, so keeping it intuitively organized is a herculean task, as it entirely depends on what resources happen to get weeded.

Log #4: 6/1 & 6/2: "The Series (Check) Continues"

At long last, I've completed the series check for the kids' section. It got easier as I got more comfortable with using Koha and knowing what I was looking for. Now I move on to Middle Grade literature. It's clear to me this series check will likely be the bread-and-butter project of my practicum.

But I also got to help check books back in at the circulation desk. We have an external and internal book drop from which book returns are collected and checked back in. Some of the returns were from other libraries within our local consortium, were already on hold, etc., so I had to label those and help get them in their appropriate spots.

Here's me at the check-in computer behind the service desk. After collecting resources from the book drops, I brought them here to be checked back in. The book in my hand has been labeled as to be returned via courier to the Keller Public Library.

Log #5: 6/5: "Event Prep"

So for a little over the first half of the day, I resumed my series check with the Middle Grade literature. I managed to get really far, partially because every section that's not the kids doesn't tend to get messy often. But the big focus of today was getting ready for an event going on tomorrow: the Living Library.

The Living Library is an event we hold regularly, and it's basically us hosting a variety of performers the entire day. I got to help with the setup and was given directions as to what I'd be doing tomorrow. This event is the make-up for my lost hours for Memorial Day I'd mentioned, as it'd be an 8-hour shift on a weekday not normally on my set schedule.

Here's a large seat I had to help move for the event prep. Other tasks included moving chairs into a conference room we'd use as a command center, setting up those ribbons you see underneath the screen, etc.

Log #6: 6/6: "Living Library"

So today was the big day. Some of the performers had to be moved to different locations at the last minute, so for much of the first half of the day, I was redirecting patrons to those new locations so they didn't get lost. But as was directed of me yesterday, I was partially in charge of helping a visiting orchestra quartet settle into their venue.

After that, I mostly did some regular library work in the background. We had a lot of teen volunteers helping with the event, so there wasn't a whole lot else for me to do in the front of the house. I was a little disappointed I didn't get to do more, but those teen volunteers probably needed/wanted the work as much as I do, so it'd be wrong of me to take it from them.

Here is a photo of the Living Library event in its early hours. You can make out one of the performers, a mime, in the background interacting with a girl in pink. It had a really big turnout that I was sadly too busy to snap a picture of. 

Log #7: 6/8 & 6/9: "Using Labels"

Monday was largely uneventful. The only thing I really got to do was shelf books, of which there were many. I didn't get to resume the series check.

Tuesday though was more interesting. It started with some more shelving, but afterwards, Alicia directed me to the children's librarian, Molly. She had me help her re-label some non-fiction children's books, as the library is apparently shifting from using the Dewey system for junior non-fiction to just organizing them based on subject authority. For example, a book about the Blue Angels was given a label that had "Children", "Jobs", and "Military" on it rather than a Dewey Decimal.

Anyway, Molly had me remove old labeling from the books she had work on to then apply the newly printed labels to.

Here's me applying one of the labels with the technique shown to me by Molly. I was disappointed that I couldn't see how she made these labels before printing them, but I was happy to have at least gotten my foot in the door for this process at all.

Log #8: 6/12: "Shop n' Series"

So today, I resumed my series check, this time moving pretty fluidly through the teen fiction section. But I didn't start until later in the day. The first thing Alicia and Su had me do was work more on shelving for the formal book shop.

I need to amend something I'd said in a previous entry. I'd claimed that the formal book shop was to sell weeded resources- this was a false pretense on my part. It's actually for resources that were received as donations but were simply not chosen for the library's collection. There are a couple shelves back in the staff area where said donations are kept, and it was up to me to comfortably shelf and organize resources onto it.

Above is a picture of book that gave me a bit of trouble. It's a pictorial biography of Frank Sinatra that was both too tall and too wide to fit onto the shelf, and it has no title cover. I resolved to simply lay it atop the shelf so that the title on the spine can be perused alongside the books just below it.

Log #9: 6/15 & 6/16: The "Shelfening"

Monday was largely uneventful. The majority of the day was spent shelving, as there was A LOT to do. There weren't too many patrons around either, so it's not as if we were particularly busy. The remainder of the day I spent cutting out some bookmarks to be provided at the front desk.

Tuesday though was much more involved. Alicia had me look at the adult fiction for books we had borrowed. Admittedly I misinterpreted my instructions and retrieved some books I thought met the criteria, so we decided to try again another day.

However, Su had me move around a new children's non-fiction section. We're relabeling all of those books based on subject material rather than Dewey Decimal and using some spare shelves as a placeholder until we can re-shelf them in the children's area proper. Problem is that it'd become rather crammed and disorganized.

Here is the new kid's non-fiction area in question. As you can see, it's organized with big subject labels on the shelves. I was able to space these out and intuitively keep them organized.

Log #10: 6/22 & 6/23: "It Was a Day"

This was one of my more uneventful eight-hour periods. I wholeheartedly expect that working in a library will have slow days- I already do at my current security job. While I say, there was a TON of shelving to do, as this is the time for kid's books to be coming in and out like mad, but that's just business as usual.

At Su's behest, I also did some more work on the Formal Book Shop. Apart from shelving more unwanted donations, I also made a point of organizing the books more cohesively, namely by author and by demographic.

Yeah, I don't have much else to report this time around. It was one of those workdays.

One problem I did encounter with the Formal Book Shop is that there were a considerable amount of weeded books on the shelves, such as these. I sometimes hear the staff blame little mistakes like this on volunteers, which I can totally see as I likely would've made the same mistake with less experience. Regardless, I simply removed them and handed them off to Su for proper procedure.

Log #11: 6/26: "Written Evaluation"

So today was about as mundane as other in terms of library work, but something else did come up. Alicia handed me a self-evaluation worksheet, I assume having come from Dr. Tuon as part of her midterm check. I sat down for a while and filled it out. 

Doing so did help me gauge how much I felt like I needed to or felt ready for in terms of going into the field proper. While it did ground my expectations, both for myself and for my career, I still feel confident that I have a place as a librarian.

I do have to confess though. At the start of the week on the 21st, I emailed Alicia my 6 questions for my Supervisor Interview assignment, asking her to have answers by the end of the week with no clear due date, so when I reminded her today and gave her the due date of the 29th, she was understandably flustered. This was entirely an inadequate communication on my part and will act as an opportunity for improvement.

As an aside, one of the other librarians, Sharon showed me this shelf where any and all pending donations are kept. She explained that apart from just receiving donations directly, sometimes resources left behind that no one has claimed after a considerable amount of time with thereafter be shelved as a donation, not dissimilar to the unclaimed baggage procedures of airports.

Log #12: 6/29 & 6/30: "What a Wonder(?)"

This was another slow week for the library. It was even slower for me in terms of progress, because the library was closed the following Friday, so there won't be a log for that.

I will however mention something I forgot to from last Friday: I observed a children's story time run by the children's librarian, Molly. It revolved around birds and ended with a crafting activity at the end; it was honestly much simpler than I thought given how chaotic work with small children can be.

But more on Molly, this week she had me do more labeling of children's non-fiction books. I ran into some trouble with particularly thin books that the labels couldn't be intuitively placed on. One of the other staff, Debbie, just reassured me that that's often a lose-lose situation where we just have do our best and hope for the best.

Here's another book I had to relabel, one that I felt Molly had improperly categorized, so I left a note with the book on her desk saying so (she'd already left for the day). The following day, she cordially talked more about the book's content with me to which I understood why she gave it the categorization that she did. It also opened a conversation as whether we should rename a certain genre of children's non-fiction due to it's broad definition that initially led me to make the judgement that I did.

Log #13: 7/6 & 7/7 "Collection Development Exercise"

And so has begun the final week of my practicum. Monday had very little of note happen in terms of operations, but while I was shelving, a patron approached me and asked to help her find a book she was looking for, which I was able to do without issue. It was a great information-seeking behavior opportunity, even if it was an objectively minute encounter.

But come Tuesday, Alicia gives me a more personal assignment. She handed me a recent issue of Kirkus Magazine and asked me to go through the section of reviews for upcoming YA literature. I was to pick each book out and explain why I would or wouldn't purchase for a collection for a public library in Texas.

Here is a picture of me doing the collection development exercise in question. I was sadly unable to finish it before the end of the day, but doing this at all helped me get a feel for this important facet of librarianship.

Log #14: 7/10: "Reflection":

And so the day has come, the last of my hours I need to fulfill my practicum. For one, I got to finish the collection development exercise Alicia gave earlier this week. She sadly hadn't had time to give me feedback on it, but I frequent the library enough as a patron that I'd surely be able to catch her at a good time. I also had more patrons than usual asking me for help in the middle of me shelving, which I was able to do.

But as a final reflection, I kinda wish I'd been able to do a little more in terms of learning the ins and outs of the trade rather than mostly what amounted to volunteer work; that said, one of the librarians commented to me that checking books in and out, shelving them, straightening, etc. was basically 80% of her day, so who's to say I won't have the same experience? Maybe it was also the result of me choosing to do my practicum during a particularly busy season for the library.

Here's a shot I took of the Roanoke Public Library as I left for the day, as something of a sendoff. I felt fulfilled in my practicum, and surer of myself going into the field of librarianship.