[Baynet] Infopeople's "Technical Services 101" online course

Tue Jun 26 14:39:41 PDT 2007

Since some people who may be interested in 
participating might not receive this notice 
directly, we would appreciate it if you would 
print and post or route this announcement to staff and colleagues. Thanks!

Title:  Technical Services 101 (online learning course)

Date:  August 14, 2007 - September 10, 2007

To register for this workshop:  Use the online registration form at
http://infopeople.org/workshop/333

Fee: $75 for those in the California library 
community and $150 for those out-of-state.

Mystery often surrounds what the staff who work 
in Technical Services really do, and we take for 
granted how important and critical a smoothly 
operating technical service operation is to the 
daily operations of the library.

In this course, you will learn:

--What exactly do technical services staff do?
--How do the acquisition, collection 
development/selection of library materials processes really work?
--What happens when something goes wrong in the 
acquisition or cataloging process?
--How can you make more effective use of the 
online catalog when you are helping library users?
--What terminology will help you better 
communicate with technical service staff?

Workshop Description: This four-week online 
learning course will provide you with a basic 
understanding of the selection, acquisition and 
cataloging processes. The end product of 
acquisition and cataloging results in records in 
the library's catalog. You will learn some tips 
on how to use the catalog more effectively and 
efficiently. You will also learn to understand 
the most common things that may go wrong in the 
acquisition and cataloging processes that may 
affect your work with library users. Through 
individual and group exercises and online 
discussions you will be asked to examine various 
policies at your library related to these 
processes. The instructor will provide 
information, cheat sheets and a webliography, as 
well as practical, useful tips that can be applied immediately.

Preliminary Course Outline: : Using your web 
browser and your Internet connection, you will 
log in to the Infopeople online learning site and 
complete the following learning modules:

Module One: Introduction and Acquisition Process
--Organization of technical services
--Collection development/selection policy and processes
--Ordering processes
--Plans and services provided by vendors
--Selection processes at your library
--Receiving and paying for materials and budget issues
--Gifts

Module Two: Cataloging Process
--General procedures and processes including copy cataloging
--MARC encoding
--Search indexes in the library catalog and what 
information in a catalog record they work upon
--Errors, additions and problems with records in the catalog
--The role of the Library of Congress and use of bibliographic databases
--Authority control
--Glossary

Module Three: Handling of Library Materials
--Completing call numbers, adding security 
devices, labeling, genre labels, etc.
--Shelving/displays and communicating library arrangement to users
--Simple mending and repair of materials

Module Four: Review
--Censorship and handling user complaints about 
materials in the library collection
--How does technical services impact service to library users?
--What are your responsibilities to improve the library catalog?

Instructor:  Irene Percelli.  Irene has spent 
over 40 years working in libraries (the bulk of 
her career has been at The New York Public 
Library) beginning as a page, working through the 
ranks as library support staff, and then as a 
librarian and manager. Irene has been teaching in 
the MLS Program at Rutgers University since 
1986—and at Pratt Institute. Courses taught in 
these programs include Cataloging and 
Classification, Serials, Systems, Information 
Knowledge, Librarian as teacher and a full 
semester noncredit course for library support 
staff in academic and research libraries—both in 
person and online. She also conducts professional 
development workshops on a wide variety of 
subjects and does consulting. She is a successful 
grant writer and conducts workshops on grant 
writing. She is also a trained 
facilitator/trainer for the Public Library 
Association’s Planning for Results Series (for 
strategic planning in libraries).

Online Learning Details:
This four-week course will be taught online using 
the web. When you register, you will receive a 
registration confirmation that will include the 
URL to get to the course, as well as a username and password.

Every student proceeds through the online 
learning modules at his or her own pace. Students 
should expect to commit to spending a minimum of 
2 to 2½ hours per week on this course in order to 
be successful. You can work on each module at 
your own pace, at any hour of the day or night. 
However, you will be expected to log in to the 
course each week to do that week's assignment. We 
ask that you log in sometime during the first 
week of the course to begin the course work.

Your instructor will be available for limited 
consultation support for two weeks after the 
official end date of a course, and the course 
material will stay up for an additional two weeks 
after that, to give those who have fallen behind 
time to work independently on the course. 
However, you will be expected to accomplish the 
majority of the course in synchronization with 
your peers during the first four weeks.

Who Should Take This Course: Anyone from the 
library community with an interest in the role of 
Technical Services and who wishes to understand 
how materials are selected, acquired, cataloged and processed.

Prerequisites:
This course is taught over the web. You must:

--Have an Internet connection and Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher.
--Be able to save Microsoft Word .doc or Adobe 
.pdf files to your computer and print them out. 
(For .doc files, a free Word Viewer is available 
at 
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. 
Search for "Word Viewer." For .pdf files, a free 
Adobe Acrobat Reader is available at 
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html).
--Be comfortable navigating on the web and 
navigating back and forward on a website that uses frames.

To be most successful in this course you should 
be willing to share information with your 
colleagues and be willing to spend time reading 
and participating in the weekly discussion boards.

System Requirements: The online learning product 
that Infopeople uses is called Angel. The 
following are minimum system requirements for 
using Angel. You will need access to a computer 
that has at least these specifications to participate in an online course:

Windows:
--Internet Explorer 6.0 and above, Netscape 7.1 
and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above

Macintosh:
--Mozilla 1.4 and above (which is the same engine 
as Netscape 7.1), Safari 2.0 and above, or Firefox 1.5 and above
--OS X and above (OS 9 will NOT work with our online learning product)

If you are not comfortable with any of the above, 
please consider taking this course with a 
colleague who does meet these requirements.

To view a complete list of Infopeople workshops 
and for general information about Infopeople 
training opportunities, go to the main Infopeople 
Workshops page at http://infopeople.org/workshop

If you have questions about registration or 
scheduling of workshops, please contact Linda 
Rodenspiel, the Infopeople Project Assistant, at 
assist at infopeople.org or by phone at 650-578-9685. 