There were two summer sessions. Session 1 was from May 28 to July 5. Session 2 was from July 8 to August 15.
For session 1, I took LIS 681: Books & Media for Children
This class focused on library materials for ages birth to upper elementary school.
This class focused on books as well as digital media (ie. websites, databases, book trailers, e-books, etc)
We went over the different genres for this age group, including picture books, poetry, folklore, biographies, fantasy, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, multi-cultural literature and science fiction. Sometimes those genres overlap in one book.
We also went over Hawaiian books for children. Obviously that's important for Hawaii, but it has a special place in the professor's heart, since her regular job is the librarian at Kamehameha Schools.
We also get to do book reports for children's book. Much easier than doing it when we were children. Though instead of posters or dioramas, we just used power-points. We also made amateur-level video book reports using a program called Little Bird Tales.
We had guest speakers from Kamehameha Schools (our part-time prof's full-time workplace), Hawaii State Library, Bricks4Kids (a Lego group for kids), and Follet (a digital media company specializing in e-books). We also had a prominent children's fiction author Cornelia Funke speak to us via Skype.
We also had volunteer activities at the Hawaii State Library. We get to choose different weekends to do the volunteering activity. The weekend I went, there was a storytelling session and a veggie stamp activity, where the kids get to dip a vegetable in paint and stamp it on paper. It was good to see kids enjoy creativity in a setting where they dont have to worry about being graded.
This activity told me I was taking the right path in working towards becoming a librarian and maybe work with children's activities.
It was a fun class and I suggest that class to anyone interested in working with children.
For session 2, I took LIS 663: Basic Database Searching
This class is focused on online searching.
Sure, most of us take the Internet (and using Google and Wikipedia) for granted.
But do you know how to maximize your results from online searches?
And more importantly, did you know there's tons of information online that aren't even easily accessible?
Many of us are familiar with having to pay an online subscription to a local or national newspaper.
The same is true about accessing academic journal articles. And in graduate level academics, you will be asked to rely more on academic journal articles instead of just relying on Google or Wikipedia.
If you're at UH, your tuition/taxes/financial-aid is paying for your access to academic journal articles via online academic databases
The databases include, but not limited to
Academic Search Premier
Medline
Sociological Abstracts
Biological Abstracts
ERIC
PsycINFO
and much much more
And the LIS 663 class is mostly about how to maximize your search results on those academic databases.
We learned how to best navigate the systems and use the best term combinations to get the articles you want.
Our searching skills were tested by homework in which you have to search for obscure information and you have to document your search with screenshots! Tons of fun if you had tons of hours to search the info!
And our searching skills are also tested by doing an online search in front of the whole class. Yep, you might get asked "find me which college sports have the most corruption" and you will show the whole class how you might find that information.
That might sound intimidating, but the good news was the professor, Rich Gazan, is one of the coolest guys around. He is an easy person to get along with and he is very helpful.
Professor Gazan also has tons of knowledge from his previous work experience in online indexing as well as his academic research.
We also had guest speakers who talked about using medical databases, citation-based searching, as well as flaws with Google Scholar and Google Books. [Google owns Blogger too, so I hope they don't censor this post either] We also had a guest speaker who got his PhD from UH-Manoa, who is now in charge of an European commission on climate change. Our assignment? Find articles that prove and disprove his claims on climate change.
And towards the end of the summer class, we learned about altmetrics, which I went over on the following blog post
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2013/08/mister-worldwide.html
It was a long 6 weeks with tons of work, but we have survived and had some fun along the way. I totally suggest that class, especially if Rich Gazan is the teacher!
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It was a good summer. I got 2 classes over with, learned some things, enjoyed the computer labs and the outside scenery at UH!
I also got loan money, which help since my regular job (sub teacher) was on vacation.
Lots of work accomplished!
Now, it's time for party. Until the Fall Semester that is!
