Marcia L Hannon July 11, 2013 LI 870 Practicum Kathie Buckman Practicum self-evaluation

I decided to do a practicum at the Kansas State Library to gain hands on experience and learn some of the basics of cataloging. I really enjoyed my time at the State Library and by the end of my practicum I felt I had a good basic knowledge of the cataloging procedures that were discussed in the prospectus. During this practicum I became very comfortable with completing copy cataloging, researching Legislators Past and Present, as well as, editing the State and Federal documents from the abbreviated Dept. to department. These three areas are what I spent the majority of the nine weeks working on. For the copy-cataloging project I cataloged the chapters from the book, John Brown to
Bob Dole: movers and shakers in Kansas history. I managed to copy catalog all twenty-six chapters of this book, in conjunction with changing bibliographic records in the Millennium ILS from the abbreviated Dept. to Department. For the Legislators Past and Present research, I utilized several databases; i.e., Familysearch.org, findagrave.com, politicalgraveyard.com, wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com, heritagequest.com, and Kansas Illustriana (1933). I would search for missing information and try to complete the record as much as possible.

The two areas I did not feel as comfortable with completing were original cataloging and researching Subject Headings. For the original cataloging records I utilized the Kansas Legislator

Briefing Book 2012. This book is published yearly to provide easy access to topics pertinent to issues in State Government; it gives brief descriptions of subject matter that the Legislature will most likely deal with in the upcoming session. I utilized the same Kansas Legislator Briefing Book 2012 for the Subject Heading project. It was my job to make sure the subject headings we

used were approved Library of Congress Subject Headings. These are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is the function by which libraries collect, organize and disseminate documents. Utilizing approved subject headings help users to find and access material more easily. We only touched on these two cataloging procedures briefly toward the end of my practicum,
so I feel if I had more time to work on them I would have also felt comfortable in completing them. There were a couple mistakes along the way, but nothing that couldnt be fixed. Bill pointed the errors out to me and I fixed them and moved on, of course paying extra attention to detail to make sure I didnt make the same mistake twice. If I had the opportunity to complete another Practicum, I would schedule it so it lasts longer than nine weeks. We completed all of the projects outlined in the prospectus at the beginning of the practicum. I really appreciate the encouragement and support from Bill Sowers my site supervisor, Cindy Roupe the Director of Reference at the State Library, and my SLIM Advisor Kathie Buckman.