Nikki Carder - MLIS Portfolio
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Intellectual

Consortia

Collection Development

It’s difficult to select a single intellectual experience from my iSchool career. From the beginning, with my introduction in LIS500, I was challenged. When I began the program, I had been out of school for twenty-five years, so just reorienting to the intellectual rigor of a university graduate program was daunting. More importantly, I was presented with rich theoretical, philosophical and technical studies that I scarcely knew existed in library science. Given the multitude of intellectual challenges I’ve met, my dilemma was not finding a significant one for this portfolio; rather, it was deciding which one to include. In the end, I selected two items. They were chosen for several reasons, but particularly because they reflect the general theme of this portfolio and, indeed, all of my iSchool work – that of collaboration.

Consortia

The first experience resulted from a short, one-credit class on Library Consortia (LIS 539), taught by John Helmer and Tim Jewell. It was an introduction to the functions and structures of existing library consortia, and it offered a chance for each of us to develop our own consortial vision. Consortia are by definition collaborative, and this aspect engaged me from the outset. Examining the goals, foundations and evolutions of various consortia illustrated the value of creating alliances and working cooperatively toward common goals. The class enhanced my ability to analyze and identify common needs and goals, and gave me a functional overview of several very different consortia.

For our final assignment (Pacifica), we were presented with a hypothetical state, Pacifica, and given information about its various library entities. Our task was to analyze the information and “design a consortium or other collaborative organization that might succeed in this environment.” This was an exercise that both challenged and entertained me, and I spent more time on it than a 1 credit class may warrant. I appreciated the open-endedness of the assignment, and found it intellectually satisfying to identify commonalities and then design mechanisms to capitalize on them. It necessitated examining the world of Pacifica libraries from every viewpoint and finding mutually advantageous solutions that were  actually feasible.

In practice, consortia usually evolve; they don’t spring full grown from someone’s imagination. To achieve a realistic proposal, I examined every aspect of Pacifica’s libraries - their goals, needs, resources; their financial, operational and political stability; their existing affiliations, and any other factors available to me. Planning something as broad as statewide consortia on paper, without soliciting other opinions, without the debate and consensus building, the inherent budgetary concerns and natural time constraints, is a luxury not available in real life. I think that I was able to offer solutions that could navigate those hurdles and actually be implemented. I was pleased with my work when I turned it in, and it was rewarded with a very positive acknowledgement. Preparing this paper elicited some of the most useful and productive thinking in my iSchool experience, so I submit it here as a representation of my intellectual work.

Collection Development

Beyond my Pacifica paper, I wanted to include a piece of work from my LIS 520 class – a collection development project conducted in a group (Collection Development). The significance of this project in my intellectual experience is two-fold. First, it was one of my first really synergistic efforts at the iSchool; and secondly, it required that I gain knowledge about an unfamiliar discipline and the skills to provide support for that discipline. In working with Deb Gallaher and Sue Roberts, I was intellectually energized. Our group interaction facilitated lively exchanges that significantly enhanced our results. We learned from each other and were encouraged to share our individual skills to strengthen those of the group.

Sue and Deb both had experience in libraries, and both had some knowledge about the focus of our project – a library to serve a complementary and alternative medicine school. Since I had less background in the subject, I had to do some preliminary study in order to participate equally. I benefited with an increased breadth of knowledge and a better understanding of a previously unfamiliar field. The class was not about learning a new subject though. It was about gaining the skills to establish selection criteria, about weighing the credibility and financial value of various items and information mediums, and about providing appropriate access for a student population with specific informational needs. I learned a lot about this process from Joe Janes, but I reaped the additional benefit of working with two people who were already quite competent.

I suspect that this project was more challenging for me than it was for the other members of the group, because I had to expand my knowledge greatly just to contribute proportionately. It challenged me in multiple ways and gave me multiple rewards - intellectual rewards, professional rewards and personal rewards. This project laid the foundation for many subsequent group efforts, all of them significant and all valuable.

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