Tuesday, October 29, 2013

No e-book

For one of my SLO's, I was supposed to take the LibGuides I've been working on and assemble them into an e-book manuscript. But my site supervisor decided we do not have enough content and she wants to work on it for another semester before she does that. Personally, I think that's probably a good idea - I've added a LOT of content so far this semester, but it still would've been a short book! I am a little disappointed because I was looking forward to putting the book together; it seems like it would have been interesting and really good experience. Oh, well. Luckily, I have other SLO's to keep working on until the end of the semester.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Another week done

I was sick this past week, so I cut short my internship work by about an hour and a half. Luckily, since I went overboard at the beginning of the semester, I can spare an hour here and there! One of my tasks was to research e-book platforms and provide my supervisor with the best options, so I worked on that this week. Making an e-book looks a little more complicated than I thought it would be (with formatting and such), but luckily there seems to be quite a few good, free programs online to help with that. I think I will be doing some of the work of turning our LibGuides into an e-book resource, but it seems like there are several undergrad interns that will be doing some of it also. Anyway, this e-book thing is all weird, new territory for me that I'm sure will look really good on my resume when I am done!

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

E-portfolio....ugh

I am up to letter K in my e-portfolio...only a few left to go. But my brain cannot think about anything else. In my internship, I have just been updating my index of Caldecott books and doing some cursory research on e-book platforms for publishing. Nothing that is too mentally intensive. I am SO glad that I do not have a third class this semester. I'm pretty sure I would be dead if I did.

The networking topic for this week's discussion is an interesting one. I wonder how effective some of these techniques are. I went to an event sponsored by the SLA a few months ago, and tried to do some networking - but all the people I talked to were also looking for work, so none of us could really help each other! (In fact, 3 of the 5 people I tried to network with were SJSU SLIS students like us!) I did make some business cards, and I belong to LinkedIn and check it fairly frequently...we'll see if it starts to pay off.

I feel really phony when I try to do the "elevator pitch" thing. Also, I like nearly all aspects of library and information science work - I don't have a particular focus (although my classes were more info. science related). But it sounds stupid when someone asks me what I want to do with my degree and I say, "Anything!" It's true, though! So I never know what to say that sounds good...

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Week 7 complete

Still working on the LibGuides. I am starting to run out of creative ideas for art projects that go with the Caldecott illustrators, so I'm going a little bit slower. A lot of the illustrators from the '30s, '40s, and '50s have similar (generic) styles, so it is kind of hard to find arts and crafts projects that go with those styles. I already made LibGuides for all the illustrators who have very distinctive styles and subjects. But I think that what I have so far is good. Here's the link if anyone's interested: http://iue.libguides.com/content.php?pid=455089

I think I'm going to start working on my next task this week, in addition to the LibGuides; I am going to research platforms for e-book publication. One of my upcoming tasks is to "prepare manuscript for publication" - I'm a little fuzzy on how that is going to work. I guess I will figure it out as I go!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Week 6 complete

I was just working on more of the same this week on the LibGuides, so I don't really have much of interest to report. So instead I'll talk about how wonderful some of the Caldecott-winning books are. There are two in particular that I remember from when I was a child:

Anansi the Spider by Gerald McDermott
A Chair for my Mother by Vera B. Williams

It's funny that after seeing the covers from these books - which I hadn't seen in about 25 years or more, are so clear in my mind. Obviously, these books are very influential and important to young kids! 

Two current illustrators whose books I've found to be particularly wonderful are Uri Shulevitz and Peter Sis. Their drawings are so colorful and evocative. 
 



Does anybody have any favorite Caldecott-winning books or illustrators? Or any illustrated books they remember really well from childhood?