Hi all,
First of all, thanks Kirsten for setting up this blog. What a great idea.
Now, let me introduce myself. My name is Adrian Jenkins. I live in the western suburbs of the wonderful city of Auckland and work full time for Waitakere Libraries.
I am a first year MLIS student who has completed INFO 525 & INFO 521 so far. As I'm working full time, I am doing my MLIS very part time with just one paper per trimester - which means that I will finish in 4 years.
My next course over summer is INFO 542. Anyone done this course who's got any tips?
For those of you who are studying at the Open Polytechnic, I did two papers through that institution in 2006 (72-170 & 72-171). Having been accepted for the MLIS in February this year, I abandoned my Open Poly studies after those two papers.
Having studied at both institutions, I will say that the assignments for the postgraduate MLIS are significantly harder than at the Open Polytechnic (although Assignment Two for 72171 is nobody's idea of fun!).
Anyway, I've now got a few weeks off until my next course starts which I desperately need to catch up with life. It's amazing how the washing, cleaning and general house work gets put to one side when you've got an assignment to finish.
I look forward to continuing to read what people post on this blog.
Cheers,
Adrian Jenkins
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Hi Adrian & welcome to the blog! It's interesting that you have studied at both the Open Poly and VUW - I'd be keen on hearing more from folk that have studied at both institutions, especially about the differences in workload. I find it hard to recommend to people which way to go when they are seeking advice about embarking into library study, when I’m not that educated on the differences....cheers, Kirsten
ReplyDeleteI tossed up for ages betwen the Polytech diploma and the MLIS, and eventually opted for the diploma because it didn't have the time constraint of the MLIS and seemed to be a good basic grounding. Enjoying it so far. What made you switch to the MLIS?
ReplyDeletePam
Wellington
Does anyone know if the University of Auckland, College of education still offer Library qualifications?
ReplyDeleteOn the Lianza site it says it is being 'phased out' by the end of 2006. The poll may need tweaking if so...
Well, I'm doing the MLIS but only because it was more respected in my workplace than the Polytech diploma. With a change of management, though, the support for the MLIS is dropping away. On top of that there's barely any financial support, but without some sort of professional qualification it's difficult to get professional positions!
ReplyDeleteI'd be really interested to hear which course other workplaces favour.
I contacted Wellington Public library when they had a job advertised and they said either the OP diploma or the MLIS is good, and that they also employ people with no library qualifications if they have something else going for them.
ReplyDeletePam
Hi again, Adrian,
ReplyDeleteSorry this is a late comment - I tried to post it earlier, but it bombed out. I recommend Peggy Johnson's book entitled Fundamentals of Collection Development and Management for INFO 542. You may have read it already, but if not, it is very easy to read and full of tips. (I liked it so much I decided not to sell it). It is a new book, so well worth acquiring or at the very least borrowing and reading. Talking to people who work in collection management is a good idea too. Most of collection management seems to me to be common sense - thinking about your budget and what you want to offer to your library users and how to offer it depending on how they prefer to access the resources (i.e. print, electronic, or a combination of both), keeping abreast of new publications and editions, etc. and keeping in touch with your users about items they would find useful. Thinking also about weeding items which are no longer useful to your users, and planning to do this regularly (this will very hard for me to do I suspect - I like to keep everything!) - and making sure they go to good homes if someone else can use them. I enjoyed INFO 542 - it seemed such a practical course. I hope that you have enjoyed it so far too.
Best wishes,
Caroline Anderson