Friday March 12 2009

This week was spent setting up my new computer. After all of the work we'd done to lobby for the new equipment, I was amazed at the anti-climatic aftermath. Basically, the tech department brought up the new computer, plugged it in, and left. When I arrived that afternoon, there was no internet access, and no access to iMovie, the program that I use to do the project. And the tech department is fully aware of this fact. This was definitely an exercise in decorum, and I tried to be diplomatic about this. While I was actually really annoyed, I kept my cool and am now just observing the situation to see how others are handling it. I am finding out loads about the organizational culture of this place just from observation. It seems that the IT department may be a bit slighted by the fact that I went over their heads to get this computer, which is now ours, not theirs to use. I have a feeling that they've been the sole stakeholders in the technology operations at this school and I've come in and messed up their system. It is now Monday, March 16th and I've yet to get the cable that I need to run iMovie. My project is almost at a complete standstill and I can't get any processing done. I'm finding out that this is a regular occurrence at PNCA and that either the IT guys are overworked, under-trained, or understaffed.

I'm beginning my research on the library usage for this library for my research proposal (LI850). I want to compile usage statistics and create a questionnaire to send out the the entire school. I've talked to Serenity about my project and she's got tons of data and statistics that I can use to formulate my description of the population and setting. Once I'm finished with the proposal (and it is graded) I will actually complete the research--hopefully we'll get something out of my work.

We also had a reference training last week and I will begin sitting out in the library with the laptop and a sign "Reference", during my afternoons here. I am really itching to get some reference experience here, so this will be good. I'm only waiting until the bumps get smoothed out in my digitization project.