Michelle GarverPracticum LogSpring 2014State Library of OhioSupervisor – Janet Ingraham DwyerFocus: Youth Services

January 6, 2014Monday, 10am – 5pmHours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 6.5

First Day! Today was a very busy and productive day despite the weather. Met with Janet Ingraham Dwyer, my onsite supervisor, first thing. She gave me my security badge and showed me to my “official workspace,” I have my very own cubicle, complete with computer and telephone—and a hat-rack! We discussed my orientation outline and the day’s schedule and then we were off on a whirlwind tour of the State Library facilities and meeting staff. We were supposed to tour the Ohioana Library today as well, but they were closed due to weather conditions. Nevertheless, I met so many great people today! Granted, there were a few people who were not present due to the extreme weather conditions—apparently the coldest weather conditions in twenty years!—but those that I had the pleasure of meeting today were friendly, kind, and very welcoming. I received “the grand tour” of the entire building today. It seemed like we went everywhere! We certainly covered lots of square footage! Janet was really great about helping me to understand the different jobs/departments associated with each person that we met today. I also became familiar with the general layout of State Library including where to find supplies, photocopier, etc. After the tour, we reviewed the SLO Organization Chart, and Janet gave me a brief overview of some of the many things that SLO does. We also reviewed my practicum requirements and verified that all documents had been completed and turned in. We then discussed and confirmed my work plan and hours, and set up my computer/network/ email/ calendar access.

In addition to the original projects and tasks outlined in my workplan, I received my first “pop-up” assignment. Janet is a member of the Third Grade Reading Guarantee Advisory Workgroup that is developing, among other things, new Reading Competencies in support of the Ohio Department of Education’s new Third Grade Reading Guarantee initiative. This is very important work, and I was honored that Janet gave me the opportunity to review and “weigh-in” on a rough draft of the Reading Competencies currently under development. I found this document fascinating—it was a real treat to look over the content standards and give my opinions. I composed a brief word document outlining my thoughts and suggestions and emailed these to Janet. As I was working on the content standards, Janet poked her head into my cubicle to let me know that the extreme cold today somehow resulted in a broken water main right up the street from us. She wanted me to be aware that if State Library did not have access to water, we might be closed tomorrow. I am hoping that we are not closed, because I have a whole laundry list of interesting projects to play with and research to do and I’m really eager to get started in earnest tomorrow. Way below-zero weather, AND a broken water main? What a crazy start to my practicum experience!

January 7, 2014Tuesday, 10am – 3pmHours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 11

Today, Janet and I reviewed all proposed projects and tasks on my individualized workplan and discussed which ones were of highest priority. Then Janet introduced another quick “pop-up project,” an opportunity to review an early draft of Chapter 5 of a future CSLP Early Literacy summer reading program manual for content and accuracy. Janet requested that I compose any thoughts, comments, and suggestions concerning this document onto a word document similar to the one I created yesterday by lunchtime today. Janet also gave me a copy of the current Summer Reading Program manual with which to familiarize myself and to serve as background information and context to help me to calibrate my opinions concerning the Chapter 5 draft that I was to review. I greatly enjoyed leafing through the SRP manual, so many creative ideas! I also enjoyed having an opportunity to view and give suggestions for the newest iteration of SRP manuals. Chapter 5 focused on programming ideas for infants, toddlers and preschoolers specifically. I “weighed in” on whether games, activities, crafts and titles were age appropriate and economically feasible. I also suggested some additional titles for the toddler and preschool age groups.

Next, Janet had asked me to think about which libraries I might want to visit for the “field trip” part of my practicum experience. After some general thought and quick research I submitted three options. Here is an excerpt from my email to Janet concerning my “field trip” suggestions:

“Preschool Storytime Class” @ Upper Arlington’s Main Tremont location, Tuesdays and Wednesdays @ 10:15am

I have heard of this emerging trend concerning the renaming of “storytimes” to “classes” in an effort to validate what librarians do as “partners in education” for parents and caregivers of young children. I am curious as to what this might look like in practice. I am further intrigued by the age specification of 3 and a half to 6 for this program—as that covers a pretty wide range of developmental stages. I’d like to see what they are doing with this concept, and how it might differ (or not) from a typical “family storytime!” I am most excited about this field trip opportunity.

“Music and Movement” @ Grandview Heights, Mondays @ 1pm

I have never visited the Grandview Heights library, although I do have a professional colleague (Chelsea Weissman) whom I believe still works there as a children’s librarian. I chose the “Music and Movement” program simply because I enjoy observing different styles of programming and thought this might be a fun one—kiddos ages 2-5 dancing around like crazy? Yes please.

“Tales for Twos and Threes” @ Old Worthington Library, Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays @ 11am

It’s always educational to see how others conduct their storytimes, and I have never participated in any of Worthington Library’s children’s programming, although, once again, I have a few really great colleagues (Michelle Hockman, Christiana Congelio, Kim Gales) who work within that library system.”

After lunch, I turned my attention to the project that Janet has decreed to be “priority one” at the moment, and that is developing a set of best practices and training materials for serving special library populations, with a specific focus on the provision of library services to children who have Autism Spectrum Disorder and their families. Janet is currently working with Amy Price, a librarian at Oakstone Academy Charter School, which offers inclusive instruction to children with ASD together with typically developing children, on this collaborative project. To date, not much has been accomplished in terms of providing effective services to this population. I quickly scanned the background materials that Janet sent me for this project, including background information on Amy Price and her work with Oakstone Academy, also some general background info on ASD and current library services for this population.

January 8, 2014Wednesday, 9:45am – 2:30pmHours completed: 4.25Accumulated on-site hours: 15.25

Today I set up my voicemail box, and then spent the morning researching background information about Autism Spectrum Disorder, current library service efforts for this special population, and more details concerning Janet’s joint project with Amy Price of Oakstone Academy for the development of best practices and training materials for providing library services to special populations. I also asked Janet whether it would be appropriate to contact Wendy Ramsey of CML to inquire as to whether she had any connections or resource suggestions that might be useful or germane to the project. Wendy has an extensive background in providing both Outreach Services and Special Needs Programming at CML. Janet felt that it would be fine to reach out to Wendy. I made a note to do so.

After lunch, Janet, Matthew Dyer and I met with SLO “tech guru” Mandy Knapp to learn how to use Adobe “Captivate” to produce instructional video with voiceover features. It was fascinating to learn and seems like it will be fun to use. Janet joked that she might just have another “pop-up” project in the works for me to accomplish “in my spare time” that could involve re-tooling the current instructional information about Choose to Read Ohio to be more interactive and fun using elements found within the functionality of the “captivate” software. Janet and I were much encouraged by Mandy’s presentation. Mandy is just brilliant with technology and has a way of breaking down complicated features and technical processes in simple and direct terms. I look forward to experimenting with the software as time and project requirements permit. I also met SLO’s Marketing and Communications Director, Marsha McDevitt-Stredney today, and spoke briefly about the annual newsletter project for which she is editor. Janet and Marsha asked me if I would like to look over the newsletter with an eye toward proofreading the document before it goes out—and of course I am delighted to do so. I will also get to “sit in” on a meeting of the newsletter committee later this month. Later, I spoke with Laura Batt, a librarian within my professional circle who provides Special Needs Programming for CML Main

Children’s, about making a possible connection with Amy Price from Oakstone. She was very excited to speak with Amy and gave me her business card to pass along as the opportunity presents itself.

January 9, 2014Thursday, 9:30am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 19.75

Today, Janet joined me for my official tour of the State Library with Nicole. Nicole gave an excellent overview of the purpose and physical structure of the State Library including the history behind it, and also some brief and interesting historical information about the Jeffrey Manufacturing Company within whose building the State Library is currently housed. We took a walk around the public service area where Nicole showed us bits and pieces of the library’s massive collection of Federal and State documents, maps, microfiche and books. The best part was a brief foray into the Rare Documents Room where we got to see some really old documents that I was afraid to touch! I also briefly met Shannon Kupfer, who is in charge of digitization projects here at SLO, and got to take a peek at the infamous “Color Scanner” that she uses to digitize rare books and documents. Shannon promised to show me how it works when I meet with her to tour the Rare Book Room tomorrow. Also, as it turns out, the best time for me to “sit in “ on a meeting of the newsletter committee I mentioned yesterday, happened to be today! So, after lunch, I sat in on the “Ohio Libraries Quarterly” newsletter meeting.

One of the many services SLO provides for communicating between libraries across the state is the Ohio Libraries Quarterly newsletter which is edited by Marsha. The committee discussed whether or not SLO should begin to conduct more in person interviews and provide content written “in-house,” rather than relying solely upon content received via submission from other librarians which may not always “fit” with the type of content OLQ intended. Marsha also proposed a few ideas for themes for the upcoming quarter. These included features on “Special” or “Unusual” libraries, Extended/Unusual Services being provided by libraries, and various Literary Technologies currently being employed by libraries. I put forth a few ideas for the “special libraries” features—one being the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum” library in Cleveland. Another idea was to see if there were any local film or music libraries—I thought those might be interesting as well. For the “extended services” feature I thought it might be interesting to hear more about the “Little Free Libraries” popping up all over the place, and something about “book vending machines” might be fun to read about. Marsha thought it might be a good idea to lead the year with a feature on new literary technologies, such as Hoopla, Zinio, and other literary apps beginning to take off at libraries across the state and country. Everyone agreed that this would be a good idea, especially coming on the heels of everyone’s new Christmas gifts, ie. Kindles, eReaders, iPhones and the like. After the meeting, I spent the last few minutes of the day reviewing background information and viewing online video on Autism Spectrum Disorder and current library services.

January 10, 2014Friday, 10am – 5pmHours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 26.25

Today, I toured the Rare Book Room with Shannon! It was an amazing experience! Before we toured the Rare Book Room, however, Shannon treated me to a demonstration of how rare books and documents are digitized for safe sharing using the big color scanner I briefly saw yesterday. Some really neat features of this particular scanner include a book cradle that one can raise or lower as one turns pages for scanning, thereby protecting the book binding as much as possible, and a glass shield that covers and flattens the pages of the books so that the resultant images are not warped or distorted during digitization. Shannon exhibited great care with the machinery and the rare books she digitized for me. She told me a little bit about the Ohio Memory Project for which she scans documents and books in collaboration with the Ohio History Society. Then we made our way to the Rare Book Room. There were so many exciting aspects to the Rare Book Room tour that I hardly know where to begin! Highlights of the tour: two extremely old books beautifully illuminated –presumably by monks, and transcribed in Latin on vellum/calf skin—one of which was approximately eight-hundred-years old!!! Eight-hundred-years old…yes…that was eight-hundred-years old!!!! Shannon pointed out the special considerations the transcriptionists would have had to observe, namely that occasionally the vellum would have stretched and created holes that they would have had to maneuver around. She showed me two or three instances in the books where the monk illuminating the work had written the content around the various pits and holes in the pages. It was fascinating, and a bit endearing that they would have done this. I imagined some monk somewhere painstakingly working around these minor irritations. Delightful.

After viewing the monk-books, Shannon dropped a major history-lover’s bomb—she had me hold and read from a personal document written in 1788. It appeared to be a brief note of thanks from one individual to another for a gift of “a barrel of barley grain.” The writer expressed his gratitude and made “small talk,” remarking that he had been told that barley was mainly a winter grain, but that sometimes it was suitable for use in the spring. He also conveyed the well-wishes of himself and his wife, Martha to his friend and his friend’s wife. Yes. I was holding in my hands a piece of personal correspondence from none other than General George Washington, written from his home at Mt. Vernon prior to the time he would serve as first official President of the United States! I must admit I might have been a bit teary-eyed…such history! In my hands! Such a mundane bit of life from so long ago! Amazing. I apologized to Shannon for getting so emotional about the document, but she just laughed and assured me that, as a fellow history-lover, she felt that I had had the “appropriate response.” I also enjoyed browsing through several of the huge, ornately carved, wooden guest books from the Ohio Exhibition in 1886. It was fun to see signatures of various Ohio luminaries and their brief comments about the exhibition. Finally Shannon shared with me a delightful little booklet of suggested reading for “spinsters” composed by Miss Alice Boardman who actually worked for the State Library of Ohio as an assistant librarian, circa 1902. It was hilarious. I really enjoyed my time with Shannon, who not only did not laugh at me for tearing up at the George Washington letter, but who also clearly demonstrated how passionate she is about each historical document, rare book, and artifact entrusted

to her care. It is clear that she loves her work and has reverence for the items for which she is responsible.

After lunch, I spent my time reviewing Janet and Amy’s “Sensory Storytime” presentation slides for awkward phrasing and grammatical errors. I corrected the obvious errors in typing and grammar, added comments and phrasing suggestions, and sent the slides to Janet for her review. After that, I “trolled” the internet for a while searching for public domain images that we might be able to incorporate into the presentation to add visual interest and variety to the slides. I finished up the day by bringing myself “up-to-speed” on current ideas for, and general status of, the Take5: Take 3 event coming up in May, for which Janet and committee are in the beginning stages of planning. I looked for ways to actively assist with the planning of the event, and could see no obvious opportunities where my assistance would be useful at this stage in the planning process.

January 13, 2014Monday, 10am –5:15pm Hours completed: 6.75Accumulated on-site hours: 33

This morning I met briefly with Janet to go over the plan for this very busy week. In addition to the various projects that I am working on, the agenda for this week is quite ambitious and includes the Ohioana Library tour this morning, attending, with Janet, the OLC Children’s Services Division meeting tomorrow, sitting in on a State Library Board meeting Thursday, and then on Friday, meeting with Amy Price from Oakstone Academy to discuss the Autism Services Clearinghouse project. After discussing our “plan of attack” for the week, Janet walked me over to the Ohioana Library and introduced me to Stephanie Michaels, the head librarian there. I learned from Stephanie that the Ohioana Library is a very small, private, non-profit operation that was founded back in 1929 by the then First Lady of Ohio, Martha Kinney Cooper. Their mission, essentially, is to collect all literary works of Ohio authors and illustrators, as well as other books and materials about Ohio. They also promote Ohio authors, illustrators, artists and musicians throughout Ohio. A few of their major projects include the Ohioana Book Awards, the annual Ohioana Book Festival, and Ohioana Library “On the Road” an annual literary tour of Ohio. I enjoyed meeting with Stephanie and touring the Ohioana book collection. Some of the neat things that caught my eye included a collection of tiny, miniature books, the scrapbook collection, and some of the items relating to women’s history and the Ohio Women’s Hall of Fame. In particular, I was interested in a bound collection of personal, genealogical history documents in the form of stories submitted through a contest concerning the lives of Ohio Pioneer Women who lived and died prior to 1902. I have a plan to come back and visit the Ohio Library at a later date to spend some time combing through these volumes and exploring the collection further. Stephanie was interested in my work and background experience with CML also, and proposed a possible lunch date when she, Janet and I might have time to discuss plans for extending Ohioana beyond the library walls—Outreach to local schools, and some light children’s programming were some of the ideas that we briefly discussed. Stephanie and I exchanged contact information and will likely make a plan to collaborate in some sense in the near future. I am really excited about all of the great connections and opportunities I am finding here! For the rest of the day, I focused on reviewing the Ohio Academic Content Standards/Common Core

Standards/New Learning Standards and thinking of ways to update the CTRO toolkits to reflect these new standards.

January 14, 2014Tuesday, 9:30am – 3:30pmHours completed: 5.5Accumulated on-site hours: 38.5

Today was the Ohio Library Council Children’s Services Division meeting. I met Janet in the lobby here at SLO and we traveled “off-site” to the OLC building to attend the all-day meeting. Although Janet is not officially a member of the OLC Children’s Services Division per se, she is welcomed at their meetings in her capacity as Youth Services Consultant for the State Library and as someone who consistently has excellent ideas, follow-up, and the ability to make connections. It was fun to meet library colleagues from all over the state who were so passionate and actively engaged in our profession. I also very much enjoyed seeing Janet “in action” as a “connector” of people and services. At this meeting, ideas were being discussed for the planning of the Annual OLC Conference/Convention Event in October. Each member brought forth compelling proposals for keynote and individual speakers, as well as introduced ideas for shorter discussions and points of interest as opportunities for “Lib Chats” intended to break up the longer sessions and add interest to the day. Also discussed were the nominations for membership on the next committee, ideas for OLC Children’s Services Webinars, and ways to reach and actively engage other members of the division. It was a long meeting, but felt very relevant to what the State Library does because, as someone who is familiar with different libraries and prominent library staff statewide, Janet was able to suggest and confirm information about initiatives happening within and across different library systems, and suggest points of contact for a variety of endeavors. Janet also had impressive ideas for useful webinars, workshops, immersion programming, and conference speakers. I was amazed at Janet’s wealth of knowledge and expertise, and it was clear that she was a vital member of the group. Being at the meeting today reaffirmed my belief in the importance of connecting with other passionate children’s services people and ways in which we can collaborate to achieve common goals. It’s also very clear to me that my educational journey will not end with the achievement of my MLIS degree. The importance of continued professional growth and development is quite obvious. I’m not quite ready to join OLC, but I chose to join ALA and ALSC today. I am now officially a “student member.” I plan to make time to explore the OLC and ALA/ALSC websites more keenly whenever I have time in the course of this next week.

January 15, 2014Wednesday, 10am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 4 Accumulated on-site hours: 42.5

What a morning. Parked in the north lot, promptly slipped on a big sheet of ice on my way to the door and then realized that in my rush to leave the house, I forgot my security badge. As a result, I was unable to access the north door and had to walk all the way around to the main entrance. Also, this means I am unable to gain access to the many locked doors of SLO today. Fortunately, Kirsten was on reference desk this morning and was kind enough to let me in so that I could get to my desk and actually

do some work. Of course this happens to be a day that Janet is offsite and I am “on my own” for the day, so I am unsure how to remedy my keycard-less situation at the moment. *Sigh* I am hoping that perhaps I can catch Matthew Dyer, HR person to help me…not sure who else can…if I walk over to the IT department, that door is locked, and then I will be locked out of the staff areas again, I can’t go to the facilities manager, Steve Updegraff, directly because he is on the opposite side of the building, in a staff area that is also locked…which will result in the same situation. I can’t believe I forgot my badge! Oh well. I will just have to make the best of the situation…nothing else for it!

This morning, my plan is to take a look at the SLIS requirements for my electronic portfolio, re-visit my goals and objectives and make sure that I am “on track” with the requirements of the practicum/internship. Then I plan to work on the ASD Clearinghouse project and continue background research on Ohio’s New Learning Standards and ways in which libraries will be useful in supporting parents and teachers in their implementation this coming school year.

Update: Went by Matthew’s office to see if he was in, he was with State Librarian, Beverly Cain, so I chatted briefly with Evan Struble—another very kind and friendly library consultant here at SLO—about my keycard situation. He suggested I use the SLO phone list and simply call Steve. Duh!! I feel so silly. I called Steve, and he has given me a temporary keycard for the day. Problem solved, thank you, Evan! Other than that, I stayed fairly true to my plan for the day. I reviewed the SLIS requirements, goals and objectives for my practicum/internship and feel reassured that I am “on track.” Following that, I located my information and notes for Janet concerning a presentation from Jill Pentimonti of “The Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy,” that I had attended at CML this past November. Janet was interested in Jill’s suitability and relevance as a possible speaker for an upcoming OLC Conference event. We spoke briefly about Jill during the OLC Children’s Services Division meeting yesterday. I also decided to read an annual report on the collaborative community organization “Learn4Life Columbus.” This report was distributed to CML staff by our CEO/Executive Director, Pat Losinski, as CML is an active partner. I felt this document might also be of interest to Janet. I marked both documents with my notes and sent an email to Janet letting her know they are available for her perusal, should she wish to look at them. I then spent some time at the “Make Summer Count” website, a “Learn4Life” effort that includes input from CML and other leading social agencies like the YMCA and United Way, looking at the general research presented and evaluating parent and caregiver resources that were offered. The content of the “Make Summer Count” website and suggested curriculum closely coincide with the research-based “Reading Buddies” program currently underway at CML--Main Children’s and clearly support the efforts of ODE’s Third Grade Reading Guarantee.

Next, I conducted a bit more research on the new PARCC assessments, and read the first third of the Institute of Museum and Library Services report on “Growing Young Minds,” while taking notes. The IMLS report detailed information about another, larger scale, collaborative effort, between libraries and museums called the “Campaign for Grade-Level-Reading.” From what I am gathering from the initial reading, this report is a general “call-to-action” which details some of the things that museums and libraries are currently doing as “learning partners” to support “hands-on, experiential learning” and help guide student achievement, with particular focus on reading and proposing further, even more aggressive, collaboration between agencies. Much of the information contained within this report coincides with the research and findings of “Learn4Life” and the “Make Summer Count” initiatives—namely that much learning occurs outside of school and classroom settings and walls and that real-world

learning=real world application=real world success, especially for those children who fall in the lower socioeconomic strata. It would seem that agency collaborations are the “name of the game” these days.

I spent the last hour of my time today focusing exclusively on ASD research and background information in preparation for Friday’s meeting with Amy Price of Oakstone Academy. Other than my odd morning mishaps, it has been a very successful “brain-building” day for me!

January 16, 2014Thursday, 9:00am – 2:30pmHours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 47

Today, I attended a State Library Board Meeting with Janet. It was fascinating! Plus, I was an actual agenda item under “New Business,” which is not something that very many people get to say. I imagined a meeting of the general membership around a boardroom-style table with observers being placed around the outside perimeter walls, but instead this board meeting had the five board members seated at a table and audience-style seating arranged in a semi-circle in front of that table. When someone addressed the board members, they had to stand and be recognized presentation-style. Among the agenda items addressed at this meeting, Missy Lodge provided a LSTA report, David Namiotka provided a brief powerpoint presentation on the importance of safeguarding personal and patron information in our digital environment, with specific focus on the rules and practices expected of State employees, Bill Morris spoke about library boundaries, and in particular there was a very exciting presentation given by the Library Director for Greene County concerning a national program through the Dolly Parton Imagination Libraries that he and his staff would like to see developed as a statewide initiative.

After lunch, I assisted Janet with preparations for the upcoming Take 5: Take 3 event by searching for examples of speaker contracts/agreements that we might have each speaker sign to allow permission to photograph and videotape their presentations for later promotional, training and developmental use. I found what I felt to be two very good examples and submitted these to Janet for her opinion. I will craft our actual document based upon what we would like to have included for our purposes, the documents I found will help inform the one that I will create. Janet and I briefly discussed the off-site presentation she gave yesterday and possible future collaborations with State Library and ODE on providing families with assistance to prevent “summer slide.” I was really excited about this revelation, because I had just finished looking at the “Learn4Life” report which detailed collaborative efforts already in place to prevent “summer slide” here in Columbus by providing programming and curriculum-based ideas for parents and caregivers within the framework of the “Make Summer Count” website. Janet was excited to view the report and took it back with her. It’s really gratifying to see how all of the various projects we are working on somehow seem to be connected and/or offer opportunities for collaboration across agencies like this! It is very clear to me that I am absolutely in the right profession!

January 17, 2014

Friday, 9:00 am – 1pm Hours completed: 4Accumulated on-site hours: 51

I spent the first part of the morning reading through the “Including Families of Children with Special Needs” manual that Janet gave me on Wednesday. Then, Janet and I met with Amy Price of Oakstone Academy concerning the Digital Sensory Storytime informational/training video we are working on together. I am very excited about this project, as well as possibilities for future collaborative efforts between Amy Price and CML concerning special needs programming and training. At the very least, I am excited to be a “connector” between Amy and Laura Batt, our special needs programmer at CML Main-Children’s. As I was reading through the manual and discussing programming best practices with Amy today, it occurred to me how easily we might be able to update the CML New Children’s Librarian Programming Training to be more inclusive of children with special needs and their families. I will set up a meeting to discuss these ideas with my manager, Martha Lund, and Laura very soon. I’d like to see what they think about this.

January 20, 2014Martin Luther King, Jr. Day/State HolidayHours completed: 0 (State Library Closed in observance of holiday)Accumulated on-site hours: 51

Nothing to report, as State Library was closed in observance of the holiday.

January 21, 2014Tuesday, 10am – 2:45pmHours completed: 4.25Accumulated on-site hours: 55.25

This morning, Janet and I met to review priorities for this shortened workweek. I shared with Janet my thoughts about Friday’s meeting with Amy—very exciting and full of future possibilities. I also shared with Janet the positive outcomes of my meeting on Saturday with special needs programmer Laura Batt of CML and my manager, Martha Lund concerning a possible connection/collaboration with Amy and the possibility of making CML’s storytimes more inclusive for all children. Both Martha and Laura are open to future collaboration with Amy. Additionally, we are looking at the possibility of providing programming this coming summer for children with special needs and their families. We also discussed the very real possibility of updating our current programming training to include aspects of inclusive programming for children with special needs. Of all the projects that I currently have going, it has quickly become clear that the ASD clearinghouse and Digital Sensory Storytime Informational Video Series we are working on with Amy Price from Oakstone Academy has risen to the top as the number one priority. Janet has a very busy week, and so I’ve asked her to send me the powerpoint slides she has been working on for the video. My plan is to continue her work editing, re-formatting, and finding appropriate images for the slides so that we will have a polished product for at least the first two parts of the four-part video series for Amy to provide voiceover for on Friday. I am also going to familiarize myself with the video-camera that we will be using for Amy’s short instructional video piece of the

series. The idea is that when Amy comes on Friday, we will be ready to video tape her and also have her do the initial voiceover pieces—and then we can work on editing sometime next week as we are able.

Janet asked me how I was feeling about our busy and varied workload, and I stated that I felt okay about it at this point because I had a clear idea of where each project falls on the priority scale. I did express concern about not being able to spend much time looking at/updating the CTRO toolkits and that, due to the timing of my internship, I may not be able to gain access to the information needed to update the website with information on the newest Kindergarten Assessments, “Start Strong.” Janet allayed my fears by saying that she is pleased with the amount and quality of the work I am doing and that it can’t be helped if the timing doesn’t work out for completion of certain parts of my workplan, especially in light of the primacy of our current project. We will take another look at “realistic timeframes” for these other projects soon.

In addition to working on the “Amy Price project” today, I have composed a first draft for a general speaker agreement including photo/video release for the “Take 5: Take 3” event, submitted it to Janet for her comments/changes, and reviewed chapter 6 of the SRP manual for obvious grammatical errors and book suggestions. Janet has also tasked me with looking through more images of real children and storytime situations for inclusion in the powerpoint slides and soliciting permissions for their use, but I will probably not get to the permissions until tomorrow or Thursday.

January 22, 2014Wednesday, 9:30am – 2:30pmHours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 59.75

Janet was pleased with the “Take5: Take 3” event speaker agreement I drafted, but requested a section for event speakers to include a business address. After updating the document to meet Janet’s specifications, I forwarded it to her for use in connection with the event. I spent the rest of the day editing and re-formatting the informational slides and finding appropriate images to enhance the “Digital Sensory Storytime” presentation project. I contacted several online newpapers and a couple “bloggers” today to request permission to re-use their photos in connection with our project. Additionally, the image research I conducted today resulted in the serendipitous discovery of two children’s services blogs that I think will be particularly useful for me to follow, career-wise. They are “Little eLit” and “Little Literacy Librarian.” “Little eLit” posts information about “doing” early literacy in the digital age, and “Little Literacy Librarian” is trying some very inventive things with technology during storytimes and in other children’s programming situations. I anticipate that both of these blogs will be useful in terms of discovering ways to incorporate digital literacy into the early literacy setting—a timely endeavor for any public children’s librarian in today’s world.

January 23, 2014Thursday, 9:30am – 3pmHours completed: 5.5Accumulated on-site hours: 65.25Today I continued contacting people for permissions in connection with photos we’d like to use for the project. We need to find other images in case we do not receive permission to use the ones we already

have. I looked through the images from past Library Snapshot Days to find additional options which we already have permission to use for possible inclusion in the project.

January 24, 2014Friday, 10am – 4:15pm Hours completed: 5.75Accumulated on-site hours: 71

I spent the entire morning updating Amy’s presentation slides and contacting people for permission to use photos, logos, and weblinks within the “Digital Sensory Storytime” presentation project. I composed a list of permissions requested and current status thereof for Janet and sent it to her via email. In the course of making phone calls for permissions, I had an opportunity to speak briefly with Tricia Twagorowski, branch manager at Akron Summit County, Northwest, and a major contributor to library resources for librarians looking to serve children with ASD and their families. She is recognized as somewhat of an expert at presenting Sensory Storytimes, and has traveled the country training children’s librarians in the best ways to do this. I expressed interest in observing one of her Saturday Sensory Storytimes with Laura Batt from CML, Main Children’s as a way of informing our future endeavors in developing best practices for presenting Special Needs programming at CML. Tricia was receptive, and Laura and I are hopeful that we will be granted permission to go perhaps sometime in March. Janet and I spent the afternoon working with Amy Price on voiceover recordings for the first two segments of her four segment “Digital Sensory Storytime” presentation/video. I left a little early today to take my eldest daughter to her eye-appointment.

January 27, 2014Monday, 9:30am – 5pmHours completed: 7Accumulated on-site hours: 78

Janet and I met this morning to review our progress on the Digital Sensory Storytime presentation and Autism Clearinghouse project. We decided we are in good shape concerning the timeline of the project. Janet feels that if things proceed as planned, we should have a finished product before the end of my practicum/internship experience. It would be really great to have something sort of concrete, complete, and useful to show for my time here. We are still awaiting permissions for some of the photos we’d like to use, so as a precautionary measure, Janet had me put together a document that included images of each slide wherein we have embedded content for which we still need approval for sending to Amy. It is our hope that Amy might be able to take some alternate photographs that we could use in case we can’t get permission to use the one’s we currently have. Additionally, as I am officially halfway through my practicum/internship, Janet and I “touched base” on my initial objectives and the proposed assignments and workplan to assess how realistic it might be to meet all objectives and complete all assignments. We discovered that we appear to be “on target” and “in progress” on the majority of my objectives and assignments. Two of the proposed assignments must be dropped from the workplan simply due to the timing of my practicum. I was tentatively scheduled to contribute more substantially to developing mechanisms for promoting awareness among librarians concerning Ohio’s next generation assessments and new Kindergarten entry assessment, and also to participate in the

planning and development of new Ohio Ready to Read statewide trainings using my knowledge of ECRR and ECRR2 and my background as a Ready to Read Ambassador and Staff Trainer for CML. However, I am on schedule to complete my practicum by the third week of February, and the task forces/workgroups on the two items in question won’t be convening until end of March to mid-April timeframe at the very least. I am sad to miss out on contributing to these two initiatives, as they are big and awesome, and it would have been amazing to participate, but it would seem that the timing just doesn’t quite work out. Janet assured me, however, that just because I am no longer a practicum student here doesn’t mean that I can’t participate in important initiatives in my professional capacity as (hopefully) a children’s librarian. She cited many ways to stay “in touch” and involved long after my practicum is complete.

Other developments today include: We scheduled a meeting with Dr. Boon, my practicum advisor, for Wednesday afternoon. We confirmed a meeting with Amy Price for continued work on the “Digital Sensory Storytime” presentation video. We added a meeting with Missy Lodge for tomorrow for an overview of the LSTA grant writing and review process. We added a tentative phone conference on Friday, together with Amy Price, with the “Moms with Apps/ACT” group whose logos we are using in the “DSS” presentation video. I plan to spend the rest of the afternoon looking at three very promising picture book titles that are on their way to becoming official selections for the 2014 CTRO Toolkit list. I plan to turn my attention to building at least one toolkit between working on the DSS project and Take5: Take 3 preparations.

January 28, 2014Tuesday, 10:30am – 2:30pmHours completed: 3.5Accumulated on-site hours: 81.5

I spent the morning reading the CTRO book selections for picture books. I will compose a new “toolkit/reading guide” for at least one of these books as part of my practicum assignments. So this must be what people mean whenever they say, “oh, you’re a librarian? It must be nice to sit around and read all day!” It was nice. I really enjoyed reading the selections and thinking about how to write about the book and what activities I could suggest to tie them in with the new learning standards. This afternoon, I have a meeting with Missy Lodge, Associate State Librarian for Library Development. She will be instructing me in some of the history and background behind the IMLS LSTA grants administered here at State Library. I am particularly interested to know what sorts of innovations are being funded, what the grant writing and review process looks like, and how to be successful in such an endeavor. Great meeting with Missy Lodge. Invited me to sit in on LPD meeting! Observed for the first half.

January 29, 2014Wednesday, 10am – 2:30pmHours completed: 4Accumulated on-site hours: 85.5

Today, I worked on developing two new toolkits for the anticipated CTRO book selections “This is the Rope” by Jacqueline Woodson, and “Big Brothers Don’t Take Naps” by Louise Borden. I formatted two word documents, one for “This is the Rope” and another for “Big Brothers Don’t Take Naps,” and

looked up author and illustrator information on Jacqueline Woodson, James Ransome, Louise Bordon, and Emma Dodd. I familiarized myself with the content typically included in previous CTRO toolkits and began crafting some ideas for discussion points, games and activities for use with “This is the Rope,” while also thinking of ways to reformat the information to provide a “one-sheet” quick-reference, style document for teachers and caregivers to use when sharing these titles with the children in their care.

Later, I reformatted some of the remaining presentation slides for DSS project sections 3 and 4, and inserted photos received from Amy Price in place of all photos we have yet to receive permission to use. It is my feeling that Amy’s photos more than meet our needs in this regard, and that we can relax about getting the other permissions because we no longer plan to use those photos.

January 30, 2014Thursday, 9:30 am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 90

I spent the morning reviewing and “polishing” all of the powerpoint presentation slides for the “Digital Sensory Storytime” project—sent these most recent revisions to Janet—and working on the two CTRO toolkits I’ve chosen to create—mainly finding more information on Jacqueline Woodson and James Ransome and browsing the internet for more activity ideas to tie the book “This is the Rope” to the new Ohio Learning Standards. I came up with a few ideas of my own already, but “The Great Migration” is a difficult topic to make “fun” for young children. I decided to include some jump-rope rhymes, since these are referenced within the text, and to have children pretend to go on a trip, packing their pretend suitcases, imagining where they would go, mapping a route with mom and dad, etc. I also thought it might be fun to have them think about something special that their family has passed down, or to think about which items they own, favorite toys, stuffed animals, etc. that they might want to pass down to future generations. I am browsing the net, however, for more inspiration. This afternoon, I plan to make time to look over some of the successful LSTA grants that Janet has pulled for me and to fully process the things that I learned in my meeting with Missy Lodge on Tuesday.

January 31, 2014Friday, 10am – 5pm Hours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 96.5

I worked on CTRO toolkits again in the morning. I also worked with Janet to upload revised “Digital Sensory Storytime” powerpoints and video demonstration of interactive e-reader into the Adobe Captivate software in preparation for working with Amy Price on our “first draft” of the finished DSS product this afternoon. Today is a busy day, with a telephone conference with Moms with Apps/ACT at noon, and working with Amy Price again as we attempt to near completion of the Digital Sensory Storytime project. Also, as part of working on the CTRO toolkits, Janet has invited me to sit in on the CTRO book selection advisory committee meeting on February 10th at which they will discuss the merits of each title on the list for consideration and make final recommendations for selection. In preparation for this meeting, I requested that Janet give me a copy of the booklists for each bracket so that I may at least attempt to familiarize myself with the majority of the candidates prior to the meeting. I’d like to be

better informed as to why or why not certain titles might be supported. I spent the last part of the afternoon today looking up the titles and reserving them so that I can have time to read and look them over prior to the meeting on the 10th.

February 3, 2014Monday, 10am – 5pmHours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 103

Field trip day!!!! Janet and I are visiting Grandview Heights Public Library to observe Chelsea Weissman’s Music and Movement program for toddlers. We also anticipate a tour. I will be bringing along my tiny notebook and pen and multitasking this visit by also observing how Grandview Heights markets their programs, services and public spaces for my marketing class. Brilliant! This morning I spent my time working within captivate to import revised slides into our existing project. One issue we have had with importing video/animation into the project involved a pop-up error message saying that a difference between “actionware 2” and “actionware 3” could cause distortion within the project. I have no idea what that means, but I spent some time troubleshooting that issue this morning as well.

*Update* The field trip was so much fun! I enjoyed touring Grandview Heights Children’s Department and noting the different ways they approach the collection as compare with CML. At Grandview Heights, librarians are able to arrange the picture book collection by topic rather than by author’s last name. As a customer, I would be delighted by this! I could immediately recognize the value of being able, as a parent or even a teacher, to go directly to the “Farm” section to quickly browse and select materials—as a library professional, however, I immediately recognized the huge amount of work it must be for even a small library to maintain their collection in this way, and I quickly realized that it would be nearly impossible for a large library system, like CML, to accomplish this. The Music and Movement program was delightful. Chelsea brought out an acoustic guitar and this was such a treat for me to hear the fun tunes that she played. The families really love her and the kids responded well to the lineup she had created. True to the name of the program, it was completely music-based, and each story had an element of movement for the children to do. It was a very active and lively program, and Chelsea is a warm and lively programmer.

February 4, 2014Tuesday, 10am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 4Accumulated on-site hours: 107

This morning I attended a webinar at which Janet presented, concerning the Teen Summer Reading Program. While somewhat tangential to my main focus of being a children’s librarian, pulling back slightly to include teen programming didn’t seem too far-fetched to me, particularly due to the fact that some youth services librarians by necessity will be responsible for providing both children’s AND teen programming. Furthermore, I felt that the marketing pieces of the webinar were useful in terms of marketing more than just teen programs. After the webinar, I went to lunch thinking of the many ways that we can reach our target demographics through marketing. I looked at some library promotional

videos, both standard and “viral” types, and considered the impact of social media on the way we promote our services. I then turned my attention to my two CTRO toolkits—today I played around with different “single-page/book insert-style” formats for “Big Brother’s Don’t Take Naps.” I also worked a little bit more on linking “This is the Rope” to the new Ohio Learning Standards, but I must admit that this work feels a bit more tedious now…particularly in light of all of the exciting things I am learning as I work with Janet and Amy on the “Digital Sensory Storytime” project, and while “visions of marketing strategies” are still dancing through my head…it’s really hard to focus on dry educational standards right now…yet I persevere.

February 5, 2014Wednesday, 10am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 0Accumulated on-site hours: 107

Nothing to report. Out due to weather.

February 6, 2014Thursday, 10am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 0Accumulated on-site hours: 107

Nothing to report. Out due to weather/illness.

February 7, 2014Friday, 10am – 5pm Hours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 113.5Due to the fact that I was out for two days this week due to the crazy weather and my sick self and sick children, I will be working feverishly today on completing a CTRO long-form toolkit draft for “This is the Rope,” and both a long and “short-form” draft of “Big Brothers Don’t Take Naps” in preparation for the CTRO selection meeting on Monday. Janet would like for the committee to see what a “short” form of the document might look like so that they can discuss whether to keep the CTRO toolkit at its current length, or whether it would be considered more useful in condensed form. We also have a Take 5: Take 3 telephone conference happening this afternoon at 3pm. *Update* Excellent “touch base” meeting with Janet and Dr. Boon and the rest of the Take 5: Take 3 event planning committee—so great to get some insider experience on the process and logistics of planning an event like this. Particularly as I attended last year’s event and came away with such a wealth of information and brimming with programming ideas! I am now ready to tweak the speaker agreement I created to the specifications of the group, and I am hoping to make time to attend the event in conjunction with my graduation from Kent State University as they happen to be occurring on the same day!

February 10, 2014Monday, 9:30am – 4pm Hours completed: 6Accumulated on-site hours: 119.5CTRO Selection Committee meeting at 10 am today. I am giving a brief explanation of the CTRO Parent Tipsheet. This morning, I revised “Take 5: Take 3” speaker agreement to the new specifications suggested by the planning committee, based upon their input at the meeting on Friday. *Update* A very exciting CTRO meeting today! What fun! Books were discussed, merits compared and semi-final selections for CTRO author/illustrators were made. It was interesting to me to see how some negotiating had to happen, some people advocated for books to be placed on the list even if they received slightly fewer votes for various reasons. Many things were taken into consideration. Was this a debut author/illustrator versus one that had been previously recognized? Were titles/themes very similar? I thought it was interesting to note that much care was taken to ensure a representative mix of geographic parts of Ohio. Ratio of male/female selections was noted. Also books by two very popular authors were bumped because each author appeared on multiple lists to great popularity on both, so they could only select that author to be recognized on one of the lists. This resulted in one of the authors being chosen for the young children’s list, and one being chosen for the teen list. Janet passed out printouts of the newly proposed parent tip sheet that I had created for two of the selected titles, and I briefly outlined the reasons behind their composition and possibilities for use. I felt that the ideas I presented today were taken seriously and I received a favorable response from all parties. It’s a great feeling to be accepted as part of the group and to have my input deemed valuable.

February 11, 2014Tuesday, 9:30am – 2:30pmHours completed: 4.5Accumulated on-site hours: 124

This morning I showed Janet how to import new slides into an existing Adobe “Captivate” project. Janet and I then discussed how best to integrate the video portions of our presentation into the project. Since Mandy Knapp had indicated that sometimes there may be “quirks” that seem present in the unpublished product, that are sometimes inexplicably not present in the published version, I suggested that we go ahead and publish our little movie to see if the “quirks” iron themselves out. We will plan to do this after lunch. It is my hope to leave Janet with a complete and operational project by the end of the week with the understanding that the webpage re-design in store for State Library will very likely preclude us from uploading the actual resource until after the completion of the webpage re-design and after my practicum is over. Additionally, since Amy has not yet heard back from Oceanhouse Media with regard to permission to use the “Green Eggs and Ham” video demonstration, Janet has tasked me to contact them and follow up with this request. I may need to contact Storytime Creator as well.

February 12, 2014Wednesday, 9:15am – 2:30pm Hours completed: 4.5

Accumulated on-site hours: 128.75Today was our field trip experience to Upper Arlington Public Library’s Tremont Branch. It’s really such a treat to be able to tour libraries from systems outside of CML. I love seeing the similarities and differences, particularly in terms of marketing and programming. I was very impressed with many of the observations I made at UAPL. There were so many similarities between the Tremont Branch and a typical branch within CML, mostly in terms of a clearly identifiable “brand” throughout. I thought it was interesting that while UAPL, is clearly “branded,” there were still bits of individual “personality” to be found here and there. In particular, I noted a very cute poster from last year’s Collaborative Summer Reading Program, “Dig Into Reading,” that included images of the actual children’s librarians conducting business in an underground “burrow” version of the library! It was so cute and well done! We went on a brief tour throughout the entire library where I observed the architecture, floor plan, and layout of the library. I also noted “motion sensor” lighting in the lesser-used bookstacks, which I thought was brilliant, and I enjoyed comparing the children’s and teen spaces to our own at my home location. Then, I was privileged to observe a “Storytime Class” with Youth Services Programmer, “Dena,” whom I believe is also the Youth Services Manager for this location. I noted that the “Storytime Class” was similar to the typical storytime programming offered at my location, with a bit more formal emphasis on the very specific “skills” and “practices” associated with growing readers. I was also quite impressed with a piece of passive programming I noticed in the form of a “Winter Reading Club” BINGO game. Within the BINGO boards, one for each age group—infant/toddler, preschooler, school-ager, teen—participants were prompted to partake of the many offerings of UAPL, including; attending programs, participating in blogs, writing book reviews, downloading digital media, etc. They were a fabulous little bit of marketing genius, and a great way to connect with customers and keep them “busy” during the dreary winter months. Plus, passive programs like this have the potential for huge dividends with little effort on the part of staff. I love it! Afterward, I was surprised and delighted to “run into” former CML colleague, Chris Taylor, who is now the Director for UAPL! We visited briefly. What fun!

February 13, 2014Thursday, 9am – 2:30pmHours completed: 5Accumulated on-site hours: 133.75Today I worked on creating a mockup of a bookmark idea that I had for the tween/teen/adult CTRO bookmarks using CTRO author Sharon Draper as my example. On the front of the bookmark, I decided to include an image of the author at the top, list her five most popular titles underneath, and then the CTRO logo at the bottom. On the back, I chose to include a “Fast Fact Five” featuring five interesting things about Sharon Draper, then her author website info and the CTRO logo again. It was going to look amazing! Unfortunately, I was extremely frustrated with the actual creation of the bookmarks because the bookmark template offered in word is not at all friendly. First of all, it has pre-set formatting that forces you to use the existing textboxes. I was able to work within this restriction with some success, however when one attempts to add information to the reverse side of the bookmark in the template even when using the pre-existing textboxes, for some reason it erases part of the information on the front of the bookmark and replaces it with the information on the “back” of the book mark. It then copies across all the bookmark templates (they seem to be tied together somehow—but the

information on the “front” of the bookmark all but disappears and the information on the “back” of the first bookmark duplicates itself across all bookmarks front and back. Huh?!? For the love of….why?!?! I struggled and puzzled with this for some time, attempting to erase all template formats and put in my own, trying variations of their formatting and mine to no avail. It just kept on doing the same thing. There was hidden text that would pop up unexpectedly for no discernable reason, or I would finally get a bookmark to look the way I wanted it to and then the other bookmarks would duplicate slightly wonky with the photo image in the wrong place or the text would hide itself and the template would suddenly not allow me to move or adjust any elements! Well, I finally got frustrated and decided to print out what I had just to see what it looked like in physical form…imagine my increased chagrin when I discovered that the fronts and backs of the individual bookmarks do not even line up when printed—and to complete my frustration—the text on the “backs” of the bookmarks is flipped upside down!!! WHAT?!? Seriously, who designed this template, Microsoft? So stupid, and such a waste of my very limited time. So I have wasted about two hours this morning trying to figure out why on Earth this template won’t play nicely with me and I am done. I am now trying to decide whether I have the time and energy to design my own original bookmark template or to simply scrap the idea altogether. I hate to admit defeat however…stupid template. Also, this is the only bookmark template available from Microsoft that doesn’t come with fixed imagery or isn’t a wonky, too-large size. I turned to a general Internet search to see if I could find additional, free, bookmark templates, but none of them are of good quality. What gives? I’ve decided to take a break and go work on creating finished mp4 movies of Digital Sensory Storytime tutorial slides sets 1 and 4 for the DSS/Autism Resources Project. I hope that goes smoothly…*sigh*Update: To complete my day of technological roadblocks, I published Digital Sensory Storytime tutorial part 1 to discover an inexplicable jumpiness occurring between slide transitions. Janet and Mandy (resident SLO Captivate/technology guru) both came in to look at the settings and we could none of us discover what was wrong as everything appeared to be normal. Mandy played around with some of the settings to see why the jumpy transitions were occurring and had no luck, then Janet and I manipulated settings and compared slide set settings to no avail as well. We don’t know why it’s happening. Today has simply been a disappointing day for technology/templates/computer-related projects. I am focusing on CTRO toolkits exclusively tomorrow, and have decided to tackle this project with renewed vigor on Tuesday, after the holiday weekend.

February 14, 2014Friday, 10am – 5pm Hours completed: 6.5Accumulated on-site hours: 140.25Happy Valentine’s Day!!! I brought in candy for the SLO staff—who definitely appreciate some good chocolate—and then spent a blissful day focused entirely on developing complete toolkits for Big Brothers Don’t Take Naps and This Is The Rope. I completed both full toolkits and parent tip sheets for each title. Additionally, I took a few moments to make a “currency list” for Janet letting her know which of the past CTRO children’s titles had not been revised/updated in some time for future reference.

February 17, 2014

Monday, President’s Day/State HolidayHours completed: 0 (State Library Closed)Accumulated on-site hours: 140.25Nothing to Report as the State Library was closed in observance of President’s Day.

February 18, 2014Tuesday, 9:30am – 2:45pm Hours completed: 4.75Accumulated on-site hours: 145Today I wrapping up final details and polishing the CTRO toolkits and parent tip sheets I created for “Big Brothers Don’t Take Naps” and “This Is the Rope.” I also looked, with Janet, at the mockup for the Digital Sensory Storytime Resource as it would appear on the Ohio Ready to Read website. I am thinking of how we might play with the layout of the webpage and pondering what to say in the introductory paragraphs. One suggestion I have for the website would be to encourage Amy to photograph herself or another librarian actually conducting a Digital Sensory Storytime using iPad technology for inclusion on the website instead of relying on stock photos, or other photos of a non-specific storytime. Janet liked this suggestion. I can’t believe that tomorrow is my last day…it amazes me how quickly I have become accustomed to spending my days here at the State Library. While I will definitely stay in contact with Janet and will be back to browse the collections here at State Library as well as the Ohioana Library collection, it will feel strange to not be roaming these interior halls and to no longer have an active role in the daily “goings on” here. I am feeling nostalgic already!

February 19, 2014Wednesday, 9:15am – 2:45pm Hours completed: 5Accumulated on-site hours: 150LAST DAY!!!!!! So today I went around and said my “goodbyes,” the staff here has welcomed me so warmly and completely that I feel like I am actually a part of the State Library of Ohio. I am sad to be leaving. I had hoped to continue work on the Digital Sensory Storytime project with Janet, but unfortunately, due to some of technological issues we’ve been having with inserting the videos into the project and the fact that we have yet to hear back from Oceanhouse Media as to whether we actually have permission to show a demonstration of their product within the tutorial, this piece will not be “live” at the completion of my practicum/internship experience today. Janet assures me that she will keep me posted as to the continued progress of the project and the eventual result. It is my hope that my contributions to date have proven useful and relevant. Aside from the Digital Sensory Storytime project, we will be playing around with the design and placement of elements within the ASD Resource page that will temporarily be parked on the Ohio Ready to Read website. Later, Janet and I plan to go to lunch and discuss my practicum experience. I am wrapping up by making sure that all required paperwork has been turned in, reviewing my practicum log, and designing an e-portfolio to showcase my work. It has been a rewarding and productive practicum experience—I will miss being a small part of the great work that happens here at the State Library of Ohio. I hope to maintain contact with Janet and

have encouraged her to think of me whenever she might have need of a “willing body” to assist with anything Youth Services related!