Reflection on the semester

Now that the class is starting to wrap up with student presentations and a quiz this week, I feel like this is a good time to end my blog. This was my very first blog, hopefully not my last, and I feel like it was a good experience. I liked having a very focused, topic driven post each week where I was also allowed to be a little more informal and express my likes, dislikes, and write about the concepts that I had a hard time grasping. I typically wrote my posts (or started to) every Sunday or Monday, which gave me time to think about the class and reading information from a few days earlier. Overall, I think my blog posts show an accurate reflection of how I connected with each unit. Some weeks went better than others, and there were definitely some weeks that I did not want to post at all.

My favorite blog post, and also my favorite time during the semester, was on 11/12/10 ("A little more with SFX"). Following my initial read-through of the syllabus, I expected to enjoy the first half of the semester because the second half consisted of concepts that were brand new to me and "scary" because they pertained to the technology side of ER management. However, I think this post shows a turning point in my attitude towards the link resolver, DOI, and OpenURL technology in libraries. I automatically assumed that I would have a difficult time understanding the material, but after I forced myself to present on Find It (about which I previously knew nothing), I gained a deeper understanding than I ever thought I would. Between my notes from class around this time (first two weeks of November) and my blog posts, I feel like I could stand in front of a group of people and teach these concepts. It's interesting how the topic I feared most ended up being my favorite.

My overall thoughts about ERM have drastically changed. The first half of the semester was filled with some personal challenges which slightly distracted me from my school work, but I also didn't feel connected to the material. I also went into this class with low confidence in my ability to understand some of the technology that ER librarians work with on a daily basis. I now know that work with electronic resources for future librarians is a necessary skill and there are so many different facets to it (just thinking back on all of our presenters) that there is bound to be a favorite work area. Some librarians may like the licensing and negotiating (the business side) of electronic resource management, whereas others may be more drawn to the various technologies that are used to keep everything running smoothy, like management systems and link resolvers.

Even though I struggled through parts of the class, the work (reading, presenting, writing, etc) made me feel like I have really added to my skills as a librarian and my ability to understand and work in a rapidly growing section of the industry.