October 28, 2016 (Friday), 8:30AM-4:30PM (½ hour lunch)
Hours completed: 7h 30m 
Accumulated on-site hours completed: 130h 15m
Accumulated off-site hours completed: 24h 15m
Total Hours Accumulated: 154h 30m 

Today, after I marveled at how the mail merge yesterday worked, I sourced book cover images and added what I think will be the last additions to my master spreadsheet. Tomorrow, I plan on trying to mail merge the cover images into the guides. I realize some of the links will likely have to be rebuilt since I'm working from two different computers, but the bulk of the work is done. 

The spreadsheet has 67 rows and 75 columns.

​(Did you know there's a way to easily count columns in Excel? =COLUMNS(range)
Source: https://exceljet.net/formula/total-columns-in-range

I'll also look at how I can best categorize these guides. I spoke with a colleague briefly today and I asked her, "When you want to find out information about a position, where do you look?" She told me she tends to look at the state's job posting page to get information about the position. We talked a little bit longer and I mentioned this project to her and how I'm trying to think of the best way to take a step back from position titles (which is typically how she locates position information) and come up with broader groupings. She said she would likely look for something by skills needed or interest area. For instance, since she's good at budgeting, she might look for positions that are related to budgeting if she doesn't know the exact position title.

Good food for thought.

Another major milestone today! Spent first half of day completing subject terms from yesterday. I'd done something in Excel trying to remove duplicates, and had removed more than I intended to. The actual number of subject terms I've identified is closer to 104.

I also spent time compiling data & information (including images) from various spreadsheets into my master spreadsheet.

The best part of today was hitting the mail-merge button and seeing it work! The guides merged correctly (including hyperlinks and pictures). The rest of this week will be spent inserting actual book titles into the guides.

This feels like a huge relief. 

81 resources compiled.
104 subject headings identified.

​I can't help but feel that today was a milestone moment. 

Today I found myself getting lost in the nuances of competencies and ultimately roadblocks again. I took some time to clear my head with Evan Struble who reminded me that these guides are meant to serve as starters - they're not the be-all end-all. 

I'm about halfway through the list of resources.

I found my file! For some reason, my work computer had two OneDrive folders on it. One was being properly synchronized, and the other wasn't.  It took a bit of troubleshooting and internet searching to connect the dots and realize what was happening. Once I'd located the proper, current file I continued making adjustments to it.

The work I did yesterday has been lost. Four hours worth of compiling information is just...gone. I'm currently using Microsoft OneDrive to sync my work. Yesterday, I entered a lot - a LOT - of information into my master spreadsheet. Today when I arrived, I accessed the spreadsheet from OneDrive and saw it didn't have the changes I made. I called IT and they helped me get remotely authenticated to my work PC so I could see if the file had somehow gotten stuck locally. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the information I entered is simply gone.
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Rather than wasting time crying over spilled milk, I spent most of today locating titles for competencies. I still find that I struggle with finding the right search term to use. Some of the competencies don't lend themselves well to specific titles. For instance: "Developing Objectives and Strategies". To me, that kinda sounds like thinking strategically, so I looked up titles on strategic thinking. Most of what I found was related to strategic planning as a process, and not the specific act of developing or crafting strategies. 
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I think the conclusion I've reached is that I'll simply need to go with some of the broader topics that are related to the competencies, and not get so hung up on the precise terminology and definitions. I need to remember that these are starters - not intended to be the end-all-be-all lists of resources related to each competency.
​

So far, I've located about 36 resources.  I'm striving for a total of 81.
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Hopefully I'll be able to spend  some time tomorrow re-building the spreadsheet information I lost so I can concentrate on finding more titles when I return to the State Library this Friday.

In my original request to DAS for a data dump, I didn't ask for minimum qualification language to be included. I spent this time looking up, copying, and pasting MQ language into my master spreadsheet. I also copied & pasted competency definitions from each individual spreadsheet into the master spreadsheet.

Breathed a sigh of relief as I finally finished the base template I'm hoping to use for the rest of the competency guides. Shared with Cindy Boyden, Kirstin Krumsee, Evan Struble, and Beverly Cain. All were encouraging. 
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Still left to do: find resources for the rest of the competencies, figure out a grouping mechanism to arrange the guides, complete a mail merge to compile all of the information into the guides.

October 6, 2016 (Thursday), 1:00PM-5:00PM
Hours completed: 4h
Accumulated on-site hours completed: 85h 15m
Accumulated off-site hours completed: 11h 45m
Total Hours Accumulated: 97h

Continued adjusting the HR manager resource guide. Added guide footer with links to standard State Library resources (i.e. Ohio Digital Library, Business Source Complete, Gale Courses). Spoke with State Librarian who recommended including search terms for each competency.

Continued design. Got feedback from Kirstin Krumsee. Spoke to Nicole about whether or not to include saved searches. Learned about the complexities, pros and cons of doing so. Asked whether state of Ohio competencies could be added to subject fields in the catalog somehow, so that if people are searching for resources related to Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships, they'd be able to search for those exact terms. Discussed pros and cons. Also provided a staff member at OBM with my current design to get his suggestions for improvement. Will incorporate this week. Should have a final template to start the mail merge this week.

Continued working on the design. Am using Microsoft Publisher instead of Microsoft Word, which is what I started out trying to use. I switched based on the advice of Kirstin Krumsee, Library Consultant at the State Library of Ohio.

Continued working on layout. Had an impromptu meeting with Betsy Bashore from the OBM Office of Value Management who offered some insight on possible resources to include. She suggested breaking down resources  by position rather than competency to make them more relevant. Doing so might be beyond the scope of this project, but could be useful for a later phase, or as part of a lessons-learned debriefing session at the end of this project. 

Spent some time at work detailing more of the layout I'd like to use. I'm still not sure if I'll have enough room, but I feel like I'm making progress.

Today I feel like I made some progress on the design component. Of course, I'm still thinking about rearranging some things, but I was able to at least get a fairly decent mock-up together. I also continued searching for resources, which sounds a lot easier than it actually is.

Today I spent time drafting out a new sketch of what these documents might look like. I've decided that one sheet per position should help narrow my scope. I'm almost wondering if three resources for every three competencies might be too much on the sheets.
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I spoke with Kirstin Krumsee and got her opinion on how to design this. I'm not a graphic designer so I'm struggling a little bit with how to make these visually engaging. I can picture it in my mind, but when I put mouse to screen it doesn't quite translate. It feels like I'm Napoleon Dynamite drawing a pencil portrait of a Liger. 

Today I updated my OBM supervisor on my progress and talked to her about her expectations for what I'm delivering. I sure am glad I did, because she encouraged me to keep things simple. When I told her I was looking at making sheets for every competency with lots of resources on them, she reminded me that nobody wants to read a 50 page manual (which is what I would've ended up with at least). "Tell me what I need to know," she said to me repeatedly. Funny, because I tell my staff the same thing - simplify, simplify, simplify. All that extra information gets in the way - Laura Solomon taught me that when she gave a Writing for the Web class. We even talked about that in our Access to Information course. I remember distinctly when George Needham pointed out that not too long ago, people had plenty of time and came to the library for information. Nowadays time is scarce and information is everywhere so libraries are experiencing a major paradigm shift. 

After we talked I called my practicum supervisor, Nicole, and told her about a change in direction. We agreed it'd be ok to highlight three or so resources per competency (rather than 9 or 12) and that simplification was totally acceptable.

After that I spent a little bit of time adjusting and trying to figure out what the end product could look like, especially with my own boss's expectations in mind.

Today I spent time sketching out another idea for what the final resource guides should look like. I spent a little bit of time in the catalog, and also worked on compiling more data from DAS. I was able to obtain statewide retirement projections which may be useful in this project.

September 21, 2016 (Wednesday), 8:30AM-5:00PM (½ hour lunch)
Hours completed: 8h
Accumulated on-site hours completed: 61h 45m
Accumulated off-site hours completed: 2h 15m
Total Hours Accumulated: 64h

Today I spent time editing, preparing, and delivering a presentation for the Guiding Ohio Online program participants.  Afterwards I spent time in the catalog and updated a spreadsheet for my project. 

Spent time today scrubbing data from the classification database data dump (18,580 rows in a CSV file), and browsing template options. 
My "master" spreadsheet now lists the following columns, thanks to a few VLOOKUP formulas:

• Job Code
• Pay Grade
• As Of Date
• OBM Total Positions
• Statewide Total Positions
• Job Title
• Classification Concept Statement
• Series Purpose Statement
• Status (BU or Exempt)
• Competency 1
• Competency 2
• Competency 3

Today I attended the State Library of Ohio's September board meeting. I had the honor of being introduced to the board by State Librarian Beverly Cain, a woman I consider to be a very important mentor to me. I remember when I first applied to library school and got accepted. It suddenly hit me that I was going to be surrounded by very intelligent people, and I got more than I little nervous I wouldn't be able to cut it. I called Beverly and she talked me "down off the ledge" and explained to me that she wouldn't have written a letter of recommendation if she hadn't meant it. To be introduced by her today as I'm heading into the final stretch of library school meant a lot.

Began today with a Stand Up Meeting - one of the regular meetings the State Librarian has to communicate noteworthy information to the staff here. Chatted with Nicole who reminded me to utilize existing resources and not to reinvent the wheel with this project. I still haven't finished my first prototype and I'm definitely starting to get nervous. Hopefully as I continue I'll get faster. I had intended to spend some time today working on a visual layout, but didn't have time. I'm in tomorrow morning for the board meeting and will work a little bit after that. Maybe I'll devote that time solely to design and layout.

Nicole also took some time to explain the recent examination of the State Library's most recent 5-year LSTA plan.  Nicole showed me some of the reporting that had to be done and the types of questions that were asked. As always, I appreciated her willingness to share her knowledge and insight with me. 

Today I shadowed Jen Johnson, Electronic Resources Librarian, as she worked a shift on the Reference Desk.  Jen is an ILEAD USA Ohio graduate. I appreciated her explanations and patience as I asked questions about reference, the State Library, and my project. Nicole joined us, and in between reference questions the three of us talked about the differences between the discovery layer, the local/classic catalog, the OhioLINK central catalog, and some of the electronic resources found within each/either/both/all/none of them. Nicole drew a helpful (and awesome) Venn diagram for me. My key takeaways/rules of thumb were:

• If you're looking to find a whole bunch of information about a topic, and you're not really sure where to start, and you just wanna see everything that's out there, use the discovery layer (which is Ebsco powered). It's not designed to be targeted, although faceted searching can help narrow down results.
• If you pretty much know the title of what you're looking for and you just want to see if the State Library owns it or provides access to it, use the classic/local catalog.
• When you're looking for something more academic in nature or you're looking for something the State Library probably doesn't have, try OhioLINK.

Worked more today on finding resources for the competency Providing Consultation and Advice to Others. One thing I'm struggling with is how to choose resources in a manner that's generic enough to be helpful to any classification utilizing the competency. For instance, the resources I choose for this competency have to apply to both an HR Manager as well as a Financial Manager, and everything in between that also relies on this competency. Competencies, as I've learned, are the demonstration of knowledge, skills, and abilities. I got a good list of books and eBooks, but had a little bit of trouble finding articles/databases that could also support this competency.

Towards the end of my day I turned to the next competency Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards. I'll work more on this on Friday. Again, I am doing a lot of thinking and searching, but I want to be able to provide a prototype very soon.