Fourth-week Reflection

Fourth-week Reflection

This week was the last week of the program and I’m so happy because I gain new professional knowledge and experience. In the same time, I’m so sad because this fruitful trip will finish soon.

The first day was full of fun and creative. I learned new concept about work environment through Fish philosophy workshop. It was focused in different criteria that improve the:

  1. Communication and trust
  2. Break down silos.
  3. Deliver memorable customer service.
  4. Retain great employees.
  5. Increase in staff engagement and commitment.
  6. Ignite creativity.
  7. Celebrate and appreciate each other.
  8. Strengthen leadership.
  9. Truly live your vision, mission and values.

This philosophy will encourage me to bring a playful state of mind to my workplace in order to releases energy and enthusiasm.

Then we visited Grainger Engineering Library and the IDEA (Innovation, Discovery, DEsign, & DAta Laboratory). The library provides the students with various services and I found that it manages the learning spaces in a creative way. The IDEA lab was a good example that I can share with College of Engineering in our University. It provides space and technology for collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurship and supports a wide range of digital scholarship activities. It includes visualisation lab, visual reality lounge, Informatics lab, 3D printing lab, presentation space, Innovator design room, and collaboration equipment.

On Tuesday we went to Ohio to visit OCLC. One of my career goals is to visit this place to see the real process and work environment of professionals behind the global library cooperative system. We started our journey in OCLC with preview presentation then we had a great tour to OCLC data Centre, operation office, OCLC library and archive.

On the next day, we visited The Ohio State University, in particular, the OSU research commons. This space helps the researches to explore collaborative, interdisciplinary, and emerging research methods and connect with experts for support at any stage of the research process. It consists of different sections such as Digital Visualization and Brainstorming Rooms and Colloquia and Classroom. These rooms were designed in a very smart way that supports small-group and large-group collaborative projects, video conferencing, data visualization, and much more.

And then we visited OSU Thompson Library. This library is a combination of modern and traditional libraries architecture in one place. It provides a variety of study spaces, an extensive collection, and faculty and staff to help with research. Then we visited Westerville Public Library, it was a small library with a big and wide mission. It offers many creative services such as a drive-up window, homework help Centre and imagination station.

On Thursday we attended two workshops the first one was about research training and the second one was about library collection overview. The second session was focused on Budget creation and presentation by providing an overview of university collections, including information about the history, budget, and current tools. Then we visited TechHub and we explored the following technologies:

  1. 360° Camera
  2. 3D Scanning
  3. 3D Printing
  4. Augmented Reality
  5. Digital Assistants
  6. Digital Inking
  7. Drones
  8. Laser Cutting
  9. Virtual Reality
  10. Virtual Reality and Gaming

It was an immersive and engaging environment housing a variety of technology exhibits that allow visitors to explore, learn, and share how innovative technologies can be used to transform formal and informal education.

And at the end of the day, Mohanad and I presented our Chi-Wai presentation which about the (How libraries contribute peace, sustainable development & the SDGs). We have taken refugee camps as an example of the role of libraries in peace and development through the implementation of a joint project between Sultan Qaboos University and the University of Jordan. This project aims to raise donations through charity book fairs.

On Friday we spent the whole day on discovering the Digitization of Collections. The session was covered: Planning; Selection and Copyright Considerations; Digitization of Analog Materials; Introduction to Metadata.

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