Final Reflection

As my final reflection, I will review the activities so far and talk about what I gained for the three goals I had at the beginning of the program.

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Collecting information about the trends of libraries.

Funding Approach

I learned that the biggest difference between American and Japanese library is funding approach. Most of Japanese university libraries purchase materials using allocation budget based on tuition fees collected from students and subsidies from the government, but most of American libraries which we saw during this program receive funding from various organizations. We learned how to write grant proposals during the program, so I’d like to share information among Japanese libraries after going back to my country.

 

Maker Space

Most of libraries we saw during this program have maker spaces. In order to provide services required by users, I learned that we need to catch the needs of users on daily basis. My university is planning to establish a new campus, so I’d like to share the information collected during the field trip.

 

Digitization

We had a lot of opportunities to have lectures about digitization. When I heard “digitize” I used to imagine paper material at first, I learned that audiovisual materials with few playback equipment are also subject to digitization. It was interesting that we could see the work process of digitization. Though, I knew the convenience of digitization from the aspect of preservation and information access, I also learned the importance of keeping original materials securely.

 

Student Staff (interview)

Through the interview, I could get the information about student collaboration in university libraries. Surprisingly, Undergraduate Library has hired student staffs for over 20 years. They also have training system and staff wiki to manage them. My library decided to hire student staffs, but since the actual work has not started, I’d like to share the information with my colleagues such as management method and what we should keep in mind.

 

Learning communication skills to demonstrate leadership.

DiSC Workshop

Through DiSC workshop, we learned that all people are categorized in four groups according to their work style. Actually, I haven’t tried to know my own style, but now I can understand myself better than before. I was SC style. The characteristics of SC style are Steadiness and Conscientiousness. I convinced that this result accurately represents my personality. I’d like to be a person who can flexibly change my work style for the group while keeping my basis. I think that if I can move flexibly, I should be able to improve group performance without changing other member’s work style. Through the workshop, I got a chance to think about the ways to make good results while avoiding conflict with my colleagues.

 

SILL Workshop

Though, we focused on only two sections (Innovation and Planning) which originally consisted of four sections, it was fulfilling because there were a lot of opportunities to discuss in the group. I learned that by considering the problems in detail (what is the problem, who gains the benefit from the innovation, how we measure the impact) we can make more realistic and achievable plans.

 

FISH Workshop

Through the FISH workshop, I learned some points to keep in mind when communicating with others. Sometimes people don’t pay attention to the importance of communication because they emphasize the results in their work, but we learned that how it influence on others when we try to improve the atmosphere in our workplace. I learned that the ideal workplace atmosphere is that each member pay attention to others thinking how they can work more comfortably.

 

Learning how to make relationships with people living different countries and cultures.

Through this one-month program, I could communicate with librarians from various countries. One of the things I’d like to know through the communication with associates was expertise and social status of librarians in each country and I found that every associate is an expert who studied library science. Also, most of them are university librarians, but unlike Japanese university librarians, there are no transfer to other departments. From this point, I learned that social recognition of expertise of librarians in other countries are stronger than Japan. It was only one-month program, but we could be library friends. I think that having friends who can share information in various countries become a big advantage as a librarian.

 

Many thanks to Mortenson Center members and people who supported our programs.

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