Conclusions

Today I have my final meeting with my internship adviser.  It's almost a little bittersweet.  I am turning in the final version of my project (of which I am very confident of the Collected Works sheet, and slightly less thrilled with my Monuments work), as well as discussing the ups and downs of Acquisitions and Collection Development for a Music Library.

I truly think that this job is a lot more complicated than I ever anticipated it to be.  Collection Development sounds like an exciting responsibility for a Librarian.  I mean, what higher level of control can you exert than picking out what gets to be part of the overall collection?  But there is /so/ much that goes into that that it is almost overwhelming; at least for me.

I feel like taking the class S502 (Collection Development) con-currently with my internship was really a benefit, rather than a detriment, as perhaps assumed by other staff members at the beginning of this venture.  By doing both at once, I was able to relate lessons learned in the classroom to issues in my internship work and vice versa, which I think only enhanced my education on the subject overall.

I would definitely recommend this internship to any other Music Librarianship specializations, if only because the future of Music Librarianship is looking like a good deal of hybrid librarianship (or taking on more than simply one area of responsibility: i.e. just cataloging or reference) and chances are, we will be making some Collection Development decisions in the future.  If one hasn't experienced this, it could be (and probably still will be for me) rather daunting for a new professional.