Haleigh's Practicum Diary

Date: 6/22/26

Time Worked: 8:30am-5pm (approx. 8 hours)

Name: Haleigh Hare

Supervisor’s name: Marisa Bateman/ Taylor Brannan (Marisa is supervising my entire experience within the D.C. Public Library System, while Taylor is supervising me in this specific, Georgetown Neighborhood Library, branch)

Description of the Day:

After the long Juneteenth weekend, I came back to the library feeling rested and excited to start another week of my practicum. One of the first things I did that morning was finish the board book labeling project that I had been working on for several days. The final section included the library’s world language board books, and after talking it through with Taylor, I decided to label them using language abbreviations like “SPA” for Spanish and “FRE” for French to make them easy for both staff and patrons to identify. While working through the last few books, I was surprised to discover that the collection also included board books in Urdu, Cree, and Amharic. It was a small reminder of how diverse the library’s collection is and how important it is for families to be able to find books that reflect their languages and cultures. Finishing the project felt especially rewarding because I had spent so much time organizing, sorting, and labeling the collection over the past week. It was satisfying to step back and see how much progress had been made, knowing that the work would make the collection easier for both families to browse and staff to maintain.

For most of the morning, I worked by myself at the children’s desk, and I really enjoyed the opportunity to interact with patrons more independently. I greeted families as they came in, helped people log onto the public computers, answered questions, and assisted children and caregivers in finding books they were looking for. Between helping patrons, I spent time shelving books and making the shelves look inviting by pulling attractive, relevant titles forward so they would catch people’s attention as they browsed. Later in the afternoon, I met with Marisa to conduct the interview I needed for one of my graduate assignments. Talking with her about youth services and public librarianship reminded me how fortunate I am to be learning from librarians who are so passionate about the work they do. Before the day ended, another staff member asked if I could help with the family movie program, which involved setting up the projector, arranging chairs in the meeting room, and staying during the event since a staff member always needs to be present. We ended up welcoming five families, with about fifteen people attending altogether, and I certainly didn’t mind that the movie happened to be Encanto, one of my favorite new-generation kids movie. It was a relaxing way to end the day, and I loved seeing families enjoy a simple, free activity together. Experiences like this continue to show me that libraries aren’t just places to borrow books—they’re places where communities gather.

Pictured above are some of the World Language board books that I labeled. I first sorted them into their respective languages.

Pictured above is the movie program! It took place in our large community meeting room.