SFPL Internship -- four responsibilities and brief timeline

My internship consists of four separate parts, all of which are related and all of which build upon each other. For this reason, it's somewhat tricky to decide which should be done when -- but having given it some serious thought, I think I'm beginning to hone in on a logical pattern now. But first let me briefly explain my four responsibilities. (I'll discuss each one in detail later on).


My Four Responsibilities

[1.] I will collect, analyze and evaluate the digital resource policies/strategies of a preselected group of benchmark libraries, then create a best practices/recommendation report for SFPL.

[2.] In May, I will fly up to San Francisco to give a presentation that will summarize my findings.

[3.] To expand my knowledge and range of cataloging, I will remotely process 114 digital scans of postcards from the SFPL's Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) collection. To do this, I will gain access to the necessary cataloging tools (Classweb, OCLC, etc) through a password supplied by SJSU for such purposes.

[4.] As time permits, I will conduct a literature review on the topic of digital resource policy/strategy. The more time I have, the deeper and more thorough I will go. If time is scarce, this will become either a simple bibliography, or an "executive summary"-type review.


My Timeline Reasoning

Since [1] is likely to have a waiting period of several weeks, between the time I make first contact and the time I receive a response from those I've contacted, it makes sense to begin this first and to stretch it out for the majority of the weeks available. Since [2] can not be effectively completed until [1] is completed, the deadline for [1] must come early enough to give me time to finish the presentation, as well as time enough to travel to SFPL. I will need to give my supervisor at SFPL a list of possible presentation dates as soon as I can, so that a day that's good for both of us can be tentatively booked and I can then spiral my schedule outward and backwards from it.

Since [3] and [4] are more flexible in terms of scheduling, they lend themselves well to short bursts of time, and would be ideal for the interim between when I make contact with the libraries, and when I receive a response. They would also be good for any time left over at the end of the project. Since [4] is optional and scalable and [3] is not, I will focus more of my time and attention on [3] in the earlier weeks, but will lean more towards [4] when drafting my recommendations, as what I find in the literature will probably help to reinforce what I am communicating in my report.


My Timeline, Visualized 

I am visually-oriented -- and if you are too, then the diagram that I've appended below may make my timeline reasoning easier to understand. As before, this is only a very rough draft, but it gives some idea of my plan. Over the next few days I'll refine it with specific dates, specific deliverables, and so on. Watch for it then!