Reflect on your experience as our library-wide intern. What could we have done better? What did you like? What are some ideas for next year’s projects? Suggestions for successful remote work?
I really appreciated that the staff would check in on me. I think that this is really important especially when it is the student’s first time doing an internship. The weekly meetings that I had with Claudia really seemed to work and I felt comfortable in those meetings raising questions or concerns that I had.
One thing that I really enjoyed was that I was able to go visit different departments. I believe that this is important especially when it is the library-wide intern’s first year so that they could get acquainted with the library. In my case, I was fortunate that I knew a lot about the library before doing this internship so I think that future interns should get a similar experience that I had (when interning) when alternating to different departments. This also helps the student get familiar with the library and understand what different services the library has to offer.
Another thing that I appreciated was that I began in technical services. I think that beginning in technical services helped me understand how books get searched up, cataloged, put into the system, and placed out to the bookshelves. In other cases, how librarians have to go through Catalysts to make sure that journals can be accessed by students. In all, I feel like having technical services be the beginning of the library-wide internship was a great idea to get the student associated with how and where books and online articles begin.
Some ideas for next year’s projects would be that if I were able to go back to the library physically, I could help Zoe with a project that she had going on. I could do some research on background information, help set it up, and type out the plaques that exhibits have besides them informing everyone what it is about. While I am doing that, I can also be working on a project for loan services and check-in with Brenda on how things are going with that certain project. A specific project that I also had in mind would be interviewing librarians at Carleton and at public libraries to see how they got to their current position. I would then post my findings on a blog post, mostly to keep to myself.
I believe some things that worked for me when working remotely was having that weekly calendar on Moodle. This helped me be in check with what I needed to get done. It also helped that I was able to video call Claudia and Brenda to check in on how work was going. Another big thing that really helped me while doing remote work was that people were super flexible with the timing in which I would turn in my projects. I know that people will have a lot going on when working from home that is why I really appreciated it that Claudia and Brenda were flexible with me. Likewise, I think something that helped me work remotely successfully was my ability to be flexible and adapt to different situations.
Dear Valerie-
I am so glad that you enjoyed your first year as a library intern. I agree that having new interns begin their work in Tech Services is a nice way to teach the process of how a book ends up in the shelves and is subsequently searched for by users.
I am also glad to hear that you found the weekly meetings useful, and that flexibility with project deadline is important. I am excited to see what projects you will participate in next school year!!!
Best,
Claudia