I completed the day-long internship orientation earlier today and I’m still feeling a bit dazed from all the information that came my way throughout the day. There were about 7 sessions back to back with a break for lunch. All the ‘presenters’ were well-prepared to play their part, clear, open and eager to be helpful. In fact, I admit I was surprised at how genuinely interested everyone appears to be in the University Library interns’ education and opportunities.

A couple of the sessions ran short so we’re scheduling another orientation session after the start of class, from 3 to 4 hours long, to fit these in as well as some other topics that Mary Casserly thought would be relevant after she looked through the day’s schedule and we discussed my goals and interests. So the orientation will continue, which is great, because it’s a great chance to learn and ask questions without the typical interruptions of the workplace. I can already tell it will be great to be able to stand alongside all the experienced librarians and professionals and observe how they go about their work.

While I internalize all I absorbed today I’m going on what has become a ritual stimulating, energy-gathering pilgrimage before the start of classes. I’m heading to Puerto Rico, where I’m from, in order to recharge under the sun! I’m planning on meeting with friends, visiting my favorite beaches, haunts and ‘cuchifritos’ and celebrating my great-aunt’s 95th birthday!!! And as I’ve also begun to do, I’m incorporating a ‘library tour’ into my trip.

Last year my ritual visit before the start of the Fall semester was to Montreal, where I planned to visit the Bibliotheque Nationale and enjoy the World Film Fest. The Bibliotheque was the first place I drove to on arriving at the city but that’s because the long-term underground garage is recommended to people like me staying in the rue St. Denis area (a good way for the library to make some extra profit.) The Library’s building is impressive; all modern planes, angles and glass panes. Inside the spaces are broad and bright if a bit stark. The feeling is that of a contemporary art museum and there’s actually a large area in one floor devoted to art exhibits. It’s a natural combination - museum and library - and the whole experience is a far cry from the old, traditional, musty library stereotype. The World Film Fest was also refreshing and stimulating. I especially enjoyed the nightly (free!) outdoor filmings at downtown St. Catherine (few things beat -free!- entertainment under the stars on a summer evening) and the parade of “arty film-people” on the streets which was as engrossing as the movies themselves, or even more so.

In Puerto Rico my tour will include libraries I’ve never been to: the Archives at the Institute of Art and Culture, the Architecture Library at the University of Puerto Rico and the Bucaplaa Community Library in Guaynabo. I’ll post info on them when I return.

Through this blog I’m hoping to keep track of and share some of the experiences related to the internship I’ll be doing at the University at Albany Library during Spring ‘07, the last semester of my MSIS!

I’ll be splitting the internship between two areas: Reference and Collection Development. During the past year and a half I’ve explored Archives, Serials and Acquisitions through coursework as well as Volunteer and Student Assistant positions at the Albany Institute of History and Art and at the New York State Library. My goal for this internship is as much about trying to round out my practical knowledge as well as to further dig into those areas that specifically appeal to me.

I always knew I’d do my internship in Reference – I guess I’m one the many who decided to pursue an MSIS because we really enjoy researching and hunting for information. I’m hoping a course I took in the Summer of 2006 – Online Information Retrieval - will be especially helpful. We covered Dialog and the major Humanities, Sciences, Business and Law databases. The requisite Information Sources and Services should also come in handy. At this point I’m debating whether I can fit in another course – Reference Sources in the Social Sciences – in with the internship, Research Methods (my last requisite course), as well as being a Graduate Assistant at the Department of Information Studies and a Student Assistant at the New York State Library. I wouldn't want to bite off more than I can chew.

The Collection Development part of the internship was unplanned for and came about as a result of a course I took this past Fall, Collection Development and Management. I was especially interested in the work of academic Subject Bibliographers and was inspired by a lecture given by Jesus Alonso Regalado, the Bibliographer for Latin American, Caribbean and U.S. Latino Studies at the University. I was impressed by the passion and energy he so clearly transmitted, and by the resourcefulness he exhibited in finding creative ways to extend the resources for his collection. (I was also pleased to discover he was the one responsible for acquiring all the great films from Spain and Latin America that had been popping up at the Library and I’d been busy borrowing.)

Jesus will be my mentor for the Collection Development portion for the internship, while Carol Lee Anderson, a veteran Reference Librarian, will be my mentor in Reference. I’ve already had preliminary meetings with both in which we went over schedules, tasks and potential projects . Not surprisingly, they each have enough work for about a dozen interns! Jesus drew up a great preliminary schedule that covers selection and acquisition of books and journals, preparation of purchase orders, international approval plans, and book fairs, among other things. I’ll also work on a bibliography project for a new focus of the program: Globalization in Latin America. Carol Lee has been mentoring students for a while but it's the first time she has a ‘shared intern’ and considers it somewhat of an experiment. I’ll be working the Reference desk by her side as much as possible. We also discussed interesting projects I could get involved in like developing online resources for Hispanics and for a campus-wide reading project, among others.

This coming Thursday I’ll have a day-long orientation session at the Library which I’m looking forward to.