Internship Final Report 1

Internship Final Report

San Jose State University

School of Library and Information Science

LIBR 24

Alison Leonard

Dr. Bill Fischer

Fall 2009 Internship Final Report 2

Internship Final Report

Introduction

As a native Washingtonian currently living in Los Angeles, I knew that doing an internship could be an opportunity to spend time in my former home town, Washington, D.C. I also knew Washington, D.C. is the home to some of the most prestigious libraries in the U.S.

Additionally, I could spend time with my family back east. I was most recently in Washington in

January for the inauguration. During that time I was proactive about arranging several informational interviews for an internship for the Fall session. I arranged meetings with many government agencies and institutions, including: The Smithsonian American History Museum, the National Park Service Historical Buildings division, the Institute for Museum and Library

Services, and finally two reading rooms at the Library of Congress-the European Reading Room and the American Folklife Reading Room. While I received an offer to perform as an intern at most of the agencies I met with, I chose the Library of Congress, European Reading Room, for two reasons. Firstly, the Library of Congress (LC) is the largest, and perhaps the most prestigious, library in the world. Secondly, I already hold a Masters in International Transactions from George Mason University, and I wanted an internship experience that would combine my two degrees-international work with library studies. The European Reading Room allowed for that combination. Additionally, I am not sure whether I wish to become an academic librarian or a special librarian, or, perhaps, work in a federal library. Therefore, I felt that interning at the LC would provide experience which would not define me before I was ready to define myself professionally. Internship Final Report 3

Learning Outcomes:

The Learning Outcomes I chose were designed to help me learn skills that would be relevant in a work place setting. In addition to everyday skills such as performing varied duties at the reference desk, I also created learning outcomes which could potentially help the European

Reading Room with fundraising. I also wished to learn about LC’s Strategic Plan and digital preservation plan so that I could become familiar with LC long term goals in serving congress and researchers.

Site Description

Founded in 1800, the LC “About the Library”, http://www.loc.gov/about/, Web site states, “The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.”

Now known as the Jefferson Building, the LC opened its doors in 1897. The Italian

Renaissance building includes interior sculptures and paintings by more than 50 American artists. LC was originally housed in the Capitol, which, in 1814, British troops burned during the

War of 1812. In 1815, Thomas Jefferson, who had acquired the largest personal collection of books in the U.S., offered to sell his library to Congress as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the British. Congress approved the purchase for $23,950. Then, on Christmas Eve in 1851, a second fire destroyed nearly two thirds of the 6,487 volumes congress had purchased Internship Final Report 4 from Jefferson. A million dollar gift from Jerry and Gene Jones (of Dallas Cowboys Professional

Football fame), has been dedicated to restoring the Jefferson's library.

LC has 22 reading rooms, http://www.loc.gov/rr/, of which two are dedicated to Congress and the rest are open to researchers who have a reader’s card, which can be obtained in the

Madison building for those age 16 and over who can prove they are doing graduate level research. Now three LC buildings occupy Capitol Hill. In addition to the Jefferson, the Adams building was completed in 1938. At the time of its completion it was called the Annex. It is a beautiful building, but not as beautiful as the Jefferson building. The Madison building is functional rather than beautiful in design. It was not until after the Madison building was completed in 1980 that the Main Building was officially renamed the Thomas Jefferson

Building, and the Annex became the John Adams Building. Now that Capitol Hill is full, two other buildings are off site to house LC’s massive collection. They are located at Ft. Meade and

Landover, Maryland.

The European Reading Room

The European Reading Room (ERR), http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/, is located in the

Southeast Pavilion of the Jefferson Building. The ERR is bathed in sun thanks to floor-to-ceiling windows. Yellow walls, in addition to the sunny spot it occupies, make it a cheerful spot. Pastel- colored paintings representing earth, air, fire and water decorate the walls, and the disc in the doomed ceiling represents the sun. In each corner plaster medallions depict the four seasons. So in addition to being sunny, the room is quite beautiful. The new reading room was opened on

July 25, 2009. Between 1983 and 2009, the ERR has occupied five different spots within the

Jefferson building. The most recent previous space, adjacent to its current location, was on the Internship Final Report 5 second-floor South Curtain. That space is now used for exhibitions. The move was initially an unhappy transition for researchers since the South Curtain had elegant mahogany furnishings, stair-step bookcases and book-filled catwalks. The current space was downsized from the South

Curtain location. When some of the researchers who use the reading room originally heard that the ERR would be relocating to the Southeast Pavilion they started a blog entitled, “Save the

European Reading Room!” http://saveeuropa.blogspot.com/. Additionally, letters of protest were sent to administration and members of congress. The move to the new location happened and everyone seemed satisfied in the end.

Beginning in 2006, reading rooms started to keep sign in sheets to determine usage. The

ERR determined that the countries researchers were most interested in studying, in order of popularity, Russia (50%), Germany (10%), France (7%), Poland (5%), Italy (4%), Romania

(2%) and Hungary (2%). The rest of Europe, with the exception of Great Britain and Ireland,

(which are in the Main Reading Room), make up the remainder of the requests.

Learning Outcome I

Learning Outcome One

“Demonstrate ability to successfully perform varied reference desk services to meet and exceed user’s expectations, including using reference interview techniques, and providing up-to-date technology in providing reference responses utilized by the Library of Congress.”

Activities/Tasks/Problems/ Outcomes

As time went on I felt more and more confident at the reference desk. As long as I live, I will never forget being approached by a researcher the very first time I sat at the reference desk. I was so nervous, I was sure I would not be able to help him. His question came, “Do you have a stapler?” I knew the answer! I could help! Internship Final Report 6

At the beginning of each week ERR staff members emailed the two-hour time slots they were available to serve at the reference desk for it open hours of 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday-

Friday. One staff member put together a schedule for each of us to serve twice during the week at the reference desk for two hours, and twice as back-up for two hours. I quickly learned the opening procedure: turning on the lights, setting up the sign-in sheet, turning on the computers to scan reader cards, and recording the numbers of researchers who were in the reading room on an hourly basis. By and large, researchers know how to use the reading room and the services provided by the library and required little staff or reference desk assistance. First time users occasionally had questions that revolved around getting registered online with their reader cards to use the online LC catalog so that they could order books to the reading rooms.

I also helped researchers identify periodicals and newspapers and request them on microfilm. Newspapers over two years old were in microfilm format. This was sometimes problematic for me because the publications were in foreign languages, mostly Russian, and I do not speak Russian. I had to request a lot of help from the back-up reference desk librarian when researchers requested microfilm.

The stacks are closed, so I did not lay my hands on a lot of materials. Even though I was provided with volunteer identification, I was not permitted to go into the stacks with that identification card unaccompanied. I wish I had more of an opportunity to retrieve materials for researchers, but LC contracts out for retrieval of items or technicians to retrieve microfilm.

I learned how to direct researchers to the databases identified by ERR as most relevant for researchers. On LC’s Web page for Databases & E-Resources, www.loc.gov/rr/ElectronicResources/ , the page had a drop down list entitled, “Select databases by subject or format”. The drop down list contained the heading, “European Studies.” The list of Internship Final Report 7 databases is plentiful, as LC spends over $3 million annually on database subscriptions. I enjoyed being able to show researchers this list as they may not have thought to search the database by subject, but simply by the one or two databases they knew to be relevant to their research. I also learned about navigating the LC’s public Web site www.loc.gov far better than I could previously. It is a vast site and not particularly user friendly. Now I am much more comfortable with it.

Finally, I never really got to go through a whole reference interview process. As I stated earlier, the vast majority of users of the ERR were researchers, and they needed little initial guidance from me or anyone else at the reference desk. They were already immersed in their studies.

Learning Outcome II

Learning Outcome Two

“Analyze Library of Congress’ Outreach Program in order to comprehend and then promote fundraising activities for the European Reading Room.”

My site supervisor knew that the Asian Division had a successful seven-year history of a

Friends Society. LC does not use the word fundraising, and the intent of the Asian Division

Friends Society is not to raise money, but to increase awareness and use of the reading room by researchers.

LC does have a division of the Library that is dedicated to fundraising that falls within the Development Office. The Madison Council is a select list of individual donors who are able to give annual gifts at the $25,000 level and above. I met with both the Asian Division and the

Development Office to learn about fundraising at the Library, and to prepare a report, which included considerations when holding events and pricing, so that the ERR can look at creating a Internship Final Report 8

Friends Society in the future if it wishes to. Again, a Friends Society is not designed to raise money; rather they are designed to raise awareness and use of the reading room.

The Asian Division Friends Society

The Asian Division Reading Room created The Asian Division Friends Society (ADFS) http://www.lcasianfriends.org/About, about seven years ago to promote the collection, and the knowledge and accomplishments of the people of Asia. It has been very successful with events like lectures, symposiums, book displays, film screenings, open houses, etc. ADFS outreaches to embassies, companies, academia and other organizations that make sense based on the event.

ADFS has 12 events scheduled between now and mid-December, which I found most impressive; especially since the ADFS officers consist of reference librarians, administrators and others who also have their primary duties to perform.

For the majority of events the in-house caterer is used because liability costs would too great otherwise (food poisoning, etc.). ADFS can only serve white wine-no red! One or two parking spaces are reserved for the event for special guests/speakers. Attendees are encouraged to take the METRO to Capital South or Union Station. Large events are held in one of the

Library’s event spaces followed by a tour of the Reading Room since the ADRR was not designed with event space in mind. The ADRR Foyer is used on occasion and can accommodate approximately 30 people for small events. Books related to an event are pulled and displayed in the reading room during the event. All events must end by 9 PM, and staff that stays gets credit hour and comp time depending on the length of the event (an important consideration). ADFS activities are supported by membership, donations and gifts. One time per year the Friends Internship Final Report 9

Society has an Open House. The theme would be determined by the ADFS officers - e.g. music, wedding (customs, costumes), theater, etc.

The ADRR will provide a cost breakdown to users, which can include: event space rental, sound with AV support, catering, signage, and employee overtime rates.

The James Madison Council

The James Madison Council http://www.loc.gov/philanthropy/madison.php of the Library of Congress is the only fundraising arm of the institution. Instead of having a large development office with lots of staff approaching thousands of donors at the $25 level and over, Dr. Billington created the Madison Council in 1990 for a maximum of 100 donors at the $25,000 level annually. The first Chairman of the Council was John Kluge, who is still alive at 95 years of age.

Basically, this group of very wealthy people has helped LC in the following ways:

 A major scholarly center and a $1 million prize for humanities endowed by Madison

Council Founding Chairman Emeritus John W. Kluge.

 The acquisition of hundreds of collection items including the famous Waldseemüller Map,

the first map to bear the name "America".

 Lead support for the $45 million campaign for the National Digital Library.

 The re-creation of Thomas Jefferson's library.

The Madison Council has played a key role in funding and help in the following ways:

Acquisitions, symposiums, exhibits, education and preservation.

The group meets twice a year and an annual report of the funds donated by them is

generated annually. Members of the Council may create their own specials events in which to

host such as an upcoming meeting in NYC that will feature rare scientific instruments. Behind- Internship Final Report 10

the-scene tours are prepared for them when they meet semi-annually. Dr. Billington, the

Librarian of LC, determines the focus of what this group will fundraise for. Currently, he is

interested in opening a Residential Scholar Center to make affordable public housing available

for researchers.

While congress extends about 700-800 million annually to the Library, the Madison

Council provides about another $15 million in funds. No small potatoes.

Supporting Material

I created a confidential spreadsheet for the ERR that reflected prices of room rentals for events. The list is confidential because it contains rates for LC employees. LC employee rates are not made available to the public therefore I did not include the document in the Appendix.

Learning Outcome III

Learning Outcome Three

“Demonstrate proficiency in writing finding aids for European Reading Room materials that will e of enduring value for future users.” Activities/Tasks/Problems/ Outcomes

The ERR has a whole section on its Web site devoted to Telephone Directories and finding aids that the division has prepared for countries in Europe, http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/tel.html. “The Library of Congress began systematically collecting residential and organizational telephone directories from many countries in 1937, but the records for these items, in general, are not included in the Library's online catalog. To fill that gap, the indexes provided here detail the Library's specific holdings of these directories from each of the countries listed,” states the Web site. Internship Final Report 11

The ERR puts great importance in providing these finding aids to researchers, especially since they many not be available in other ways. I wrote finding aids for the entire white pages collection for Netherlands Directories. It spanned the years of 1929 to 1991. It totaled 85 pages when completed.

This task provided me with a great feeling of satisfaction for a couple of reasons. Firstly,

I could see a clearly defined beginning and end of the task which provided a great feeling of having completed an assignment. Secondly, and most importantly, I have contributed a finding aid of enduring value to the Library which may help researchers in the future.

One big challenge at the beginning of the project was that I do not speak Dutch. Since titles of each volume could vary depending on where the telephone directory was produced, I had to determine where to put city or title of the volume. Sometimes it was difficult to tell one from the other. As a result of preparing the directory finding aids, I can now state that I know how to recognize and spell every month of the year in Dutch!

Supporting Material

I prepared an 85 page finding aid for the Netherlands Telephone Directories finding aids I prepared. Instead of attaching the completed finding aid I included the final email I sent with the finding aid attachment (See Appendix A).

Learning Outcome IV

Learning Outcome Four

“Interpret and explain Library of Congress Strategic Plan, Mission, Vision, Resources, and Organization.” Internship Final Report 12

The Mission of the Library of Congress

“The Library's mission is to make its resources available and useful to the Congress and the American people and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of knowledge and creativity for future generations.”

Vision Statement of the Library of Congress

“We will foster a free and informed society by building, preserving and providing resources for human creativity, wisdom and achievement. We continually strive to place these resources at the fingertips of the American people, their elected representatives and the world for their mutual prosperity, enlightenment and inspiration.”

Strategic Plan

Totaling 39 pages, the 2008-2013 Strategic Plan can be summarized in the following way:

Summary of the Strategic Goals

1. Content

“Expand and preserve in accessible form a unified body of knowledge and creativity.”

2. Customers

“Improved our internal and external customers’ experiences in seamless finding u

sing Library resources”

3. Outreach

“Increase awareness of the value and utility of the Library”

4. Organization

“Increase Library-wide synergies and flexibilities to continuously improve quality of

efficiency of delivery of products and services.”

5. Workforce Internship Final Report 13

“Cultivate a talented diverse community of innovators devoted to public service.”

I attended an “Organizational Strategies and Measures” class designed for Library management that my Site Supervisor gave me permission to attend. I learned that the Library is dealing with three fiscal year budgets at any time. They are currently in the 2010 budget, 2011 budget is in congress right now and 2012 is being planned. Additionally, I learned that there are three considerations as part of the Strategic Plan. They are: 1. Planning (strategic and annual), 2.

Risk Management (internal controls); and 3. Program Performance Assessment. The really important questions that the Library asked itself as part of the planning phase were: 1. Where are we? 2. Where are we going?

A challenge for me was to get a big picture understanding of the Strategic Plan. The

Library is so immense for starters, secondly, the 22 different reading rooms practically operate as independent libraries, and thirdly, I was only there for a semester. So to be able to get a feeling for how the Strategic Plan was making measurable successes over a time line would be almost impossible for me to comprehend in such a short amount of time.

During my internship I was fortune enough to be there at a time when Deanna Marcum,

Associate Librarian, gave a staff update on the Strategic Plan. My site supervisor urged me to attend. During the one-hour long presentation she highlighted three goals that the Library is currently addressing. They are:

1. Acquisitions overhaul for the LC catalog;

2. Reviewing the overseas offices (especially the cost associated with security);

3. Sending 33 million items to the Ft. Meade Storage Facility. Internship Final Report 14

She also touched on digital material, LC Web site content from years 2011-13, acquisitions of electronic journals, and digital access to legislative information on the LC site

“Thomas”.

Michael Handy spoke next. He is the newly appointed Deputy Associate Librarian. He is responsible for new initiatives in Library Services. He has been with LC for 32 years, and I heard some grumbling from staff that he has been there too long and he is not the person to handle new initiatives; however, I heard other employees say he was well liked by his staff and that he had a good understanding of IT and was the person for the job. He mentioned his own list of goals for

LC including:

1. Inventory of digital content on the site to include ownership and formatting

2. The Alfred P. Sloan Grant-In 2007 the Foundation awarded LC a $2 million dollar grant

for a program to digitize thousands of public-domain books, with a focus on U.S. History

pre 1923. Approximately 1,000 items are digitized weekly.

3. Fedlink-other members

Ms. Marcum closed the Strategic Plan update by stating that LC is the biggest, but we also need to be the best. A final thought she shared was, “How do we best communicate messages to the outside world?”

Learning Outcome V

Learning Outcome Five

“Define current and future digital preservation methods.”

Digital Collections and Online Access materials: Internship Final Report 15

Global Gateway- http://international.loc.gov/intldl/intldlhome.html. LC’s international collection. More than 80 thousand digital items relating to history and culture (not all a digital site).

Collaborative Digital Libraries: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collaborations.html Bilingual, multimedia digital libraries, built with partners from around the world

Digital Collections: http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collections.html A listing of searchable LC and other digital collections with a focus on history and culture from around the world.

Portals of the World- http://www.loc.gov/rr/international/portals.html contain links for information about nations around the world. Not prepared by the Library. LC has challenges maintaining and updating since so many sites change content. Cost considerations too. Not digital-a link to Web sites instead.

American Memory-LC’s Americana digital collection http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html Free and Open Access to historic maps, photos, documents, audio and video.

World Digital Library- http://www.wdl.org/en/ a global partnership of cultural treasures from around the world. The World Digital Library is a cooperative project of the Library of Congress, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and partner libraries, archives, and educational and cultural institutions from the United States and around the world. The project brings together, on a single Web site, rare and unique documents – books, journals, manuscripts, maps, prints and photographs, films, and sound recordings – that tell the story of the world’s cultures. The WDL interface operates in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. The actual documents on the site are presented in their original languages.

LC’s Digital Collections: http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html

The Digital Future and You (Webcasts): http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/results.php? mode=s&cat=45

Digital Preservation: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/

LC Partnerships (Online Access): Internship Final Report 16

1. FLICKR:HREF="http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_pilot.html" MACROBUTTON HtmlResAnchor http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/flickr_pilot.html, The Prints and Photographs division outreached to the public in an attempt to identify photographs with little or no captions. Approximately 3,000 copyright cleared images were evaluated in order to add tags to the photographs over nine months. Each day 35 more images were added. Of those, 500 new tags were created by LC with input provided by the public.

2. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Genji partnered with LC to create an “External Link” to 60 digitized volumes of a classic work of Japanese literature, The Tale of Genji, HREF="http://lcweb4.loc.gov/service/asian/asian0001/2005/2005html/20050415toc.html " MACROBUTTON HtmlResAnchor http://lcweb4.loc.gov/service/asian/asian0001/2005/2005html/20050415toc.html.

3. Youtube: http://www.loc.gov/blog/2009/04/youtube-and-now-we-do-too/?nbsp. Since LC is the steward of the world’s largest collection of audiovisual materials (some 6 million films, broadcasts and sound recordings) LC has its own YouTube channel. It includes more than 70 videos, including: “Westinghouse” industrial films from 1904, and the earliest movies made by Thomas Edison, including the first moving image ever made, a sneeze by a man named Fred Ott.

4. Twitter: http://twitter.com/librarycongress. You may join to get LC tweets.

5. iTunes: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2009/09-136.html. In an ongoing effort to make its digital educational, historical and cultural resources available to web users across a broad spectrum of platforms, LC launched "The Library of Congress on iTunes U." The Library’s iTunes U site includes historical videos from the Library’s moving-image collections, and audio podcasts, and classroom and educational materials, including courses from the Catalogers’ Learning Workshop.

Finally, LC makes primary material available to school teachers through digital format on its

Website. LC even goes the extra step by training teachers through its Teacher Institute as part of the Strategic Planning division. I attended one training session at the invitation of my fellow classmate Rose Khoury entitled, “Creating the United States” http://www.loc.gov/teachers/newsevents/events/creatingus/index.html.

Evaluation/Summary

Culture and Ethics at Library of Congress Internship Final Report 17

The Library of Congress has over 3,500 employees with tasks as varied as Main Reading

Room Reference Librarians who were published and recognized leaders in librarianship in the industry regarding LC subject headings and database searching, to mentally and physically challenged workers, to brilliant IT staff, to administrative assistants who had served for over 40 years and had little computer training and remained in their positions unchallenged, unwilling to learn and therefore obsolete. I worked with a brilliant and capable staff that was not only expert in foreign languages, but were subject specialists on European history, culture, and the arts. They were charged with acquisitions of new material, and had a vast understanding of the Library’s holding and knowledge of where gaps may occur. They were team players, happily willing to take turns at the reference desk, and help researcher’s access materials in the database. They handled questions on “Ask a Librarian” and helped researchers directly with requests. Overall, I was really impressed with the level of professionalism at the Library, especially in the ERR.

I was also impressed by LC’s “Selective Placement Program for the Disabled.” “The

Library of Congress Selective Placement Program authorizes selecting officials to make temporary and probationary offers of employment to new employees with a severe disability.

These appointments may subsequently be converted to permanent positions” states the hiring

Web site. The check list read:

Please select the category or categories that you most closely identify with by checking the box below:

Yes, I have a disability that affects one or more of my major life activities. No, I do not have a disability affecting one or more of my major life activities. Decline to Answer

If yes, please select from the list below the disability (s) that has the greatest impact on your major life activities: Internship Final Report 18

Blindness Convulsive Disorders Deafness Distortion of Limb or Spine Mental Illness Mental Retardation Missing Extremities Complete Paralysis Partial Paralysis My disability is not listed

It was a wonderful thing to see the success of this program as I walked through the underground corridors and saw the varied staff working at the Library.

Finally, as government employees everyone left just about precisely on time every night!

Technology at Library of Congress

Library of Congress digitizes and makes available over 1,000 items per day. Every reading room provides access to digital holdings through its reading room home page specific to its holdings.

The Library partners with FLICKR, Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter and iTunes to promote its collections. Primary materials available on its “Teachers” provide access and instructional materials are among the most important documents in U.S. history.

The Geography & Maps division and the Prints & Photographs division responded quickly to the digital format and made countless items from their collection available.

The World Digital Library, under Dr. Billington’s direction, created a cooperative project with (UNESCO), and partner libraries, archives, and educational and cultural institutions from around the world to share rare documents that share the world’s cultures. Internship Final Report 19

There is probably no Web site that has done more universally to digitize and make items available to the public free of charge.

Additionally, the Library subscribes to over 200 electronic resources to the tune of

$3million dollars annually.

I learned so much and have so much more confidence about using LC resources:

Everything from searching the LC online catalog, to electronic databases, to searching the LC

Web site for digital material and the LC Web site in general.

Management Issues/Concepts

One concept that I learned in LIBR 204 was top down management. If a member of congress wanted just about anything, that information or research was provided quickly. Next came the requests of Dr. Billington, Librarian of LC. He had many projects that he had personally created, and they were priorities for library staff. Examples of such projects he started are the World Digital Library, assisting in the creation of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, http://www.prlib.ru/en-s/news/Pages/Item.aspx?itemid=178,

in Russia and creation of the Madison Council. Additionally, if Dr. Billington called upon any division of LC for information everything stopped and that request was satisfied.

The Strategic Plan for the Library was created by Library management and input from staff, including Heads of the different reading rooms, was not invited for input.

In a recent survey leading up to the Strategic Plan update presentation by Deanna

Marcum, staff had expressed being aggravated about not having an avenue to express their ideas at the Library. She addressed their concerns by raising the fact that the issue had been presented and saying that their input is welcome at the Library. She did not present ideas as to how an employee might approach upper management with those ideas. Internship Final Report 20

Staff Issues of Great Concern

I only heard about two issues that were of great concern to staff members. They both surrounded the fact that much of the staff had been at the Library for 20, 30 and sometimes 40 years or more and that was problematic for some staff for two reasons. Firstly, they did not seem to like to see internal staff promoted to leadership roles who had served for a long time because they did not feel like they access to the latest industry information, especially information surround technology and how to “push it out” to the user. Secondly, a union within the Library

(I know little about this and can not expand on the Union) had petitioned to have elderly employees stay on staff beyond typical retirement age. Some staff did not like it that these older employees stayed working at the Library because they felt that their ability to perform was diminished.

Most Difficult Aspects of the Internship

Here is one you may not hear: The most difficult aspect of the internship was getting out of bed early enough to ride my bike to the METRO, take the METRO train to Capitol Hill, walk from Union Station to LC (12 minutes), go through security, walk the long hallways, and climb long staircases to the ERR to arrive on time to man the reference desk at 8:30 AM. I had a thorough physical workout before the day began!

A daily walk to the cafeteria meant going down long staircases, walking long underground corridors, and going up 6 floors on the elevator and a long walk down the hallway.

I really liked my experience at LC and learned so much, but it would be physically challenging to an older individual I am sure.

Most Valuable Courses During the Internship Internship Final Report 21

The class that I have taken that was the most helpful for me in the internship was LIBR

256, Manuscripts and Archives. When I met with the Head of the Manuscripts Reading Room I felt so comfortable and confident in our conversations. I felt like I could have performed as a capable staff member in that division. LIBR 200, Information & Society also helped by explaining different kinds of libraries (I do not currently work in a library, nor do I have any previous library experience). LIBR 210 Reference and Information Services taught diplomatic approaches to help uncover what researchers want—without bias. LIBR 285, Research Methods in Library and Information Science made me aware of so many varied issues facing libraries today.

Courses that Could Have Helped the Internship

I believe LIBR 259, Preservation Management would have helped me better understand the current practices currently used in digital imaging.

Conclusion

Interning at the Library of Congress is one of the finest experiences I have ever had.

Personal tours of reading rooms by enthusiastic librarians to see their treasures such as Mozart holographs, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, handwritten letters from Jackie O, the Papers of

Frederick Douglass and more, are experiences few get to have. It is an experience I will never forget, all within one of the world’s great buildings. It was my first professional experience at a

Library, and what a library it is. Internship Final Report 22

Appendix A

November 20, 2009

Hello Taru and Ken,

Attached is the finding aid I prepared for the Netherlands Directories. Some adjustments may need to be made, but overall the information is complete for all residential volumes. It was my pleasure to be able to perform this humble duty in exchange for the great learning experiences I had while at the Library.

Thanks!

Alison Internship Final Report 23

References

Blogger. (2009). Save the European Reading Room. [Web log message]. Retrieved November

22, 2009 from http://saveeuropa.blogspot.com/

Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library. (2009). Homepage. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from

http://www.prlib.ru/en-s/news/Pages/Item.aspx?itemid=178

Library of Congress. (2009). Addresses/telephone directories from Finland. Retrieved November

22, 2009. from http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/phonefi/fiphone.html

Library of Congress. (2009). About the library. Retrieved November 20, 2009, from

http://www.loc.gov/about/mission.html

Library of Congress. (2009). American memory. Retrieved November 20, 2009, from

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.htm

Library of Congress. (2009). Asian division friends society. Retrieved November 20, 2009, from

http://www.lcasianfriends.org/About

Library of Congress. (2009). Ask a librarian. Retrieved November 20, 2009, from

http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/

Library of Congress. (2009). Collaborative digital libraries. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from

http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collaborations.html

Library of Congress. (2009). Creating the United States. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from

http://www.loc.gov/teachers/newsevents/events/creatingus/index.html

Library of Congress. (2009). Databases & e-resources at the Library of Congress. Retrieved

November 23, 2009 from http://www.loc.gov/rr/ElectronicResources/

Library of Congress. (2009). Digital collections. Retrieved November 29, 2009 from

http://international.loc.gov/intldl/find/digital_collections.html Internship Final Report 24

Library of Congress. (2009). Digital collections & services. Retrieved November 20, 2009 from

http://www.loc.gov/library/libarch-digital.html

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