During the 2024 Spring semester, Clare Koll ’25 completed an internship at the Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library. Her faculty sponsor, Michelle Twait, interviewed her about the experience.
You were simultaneously engaged in another internship with a publishing company; how would you compare and contrast your two internship experiences?
I had the opportunity to intern with a literary agency this spring while simultaneously completing an internship with the library, and it was fascinating to engage in two different fields that involve books at different stages. With the agency, I was reading and reviewing manuscripts of books before they had even been sold to publishers, and at the library I was considering the ways students and faculty engage with resources, including books, and learning about how libraries make decisions about developing their collections. It was like two bookends on either side of the publishing process.
These two internship experiences differed in some ways, particularly because one was in person and the other was primarily remote, but there were many similarities in their structure and the work I did. Both experiences provided me with a broad introduction to a field, whether publishing or librarianship, and both gave me opportunities to focus on specific projects as well. I worked in the archives, organized outreach activities, and served as a peer reference tutor with the library and developed marketing materials, reviewed submissions, and edited manuscripts with the agency. Both internships were impactful career experiences, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to explore so many new things in one semester.
How did this internship shape or change your view of the library and librarianship?
This internship really revealed to me the amount of work that goes on behind the scenes to keep a library running smoothly. When library services are highly effective, all of this work is almost invisible, and people don’t usually stop to think about what it takes for them to come check out a book or use a database. The impact of this is that the value of libraries can be easily overlooked, which becomes dangerous when they are such an integral part of communities and, particularly in the case of academic libraries, facilitate the scholarship of students and faculty. Library employees work incredibly hard to serve their communities, so be sure to show your gratitude!
If you could tell other students one thing that they might not know about the library or librarianship more broadly, what would it be?
The library isn’t just a place with books! Yes, the wide selection of books is one feature of the library, but it also has so many incredibly useful resources and services that you should take advantage of while you’re here. There are movies, study spaces, popular books for your fun reading, and, of course, there’s tea on Tuesdays. If you ever need help with a research assignment, the librarians are experts in finding answers and figuring out tricky questions, and they really are the nicest people you’ll ever meet.