This summer marks the second year of the Library’s High School Internship program, wherein students from central Virginia join the Library for short-term paid internships in the Library. Students from all backgrounds and of all abilities are encouraged to apply.

What follows is one of a series of daily blog posts that interns compose during their time at the Library. Are you a student (or parent) and want to know more about summer Library internships? Ask your guidance counselor or contact Phylissa Mitchell at lm6g@virginia.edu.

Today, I finally learned the definition of an academic library! I’ve heard the term many times within the past week and I had an idea of what it’s definition might be, but I was not 100% sure before today. This internship has caused me to realize that there are many professions that appear vastly different from the outside looking in than vice versa. I realize that there are many activities/ jobs that may not appeal to me now, but once I give it a shot, that may completely change. I don’t believe any of my future plans or ideas have changed greatly, but it has taught me a valuable lesson.

Khalia

Over the course of this internship, I learned many things. The first being that there are many different career paths that you can take. Also how smoothly things run. With a the different parts and jobs but that all perfectly fit together to run a successful library. They have preservation, digitization, IT, scholars lab, and user experience to name a few. I also learned how to make a box to protect and preserve a book. Each box is custom made to one particular book. There are two the same. I learned to archive websites soon like twenty years I can go back and see that website. Those are only some of the things I have learned this week. The internship hasn’t really changed my view of my future. It has opened my eyes a bit more. Being a librarian is one of my top three career choices. This didn’t change that but it did kind of go up the list a little bit.

Minuette

I learned pretty much everything that I know about libraries during this internship. I didn’t know much about them. I learned how to locate books, and that there are many other resources to use other than books for research. I realized that libraries are capable of a lot more than just shelving books and checking them out to people. They themselves can be such a big help to students when it comes to things that they need. This internship helped me understand how to utilize library materials a lot better than I had before.

Kalani

I really didn’t know that libraries consisted of this much workflow. Everyone needs each other to keep the next station going. It all seems to work like gears in a machine. This internship has shown me how to function in a large organization (like Alderman). It also has shown me that working in a library isn’t as boring as people may think.

Q.T.