Student Voices: Elisabeth Merrifield

My name is Elisabeth Merrifield. Yes, it is spelled with an ‘s’ and not a ‘z’ mainly because my parents did not want me to be called ‘Liz’ (it did not work). I am a senior at the College. I am double majoring in government and history. I transferred in the Fall of 2015 and have loved it here. I play for the Gold Women’s Club Volleyball team and love my team. They are outstanding and ridiculously smart people. During my three years here at the College I have felt like I belong, this place really has become a second home for me and I am going to miss it greatly once I graduate.

I have been working at Swem since the beginning of Summer 2017 as a part of Circulation. I live roughly thirty minutes from the College, so I basically lived at Swem over the summer. Fortunately, the job rolled into the Fall of 2017. It has helped me afford the numerous Wawa trips I make (I am an admitted Wawa addict). Working at Swem has been a great experience for me. I have come to greatly appreciate what my bosses and the library staff do to keep Swem running the way they do. There is so much going on behind the scene that we students do not see.

The library staff is basically a large family. They care about us student employees and treat us as co-workers, which has formed a bond and fostered a great deal of respect between everyone.

This job has taught me about leadership, communication, and time management skills. We summer students vacuumed the entire Swem book collection and helped weed out the Swem Offsite collection. I still miss the groundhogs that the school had to relocate that lived under the walkway. We also started the shifting process that you patrons have probably noticed in the C’s, H’s, and N’s. Recently, you may have seen me shelving books or walking to the science libraries to return books. A lot of hard work has gone into maintaining Swem so that its patrons can enjoy their experience at Swem, even during finals.

Probably my favorite thing about working in Swem is finding all the stuff that patrons leave in Swem (although, some of it is quite disgusting). There was a display in the Fall 2017 that showed only a sample of what we have found here. We also have quite the water bottle collection forming in lost and found.

Graduation will be bittersweet as I am excited, and nervous, for what the future will bring but I will also be sad to leave behind the William and Mary community, my volleyball team, and the Circulation team. I have much to thank William and Mary for, especially Swem. I have made some great friendships and connections that I hope will carry on into the future.
 

Best of luck to all,
Elisabeth