Rachel Priesman Marquez internship with W&M Libraries’ Research and Instruction department is coming to a close. Here she shares her thoughts on the experience.
Tell us about your internship experience.
During my internship, my work was broken down into two major components — regular reference hours and project hours. During regular reference, I staffed the chat line and answered questions that came up there. Those questions really ran the gamut. Sometimes, students wanted help just understanding where to start with their research projects, sometimes students wanted help with citations, sometimes there were technical questions about how to search effectively, and sometimes faculty wanted help identifying every dissertation they’ve ever chaired. Really diverse reference questions! I also conducted reference appointments if students had more in-depth questions, and these required a lot more research on my end to prepare.
The other internship component was project hours, where I worked on projects with a specific goal. The main project I worked on was creating visualizations for a large survey called the Measuring Information Service Outcomes, or MISO survey. This survey questioned participants on user satisfaction, knowledge of services, frequency of use of services, etc. I created over 50 visualizations for this project and learned so much about the library. I also helped edit some documents for consistency for accreditation through SACSCOC. And lastly, I was lucky enough to be able to work on Candice Benjes-Small’s second edition of her book The New Instruction Librarian: A Workbook for Trainers and Learners and do minor editing like adding citations, ensuring chapter’s referenced what they were supposed to, etc.
Overall, there was a lot to do and it ended up being a great combination of job duties.
What did you enjoy most?
There was so much to enjoy. The reference skills were helpful to develop in an academic setting, but the three major projects I worked on were so much fun, so rewarding, and where I did the majority of my learning.
What surprised you?
Honestly, I was surprised with how much I was trusted with! If I had an idea, people were like “Great! Do it!” I thought working on SACSCOC accreditation work was so important and vital and to be trusted with that, with Candice’s manuscript, and with data that will directly impact the future direction of the library was incredible. I feel really honored (and surprised) to have been trusted with such important work. Everyone really believed in my skills as a new librarian and that trust was really important to me.
How did this internship help your career goals?
One of my biggest goals for library school and the internships I took in library school was to learn skills that I simply couldn’t learn in class or really, on the job. I made it a point to take programming, data analysis, and data visualization courses and I really feel like developing my data visualization skills has opened a lot of doors for me, even though I'm not in a Data Librarian role. Continuing to develop those skills allows me to be a unique addition to teams. I learned so much about Tableau during this internship and I really cannot overstate how important of a skillset data visualization and analysis is for academic library work.
What would you say to someone interested in this internship?
I would say—apply! My advice for applying would be to take a look at the library’s resources and current goings-on, identify a project that aligns with your interests and career goals, and pitch it in the interview. Everyone is so supportive and kind. They all really want you to succeed and this is a really transformative internship. Buena suerte!