Bi-Weekly Internship Report

I had to submit this to my internship supervisor, and thought, "Well, I haven't posted on my blog in ages because I've been lazy/busy, so let's share with the world how my internship is going."

When people ask me what I do at my internship, I generally reply with, “Crappy grunt work,” to which they respond, “Oh, well, at least you’re getting paid,” to which I respond, “No, no, I’m not.”  But I am learning a lot and am finding the internship fairly enjoyable.  There is a lot of repetition—shelving books, shelving books, sticking receipts in books, shelving books, putting stickers on certain books…which can make the work a bit mundane.  But I honestly am learning a lot through my experience, and my supervisor tries to make sure I experience different things and different departments almost every shift, which is nice.

I’ve enjoyed helping patrons, even though half of what I tell them is, “Well, no I can’t really help you since I’ve only worked here for [x] days, but [someone important] can help you, over there!”  I’ve learned that I am the sort of person that needs variety in tasks, or needs to feel like what I’m doing is worth something to someone.  Sometimes when I’m shelving books or doing something else that’s not very exciting, I think, “Why am I even here?” which is quite discouraging.  But then my supervisor casually says something about how they are SO understaffed and REALLY appreciate my efforts, and it makes my work seem much more worthwhile.

Surprisingly, I’ve learned that I have a soft spot for the children’s library.I always scoffed at “those Bethel girls” who want to be Elementary Education majors because they “love working with cute little kids,” but I’m finding myself having similar maternal feelings towards little children who need help finding the emperor penguin books.

As cliché as this sounds, the library departments I work in are full of nice, older women who love my presence and love teaching me things.  I’m excited to not only learn about library things from them, but to also get to know them as people. You meet interesting characters—both workers and patrons—when you are in the city, which is part of the reason I chose to do my internship downtown.

I have also learned how to ride the city bus! Don’t laugh—it’s a big accomplishment for me.