Library Communications student internship – last few weeks

Elizabeth Andrews
Tuesday 9 July 2019

Hello everyone! In case you haven’t read my last blog post, I’m Csilla, the Library’s Communications intern for the summer – I’m back to check in and give you an update on what I’ve been up to for the past couple of weeks. They’ve turned out to be even busier (but just as fun!) as my first two weeks, and I’ve learned so many new things – from how Special Collections cares for old books to how to correct lens flare on photos (knowledge which came in very handy due to my lacking photography skills).

Side-by-side image of the St Andrews burn, one with lens flare the other fixed
I’m glad I figured out how to do this, or many of the pictures would be unusable

The third week of my internship was all about the focus group we ran with PGTs to ask them about their Library experience; I spent all of Monday preparing for it and then ran the session itself on Tuesday. I wouldn’t say it went without a hitch, exactly, since I asked the questions all out of order and forgot to hand out the Amazon vouchers we had offered as a reward at the end (don’t worry, everyone ended up getting them by the next day), but I really enjoyed the discussion and we got lots of very valuable comments. I then spent most of Wednesday coding the data in NVivo, a data analysis software which is designed to deal with qualitative data – a time-consuming process mostly because the software kept freezing every time I tried to save. However, despite its problems, I was really grateful for NVivo in the following two days when I was writing a report on our findings, because it made it so much easier to see trends in the data.

Photo of focus group room with lots of post-it notes on the wall
Here’s the aftermath of the focus group – as you can see the PGTs had lots to say!

So what were those trends?

Thankfully the postgrads seem satisfied with the Library for the most part, and most of the comments about improvements we could make related to extending existing services, or publicising them better; for example, most of them didn’t know that the Library has lockers where you can store your things for the summer (if you didn’t either, well then now you know)!

Week 4 was probably the most exciting, since I got to explore parts of the Library I would never normally see. I started the week off by taking a tour of Special Collections in the Annexe at North Haugh (a building I did not know existed despite walking past it numerous times in the past). I got to see some of the Library’s manuscripts and archives, and I think it’s safe to say I was more than impressed – I was so in awe I don’t think I spoke more than 50 words in the 2 hours we spent there. I’ve always loved old books so this was like a dream come true for me, and the wonderful Special Collections team were kind enough to show us some real gems – from a 17th-century book of French poetry that is so tiny it can fit into a mini cigar box to an enormous, beautifully illustrated book about volcanoes in Italy (pictured within are some of the fancy parties the wealthy used to throw to view the eruptions from up close – makes May Ball seem a bit boring in comparison, doesn’t it?). I even got to take a look at the University’s old matriculation book and chat to the Photo Collection team.

Photo of old books on shelves
Unfortunately, this is the only picture of Special Collections I managed to take – I was too busy gawking at the old books

The next day, I got to take a tour of another Chamber of Secrets – the Library Store. Although I had briefly seen it on my tour of the Main Library building in my first week, I had no idea how far it extends. The library has tons (or kilometers, in librarian terms) of books, as it turns out – who knew? On the tour, I learned not only about the amazing variety of materials they have down there (many of them contained on weird and wonderful types of media like microforms) but also that the Store team is hard at work reorganising all of their books from the Library’s recent move of collections – a time-consuming but vitally important task.

Wednesday brought with it even more excitement – I was tasked with shadowing the Service Desk for the afternoon. True to their reputation, the team were incredibly sweet and helpful, and showed me how to use their system for taking care of inter library loans, book returns, fines and the like – they even let me use the desensitizer to help check out books! Even at such a quiet time they got lots of inquiries, so I can’t even imagine how crazy it must be during the semester but given how quickly and efficiently they handled everything thrown their way, I’m sure everything runs just as smoothly. On Thursday I got to enjoy the sunshine and go out to take pictures again, and managed to snag a few lucky shots, most notably a fluffy bumblebee and an angry seagull – look out for these in future posts on the Library’s social media pages!

Sunny view of St marys Quad, lots of greenery and trees
It was another beautiful day for pictures

Throughout the week, I was also working on a report about students’ comments about recalling books from a previous focus group, as well as conducting participant observations (people-watching, essentially) in the Main Library to see how people are interacting with the new “Internationally Scottish” photo exhibition. This week I wrote another report (my third in the space of 2 weeks!), this time on my observations about the poster display, as well as took part in some usability testing for Special Collections. I am also working on a presentation about my various participant observations and planning a new display for the Main Library – so stay tuned! I almost can’t believe this is the last week of my internship – time has really flown by fast. I’m a bit sad I’ll have to leave but I’m also happy about how much I’ve learned, and most of all so glad I got to work with so many wonderful people who have helped and encouraged me so much during my time here. The next time a huge deadline or exam season rears their ugly head, I know I’ll be just that little bit happier coming to the Library – now I know how many people are working hard behind the scenes every day to help me.

 

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