Samantha Fritz is spending her summer as an intern in the Killam Memorial Library. Having completed her first year of the Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree, one of the things Samantha is enjoying so far is seeing the theories she’s learned in the classroom come to life in the library.

“I really enjoy learning the theories behind the organization and classification of information,” says Samantha. “I have a background in history and English, so I was also drawn to the MLIS program because I loved the research aspects to those disciplines.”

Coming to Halifax via Kitchener, Samantha says that she chose Dalhousie’s program not only for the high-quality of the courses offered, but also because of the welcome she got from the people in the program. “The program here at Dal makes you feel like you are part of a community,” she says, adding, “and Halifax is a beautiful city.”

Since her internship began, Samantha and the two other Killam interns have been keeping busy on a number of projects, including citing and uploading to DalSpace more than 350 faculty profiles. Other projects include uploading the Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science to DalSpace (older issues) and to Open Journal Systems (newer issues), and offering information assistance at the Killam Library Service Point (formerly the circulation desk). Samantha has also been using Camtasia software to produce a new tutorial video about how to search for journals, a common question asked in the library.

Samantha sees herself working in an archive or special collections library in the future. She is also interested in working in an academic library, and she finds projects that connect the libraries to their universities particularly intriguing. She also enjoys the digitization process. “Learning the technical skills such as HTML coding and working with metadata present challenges which are certainly interesting to grapple with,” she says. “The opportunities with this degree are so diverse, I could go into a traditional librarianship role, or do more of the information management side; the opportunities are endless,” says Samantha. Whatever she chooses, she’ll be well served by her love of organization and challenges.