Linda Cormier is spending her summer as an intern in the MacRae Library. Located on the beautiful Agricultural Campus in Truro, this is the first time the MacRae Library has had a student intern from the MLIS program, and Linda couldn’t be happier to be there.

“Last summer I worked at an aquaculture hatchery in New Brunswick, where I’m from. I loved watching the tiny oysters develop into adults, and I love the connections between aquaculture and agriculture. At the most basic level, both are forms of farming,” says Linda.

Linda didn’t start out in aquaculture though; she holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education. She substituted in public schools in New Brunsiwck and also taught English in Japan for seven years. “I see a very close connection between teaching and librarianship. Both professions are essentially giving people information,” says Linda.

One of the projects Linda is working on this summer involves preserving the two-volume The History of the Lowbush Blueberry Industry in Nova Scotia 1880-1990. Linda is scanning the original documents and posting them in DalSpace. She is also working on migrating the Wild Blueberry Information Network Centre website to Dalhousie’s website. The information within that site gives people a central place to go for all the information available about the history of the wild blueberry industry in Nova Scotia.

As for her plans post-graduation, Linda is open to many types of work and settings. “Technical work, digital work, cataloguing, information or data management, I’m interested in it all. I could see myself working in an academic library, or in a government setting, or in a corporation,” says Linda. She particularly likes the digital aspect of the work, including web design and HTML, the main language for creating web pages.

“I’m really enjoying my work term and seeing what each staff member in the library does. The internship program is excellent, and the MacRae Library is a great place to learn,” says Linda.