“I’m a curious individual, so a library is a good place for me,” says Marc Harper, who now has a year of his Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree under his belt. Marc thought that his undergraduate degree in sociology would be a good fit with the MLIS program at Dal.  “I have a family member who encouraged me to go into the MLIS program. That’s what got me first thinking about it.”

Marc has been at the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library for two months now, and he’s been wanting this internship since the first day of classes back in September. “Patrick Ellis, the Head of the Kellogg Library, spoke to our class on the first day. He told us that many young librarians feel they can’t work in a health sciences library if they don’t have a science background, and that isn’t true. I was encouraged by that,” says Marc.

Inspired by the possibility of working in a health sciences library, Marc sought a practicum in a hospital in Moncton, where he’s from. “I worked in the hospital library, helping doctors and medical staff,” he says.

Even though he’s only been at the Kellogg for a short while, Marc already feels like he’s getting very meaningful work experience. “The staff here have already trusted me to assist with some very large, time-sensitive requests from medical researchers,” he said. In addition to assisting researchers with systematic reviews (large searches that involve upwards of 10,000 articles), Marc has been working on updating some of the Libguides. These updates include adding more relevant ejournals and books, as well as adding database tutorials, depending on the type of Libguide it is.

Before Marc came to Dalhousie, he worked for Statistics Canada and spent three years teaching English in South Korea. “I spent my twenties travelling. I was in Europe, Africa, and South America,” says Marc. Marc is interested in the possibility of living and working abroad again in the future, especially if that work is in the health sciences.