Name: Kendell Fitzgerald
Pronouns: She/her
Hometown: Aspy Bay, Cape Breton 

What is your favourite summer activity? Or your favourite Halifax activity?
My favourite summer activity is getting for a swim in the ocean! When I’m in Halifax, I love going out to eat with some friends and enjoying Argyle Street.

What is your internship title? Which library (and archives!) location are you affiliated with?
My internship title is Reference Intern, and I am affiliated with the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library.

What brought you to the MI program at Dal?
Someone mentioned the program to me, and the more I explored the MI program’s website, the more it seemed like the perfect fit for me and my future career goals.

What drew you to the internship opportunity at the Dal Libraries?
I have no educational or professional experience with the health sciences, but I wanted to try something outside of my comfort zone. My Kellogg internship has introduced me to new ways to use my skills, and it has helped me build upon my practicum experience with evidence synthesis.

What’s your educational background?
I graduated from the University of King’s College with a bachelor’s degree in English literature, minoring in gender studies.

What have you been doing during your internship and how has the pandemic shaped your internship?My internship has been balancing both project work and answering reference questions through e-mails and video calls. Our reference services support students, faculty, staff, researchers, and regional health professionals, assisting with both general questions and evidence synthesis work. My projects were mainly Kellogg-based, although I had the chance to collaborate with other library interns on a project for the Dalhousie Archives, where we have been working on updating PDFs outlining the Dalhousie’s architectural history. I’ve also worked on projects which involved creating Opinio surveys and presenting their results, as well as updating a Libguide for the pharmacy department. My internship gave me opportunities to work in various steps of developing evidence synthesis such as scoping or systematic reviews. This involved developing and translating search strategies, deduplicating with Covidence, and helping researchers find full-text PDFs. The topics and skills I’ve been introduced to over my internship have been so varied that I feel confident in exploring challenging new topics and programs. Sadly, working remotely has prevented me from meeting my co-workers in person, and from becoming more familiar with the Kellogg library itself, but I’m excited to return to in-person this fall to help people face-to-face!