Intern profile: Conor Falvey

June 13, 2019 Marlo MacKay

I am very excited to be interning at the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library for the coming year. My interest in health information was what first drew me to the MLIS program at Dal. After following a winding road through higher education – first a BA in English, then an MA in History – I found myself working for a health promotion NGO in Nova Scotia. I came to realize that much of our work was similar to librarianship, especially the time spent helping people to locate health information (hello, reference!) and compiling databases of online resources to distribute (a.k.a. digital librarianship). I wanted to know how to do this work properly, so I applied to Dal’s School of Information Management.

The internship at Dal Libraries appealed to me because it provides valuable hands-on training. I wanted the opportunity to see how an academic library works in practice, rather than simply reading about it. So far, my experience has totally reframed what I thought I had learned in my MLIS courses. The internship also allows me to explore my interest in health education from a new angle. So far, much of the intern training has focused on helping health sciences students and faculty with their literature searching. It is very fulfilling to be doing a job that supports medical education and research – in addition to being fun!

Intern profile: Emily Hines

September 20, 2018 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?
After graduating from my undergrad, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next. My friend was completing the MPA program at Dal and thought of me when she learned about the MLIS program. After reading about the program and the different opportunities it has to offer, I almost immediately knew that the MLIS program was for me.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?
Throughout my first year I have been drawn to both academic libraries and archives. Having already gained some experience doing archival work at the Sexton library during my practicum, I was interested in an internship with the Dal Libraries in order to explore the other area I am interested in. I was happy to get the internship at the Sir James Dunn Law Library; while I don’t have a background in law, I was up for the challenge. Everyday I’m learning and the people I work with are happy to explain anything I might be unsure of.

What’s your educational background?
I have a BA in English from University of King’s College here in Halifax.

What have you been doing during your internship?
During my internship so far I’ve been doing a little bit of everything. I’ve been learning how to answer legal reference questions as well as working at the circulation desk. One project that I have begun to work on involves our rare book room. We are looking to make the material more accessible and searchable to patrons online, with the goal of even digitizing some material. I am very excited about this project because it will also involve using some of the archiving skills I have already learned. I’ve even helped create logic puzzles and rewired a 1940s telephone for an escape room in which law students will be able to test their legal research knowledge in September!

Intern profile: Brian Jenkins

August 31, 2018 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?
In the final year of my previous degree, I wanted to find a way to convert my skills and knowledge into meaningful employment. I began a year-long search for a career path that began with a Strong Inventory Test. This test compares your results to people who are satisfied in their careers to see how compatible you would be in the same field. My most compatible career path was librarian! It took me a while to accept librarian as an option for my future, but after much research, informational interviews, and personal reflection I began to look into library and information management programs. I was pleasantly surprised to find my interests and values reflected in a MLIS degree. Dalhousie was attractive to me because its core courses would give me competitive skills for the working world whereas its electives would provide me plenty of room to explore career options.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?
Upon completing my first year of classes and my practicum, I decided to focus on academic libraries. The internships at Dal Libraries seemed like the perfect opportunity to get experience working in this environment, make valuable connections, earn some money towards my student loans, and hopefully, find my niche in the broad world of academic libraries. I applied to several positions and was happily accepted at the W. K. Kellogg Health Science Library and I’ve enjoyed the challenges since I began.

What’s your educational background?
I completed high school in Newfoundland and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in Honours English at Memorial University. I finished my degree by writing an honours paper to find a way to avoid Aldous Huxley’s horrific vision of the future in Brave New World.

What have you been doing during your internship?
My internship at the Kellogg Health Sciences Library has given me new knowledge, the chance to learn new skills and sharpen old ones, and to meet motivated people. I’ve learned so much since I started my internship, in large part because of the integration of Research Bootcamp sessions with my schedule. On the job, I learned about medical databases, medical multimedia resources, and the wide range of students and faculty who comprise our user base. I’ve also completed a lot of tasks since I began including creating a LibGuide for PLANS (Promoting Leadership in health for African Nova Scotians), a handout for converting files into RIS files to upload to Covidence, how to formulate a complex search string, and I’ve conducted several reference interviews. I’ve met so many driven and lovely people since I’ve started, which has been very encouraging to my future career prospects.

Some fun and interesting facts about you:
When I applied to Dal I had no previous library experience! I hope this knowledge encourages interested parties in a similar position to apply. Further to this, I became much more interested in this field because of the weaponization of misinformation (aka Fake News). I hope to contribute in the fight against this ever-present, but recently more prominent, social problem.

Intern profile: Scarlett Kelly

August 30, 2018 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?
I worked at the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) as a Cardiology Research Assistant before I decided to pursue graduate studies. During my work term at NSHA, I became very interested in information technology implementation and data management in the health care field. That was what initially brought me to the MLIS program.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?
I value hands-on experience at work. I am interested in international travel. I am also a firm believer of knowledge transfer and international development. The Agricultural Transformation Through Stronger Vocational Education (ATTSVE) internship offers me an opportunity to provide library training to library staff in four colleges in Ethiopia, which was everything that I hoped for from an internship at the Dal Libraries.

What’s your educational background?
I have a BA (honours) from St. Thomas University. I was an English major. I also have a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Dalhousie University.

What have you been doing during your internship?
There were two components of my internship:

1. I spent four weeks in the MacRae Library in Truro from April 23 to May 18. I received systematic training in cataloguing, circulation, and other aspects of academic library operations. I also sent out a workplace survey to the four colleges in Ethiopia that I would visit. The survey results were valuable when determining training priorities and needs. I also attended orientation sessions on Ethiopian culture and travel tips. During my time in Truro, I prepared slides and a variety of materials, such as a list of open-access journals and databases in agriculture, for the later visit to Ethiopia.

2. I visited four libraries at Nedjo, Wolaita Soddo, Woreta, and Maichew in Ethiopia from May 23 to July 6. I provided 5-day training in each library in the areas of cataloguing, online resource search and usage, the Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) offline database usage, borrowing and facility usage policy drafting, and library staffing and services. There were variations among libraries because of the different sizes of book collections, staff computer skills, and existing practices. At the end of each training session, I drafted recommendations on the improvement of library management, staff training, and services to college senior managers.

Fun and interesting facts about you:
I have published a book and five articles (soon to be six) in peer-reviewed journals in the areas of the effects of digital revolution in Canadian government functions and services, social media in health care field, communication strategy in data mining, e-learning and professionalism, and evidence in policy/decision making. I have also presented ten times in international, national, and regional conferences, including the 51^st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), the 5th annual Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA), and the 43^rd Atlantic Provinces Political Science Association (APPSA) conference. Nevertheless, many people still do not think that I know how to speak English or how to write in English. Guess my battle against stereotyping and various forms of racism will never end…

Intern profile: Laura Little

August 29, 2018 Marlo MacKay

Laura Little is an intern in the Killam Memorial Library.

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?

I decided to return to Halifax because the quality of life here is unparalleled. The students, staff and faculty possess an uncanny ability to excel in their field while exuding that famous east coast charm.

What’s your educational background?

I graduated with a combined BSc with Honours in Biology and the History of Science and Technology. My favourite things to study were microbiology, algae, and the Darwinian Revolution.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?

I wanted to be able to work with students to help them succeed in school. Meeting with students, learning about their goals and helping point them in the right direction is the best part of my job.

What have you been doing during your internship?

As an intern at the Killam Library, I’ve been working closely with our Biology subject liaison librarian to promote Science Literacy Week in the fall. I’m able to create displays and resources to make science more exciting and accessible. During the school year when I’m working part-time at the reference desk, I get to apply the things I learn in class to help students with their research and assignments.

Fun fact about you:

I got my first literary tattoo this year!

Profile: Michelle Bentzon, Archives intern

November 17, 2017 Marlo MacKay

Since August, the Dalhousie Libraries have been hosting Michelle Bentzon, a graduate student at Aalborg University in Denmark, on a twenty-week internship required as part of her studies in information management. She has been working in the Archives, focused on the archival appraisal of the records of non-profit cultural organizations. She has also been conducting research on acquisition and appraisal strategies for this kind of material, performing supervised archival appraisals, creating forensic images of digital storage devices, and working on the reference desk in the Archives and Special Collections Reading Room. She is registered with the Faculty of Graduate Studies as a “Visiting Research Student”: https://www.dal.ca/faculty/gradstudies/programs/vsgs.html

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?

As a part of my university program at Aalborg University, Denmark, you have to get an internship in your ninth semester. They generally encourage students in my program to go abroad. I chose to apply to an internship at the Dalhousie University Archives because of its academic reputation and because my partner of four years is from Halifax. I always knew this would be a good opportunity to spend time with him and to experience the Canadian culture I had fallen in love with during my visits here. Dalhousie University has a very professional work environment which was what I was looking for. I was drawn to Dalhousie because I wanted an internship that could provide me with the opportunity to work full-time in an archival setting and to obtain on-the-job experience in all the core activities of archives. My internship at Dalhousie gives me plenty of opportunity to learn from the very experienced archivists and records managers in the Archives.

What’s your educational background?

I have a bachelor’s degree in history from Aalborg University. Now, I’m taking the Informationsforvaltning program which is comparable to archival science/information management/records management in Canada. It’s basically a mix of history and archives and it gives you a lot of career opportunities. In Denmark, we usually refer to it as the “archives branch.”

What have you been doing during your internship?

I have been working on a few projects supervised by Michael Moosberger and Creighton Barrett. So far during this internship I have conducted archival appraisals of personal archives and of material acquired from non-profit cultural organizations, and prepared appraisal reports and processing plans. This encompasses making the decision to keep or discard records. I needed to learn about the process the records go through before the archivist can make a decision which is an important part of my main task here.

Creighton and I are now working on a strategy for Archives around acquisitions and appraisals of material from non-profit organizations. All the work I am doing at the Archives will end up in a final report where I use the knowledge I have gained by doing appraisals and literature reviews of archival appraisal methods, by looking at what the Archives has in its possession and what it doesn’t have, and by reviewing the Archives’ current appraisal policies and practices. It is so exciting to be a part of this project and to be able to come up with new ideas for the Archives. It has so far been very rewarding to be able to use theoretical knowledge and to discuss what approach we should have towards the different strategies.

Fun and interesting facts about you:

A fun fact about me is that I love potatoes, Danish rye bread, salty black licorice, and pastries. Danish pastry is actually called wienerbrød or Viennese bread in Denmark. So I find it quite funny that the rest of the world calls it Danishes.

In Denmark we have a term, hygge (close to the English concept of coziness), which seems to have become popular worldwide. My favourite way to spend the day is to either watch geeky movies/series or to read any book by Philippa Gregory while I drink hot chocolate or tea. If it rains or snows it’s even better! To me that’s hygge.

Things I love about Canada include: poutine, saltwater taffys, root beer, eggnog, Tim’s, Valley apples, Nova Scotian seafood, and the very friendly people! I also love hiking and Nova Scotia is full of great hiking spots! My favourite museums here are the Immigration Museum at Pier 21 and Sherbrooke Village.

Intern Profile: Caroline Korbel

August 25, 2017 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?

The MLIS program at Dal seemed to be more flexible than other schools, striking a nice balance between information science and librarianship. Also, I had never been to Atlantic Canada and was looking to make a move from Calgary to see parts of Canada I haven’t been to before.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?

After talking to the second-year students of the MLIS program, I was excited to see that W.K. Kellogg Health Science Library offered their interns experience in a multitude of library and research areas. Along with that, I was drawn to the health sciences as an area that I have always had an active interest in, but did not have the proper background to enter. The Kellogg offers me that opportunity.

What’s your educational background?

I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Art History from Mount Royal University in Calgary. I then got ACE TESOL certification and taught ESL both abroad and domestically. I also worked as a technical writer, and attended professional development workshops in grant and proposal writing, which have served me well both personally and academically.

What have you been doing during your internship?

In my internship, I help patrons at services points, answer reference emails, assess and update LibGuides, create and update instructive library videos, and be of general assistance. In addition, under the guidance of my supervisors here at the Kellogg, I have helped in more intensive research requests. This summer, there is also a large collaborative project in which all of my fellow interns and I are helping research and compile texts and information for Dalhousie University’s 200^th anniversary.

Fun and interesting facts about you:

I really enjoy running, and my partner and I are running the MEC half marathon in October.

In addition to my academic studies, I am also on the Dalhousie boards of CAPAL and ACA. I also have had the honour of being selected as a judge for ALIS/NA’s Melva J. Dwyer Award. It’s really exciting to be a part of the process and to have an excuse to do all the reading I’ve wanted to do all year.

Intern Profile: Rebekah Prette

August 24, 2017 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?

My passion for reading and learning began at an early age and naturally developed into a single-minded goal to become a librarian. I geared my undergraduate education towards both my passions but also made sure that it would enable me to apply to MLIS programs after graduation. I also spent numerous hours volunteering at my local library and eventually got a job working for the public library system in my hometown. During my undergrad, my passion for libraries only grew through the various interactions I had with the academic librarians.

While I applied to multiple MLIS programs across Canada, I ultimately choose Dalhousie for a variety of reasons. I was drawn to Dalhousie’s program because, unlike so many of the programs across the rest of Canada, Dalhousie’s program offers practical experience built into the program through practicums and internship opportunities. Studying in a smaller community appealed to me as it would help to foster better relationships with the students in my program. The face-to-face lectures were also a driving factor in my decision. I was also very excited to become involved with the various societies that were affiliated with the program.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?

My experience with academic librarians during my undergrad as well as my love of research has led me to want to pursue academic librarianship. When the opportunity arose to gain practical experience in this field of librarianship, I was very excited. Also, I love learning outside of the a classroom, and I was looking to gain more hands-on experience in certain aspects of librarianship. While I had no experience in architecture, planning or engineering, I was interested in using the skills I had learned in my undergrad and the MLIS program to help students in this faculty. This is a great opportunity to come out of my masters degree with such a great work experience.

What’s your educational background?

I have a BA in history from the University of Victoria.

What have you been doing during your internship?

I am working on several different projects this summer:

Journals: We are working on is a project to record all the print journals in the library, along with alternative access points so that the librarians can evaluate them to see if any titles can be withdrawn.
Updates: We are also working on several projects to update LibGuides, reference training documents, and Sexton Library web pages as well as the Sexton Library tour video.
Collections: We are also working on a project to determine a list of new titles that could be purchased for various faculties such as chemical engineering or Internetworking.
CoLab project: Along with the rest of the interns, I am also working on a project to support the research being done for Dalhousie’s 200th birthday.

Fun or interesting fact about you:

I have almost 10 years of professional theater training.

Intern Profile: Nicole Dalrymple

August 23, 2017 Marlo MacKay

What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?

I’ve always known that I wanted to do something with history and/or technology professionally, but wasn’t sure how to go about it until I worked a summer doing historical digitization — and it fit my interests perfectly! I checked out the program after my best friend Laura (also currently in the program) recommended it. Dalhousie’s School of Information Management has a great reputation and is in my hometown, so coming here was an easy choice.

What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?

During orientation, I listened to the current Archives intern talk a little about their projects, and could not have been more interested – it was right up my alley. I knew that I desperately wanted to work with history, and was interested in getting my hands on some more digitization projects, so the job description for the Archives internship was extremely exciting for me. I looked through some of Dal’s existing online fonds, talked one of the current interns working there, and knew it was a perfect job. It’s great to be able to get hands-on, real world experience while in school!

What’s your educational background?

I completed my first degree at King’s/Dalhousie as well, and have a BA with a double major in History and Political Science.

What you have you been doing during your internship?

During the 2016/17 school year I processed a massive collection of CKDU’s reels, as well as moving the physical collections to make room for more. I’ve also been processing and digitizing the Bill Lynch Shows fonds, working with FRED (Forensic Recovery of Evidence Device) to conduct forensic imaging of some of the born digital collections in our holdings (including floppy disks, CDs, and USBs), and writing documentation to describe the process for various digitization processes. I’ve also done scanning of photograph collections and oversize documents (blueprints, posters, et cetera), as well as answering on-site and email reference queries. I’ve been collaborating with other Dal Libraries interns to research and organize information pertaining to Dalhousie’s 200^th anniversary initiatives and I’m also looking into finding diverse collections to process (women, people of colour, minorities) to avoid only showing one perspective of history

Fun and interesting facts about you:

In my spare time, I’m passionate about dog rescue and volunteer at a local rescue (Home to Stay) — this has included driving to Montreal to pick dogs up who are about to be euthanized there. I also love this city and all of its food, so I’m always down to talk local restaurant recommendations! Finally, I’ve previously worked in technology public relations in San Francisco, which is where I get my interest in tech and the value of women in tech.

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