 Good morning and welcome to this week's edition of Encompass Live. I am your host, Krista Burns here at the Nebraska Library Commission. Encompass Live is the Commission's weekly online event, yes, the webinar, where we cover anything that may be of interest to librarians across the state and across the country. We do these sessions live every Wednesday morning at 10 a.m. central time, but they are recorded, so if you aren't able to join us on Wednesday morning, that's fine, you can always watch any of our recordings that we have. We're actually at the beginning right now in January of 2013, starting our fifth year of Encompass Live. So we have a lot of recordings out there for you if you want to go back and say everything we've done over the last four years. We do all sorts of different things in the show, presentations, book reviews, mini training sessions, anything we can think of that is related to libraries, we'll put it on the show. We bring in guest speakers from outside the Library Commission and we have commission staff that do sessions as well. And today we have a mixture, because this morning we're talking about internships, cultivating Nebraska's future librarians, a program we've been doing here at the Library Commission. I'm not sure for how long have we had them. I think an internship program has been going on and off since 2007 or 2008, I believe. We have this 21st century librarian grant, and we're going to be talking about that. Katherine Brockmeyer, who is the grant program manager for this grant, is going to be telling you all about that. And we've got some people here in the room with us and on the line. We're going to talk about their experiences having interns in their libraries. So I'm just going to hand it over to you, Katherine, to take it over and do your thing. Hi, good morning. I'm Katherine Brockmeyer. I'm the grant program manager for the 21st century librarian grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The Nebraska Library Commission received a grant in 2010 to provide funding for scholarships to students pursuing credentials in library science and also to recruit our future librarians as an incentive by providing grants to public libraries to hire interns. And so those are the two major, two of the larger portions of how we spend our money from the grant that we received from IMLS. And today we are going to talk about the internship grant program and what the objectives of it are, how it's been going in the past. We've run in three supervisors to discuss their experiences. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about the application process for the internship grant cycle, application cycle, which closes on March 15th of this year. And anytime you have a question about what, you know, if you have a question about for the supervisors and their experiences or a question for me about the application process, anything to that effect, please go ahead and raise your hand or type in the questions box. And you can either type the question or say, please unmute me, I have a question. And Crystal will be happy to facilitate that. So we have three speakers with us today. We have Gail Roberts from Blair, Evie Oost from Rock County Public Library in Bassett. And then we have Carolyn Dow from the Pauley Music Library through the Lincoln City Libraries. So we have a librarian from what we would consider a rural area, one from which we would consider a micro-polleton area there in Blair, and then one from a metropolitan area, which is Carolyn. We're going to start today with Gail, and Gail's going to share her experiences. What I've asked the supervisors to talk about is if they want to talk about the application process and why they decided to apply for an internship, especially if they've already had one before or if this was their first year to apply. And then to talk about the process of doing an orientation with their, hiring the intern, doing an orientation with their intern, and then any special projects that they may have done with their intern. And then just kind of wrap it up to talk about how it went for everyone, how it went for the intern, how it went for the supervisor, how it went for the staff, and also if there were any patrons or library users who seemed to benefit from this program from something that the interns did themselves, if they can talk about that as well. So they're not expected to cover all of those points in their segment, but just wanted to throw those out there as points of departure. So Gail, we're going to turn it over to you, and you have the floor for about 10 minutes or so. Give or take depending on what you have to share, but no pressure. You don't need to fill all 10 minutes, just however it works for you. Gail? Well, thank you. Can you hear me okay? Just fine. You're coming through loud and clear. Okay. I'm a little bit froggy from my cold yet, so if I'm not understandable, holler at me, and I'll try to be a little more clearer. I absolutely love the internship program. We serve a base of 7,900 people, 10,000 or more patrons within the county altogether, and we only have five staff members. So the internship provides help at a very crucial time. I always use the intern during summer reading, and it just makes a world of difference to have that extra person around who can actually run the desk and work on interlibrary loan projects and do all those kinds of things that we use them for. So we basically do an eight-week program with the intern during the summer. That way, if it's a student, it doesn't interfere with their schooling very much. It helps us a lot with our issues going on during the summer, and it provides a concentrated time for them to really get a good feel of how the library works. So it gives them, I think, a very good example of how their daily life would be in a library. I think that the first time we did it, I think Katherine and I can't remember offhand, but I think we've had one from the beginning of the program. I think we get one every year, and we have actually had three that have gone on to get their MLS or their bachelors in library science. So we've been very lucky in that way. It looks like we got one in 2008. All five years. Again, I think I've had three that have gone on. So to me, that says a lot for the program because it, again, gives that intern a real good example of whether or not they want to continue on. Gail, were they already starting their MLS or were they at their undergraduate level? Out of those three, one was finishing high school and went into her undergraduate program. One, she's doing library science at UNO right now. One was working on her MLS and she's now in, she hasn't quite finished it yet, but she's in Oregon finishing it up. She was working on it here and working, I think, at Omaha Public and then did our internship and then went ahead and got a really good job in Oregon and is finishing online through her degree on that. And then I had one who, even though he was not my favorite intern, I would say, he did begin the MLS program after working with us. Okay. So, and I wish him great luck. And he is also now working for Omaha Public, which is good. Then we've had two that, by the end of it, looked at me and just said, I can't believe everything you do. I could never do this. And so, again, I think that was a good eye-opening experience for them because they were thinking of going and applying for their MLS and after that they were like, no. And one of the things I always try to stress with them is that we're a public library. So you're not necessarily going to have this in an academic situation or a special library and maybe not even in some other public libraries that are bigger. You're not going to have to necessarily clean up the pee and the poop and the puke. But it was just amazing that they could learn a lot, I think, from it. The application process is very easy. The city really is appreciative that we apply for this and have that extra help because, of course, they don't want to have to hire anybody. So they're very appreciative of it. We just, again, I can't say how much we like it. There is an orientation process and that's what we do the first few times with them. During the application, we have to supply how we're going to formulate the internship and I try to give a basic week by week what we're going to do with the intern. I do try to make sure they get cataloging experience, that they get interlibrary loan experience, that they work on processing, acquisitions, weeding, and, of course, the front desk and the public work programming. They work with the children's programming and the adult programming. So I keep them pretty busy throughout that time period. And I think they get a pretty good picture of everything that we do. It takes about a week to get them kind of oriented unless they're totally new and then it might take about a week and a half. The one I had last year or two years ago was totally new and it took her a little bit of time. It turned out to be one of my best volunteers after it, even though she didn't want to go on into the field, so that took a little bit longer to get her going. We have, I think, had very good experiences with all except one. And, you know, sometimes it just doesn't work out the way you think. He did a great job as far as completing his tasks, but he was not a people person. So I did have to end up keeping him in the back the whole time and not allowing him out with the public very much. And so that kind of made it a little bit not as advantageous for us because we really needed that front desk help during the afternoons. But on a whole, he at least was able to complete some projects. We put him on a labeling project and a cataloging updating project kind of thing, and he was able to complete all of that. It was just he was not a people person and did not want to participate in front desk or the kids' programings and things like that. I made him do a little bit of it, but he didn't like it at all. And so if you don't want somebody out there that's not going to deal with your public, especially when you're running 11,000 people through programming. So other than that, we have had an excellent time. The hardest thing for me and the whole project, the whole internship project, is remembering to do the final paperwork. And I'm really glad that now it's online that we don't have to do it by paper because I would continually lose it by the end of summer. I don't know how I would do it, but I would. So I really thank you, Catherine, for putting that online and getting that online for us. That was much easier. Anything else I can talk for hours? Sure. No, thanks for running it through basically from beginning to end. I took a few notes and so I want to comment on a couple of things. You talked about a little bit about the fact that there are career options for your interns for them to consider. And so you talked about the fact that a public library experience may be a little bit different from an academic library experience. Absolutely. Library experience. And one thing that I do want to mention is that visits to other libraries is not out of the realm of an internship. And especially now for new applicants, partnerships are encouraged, or at least mentioning visits to other libraries. And so for future applicants, the primary applicant needs to and the recipient of the grant will be the public library. But this year we had three public libraries partnered with other libraries, two of them partnered with the local community college library and one of them partnered with the school library. So while you might be losing a few hours at your library, the intern is gaining experience in another library type. And so they are seeing something different other than public service with your patron base. They might find something in the school library that might pique their interest. We would like for an intern to find the kind of library that suits them best if they're interested in library work. It may not necessarily be the public library work. And so we do encourage partnerships and those are looked quite favorably upon during the grant application review process. Also Gail, you touched on the fact that you found that this one intern may have been a better fit for the behind-the-scenes types of work. And so if he's looking at a career in libraries, perhaps he might be more interested in acquisitions, cataloging, processing, administration, some things that don't require as much time on the desk. Exactly. And I think that's part of... I always look at it as part of our job as mentor and their internship employer to kind of help them see where their strengths are. And so, you know, I think part of it is we always sit down and we have, you know, little sessions where we talk and we kind of go over how different things work in different places. I love the idea of partnering and that's a really good idea. We're actually partnering with our schools this summer, so that might be a very good place to have them kind of help on a couple of those projects. But we do sit down and go through that because I do think, you know, not only are they here just to learn what libraries do in the background, but what kinds of things, you know, are there strengths? What kinds of things do they like to do? And, you know, the one that we had last year that went on to apply for his MLS and got into the program, he definitely is a backdoor person also. He's definitely more into the tech side. And, you know, that was awesome. And he was still... He worked out at the front desk and he did okay and he was fine. But it was clear to us that that was his strength and he really excelled in our cataloging area, picked it up very quickly, picked up, you know, all of those technical services very quickly. And he still comes in and volunteers and helps, which I think is a, you know, a wonderful thing too because he continues to build up that experience and we can be a reference for him then when he goes to apply. And what I hear from you two things. One is that you look on the bright side of life and so that it's a strength-based approach. What are the strengths that they bring in? That you examine their personality and find out what matches with what is offered through the library. And then at the same time you shore up that may not become a strength, but you shore up the areas in which he may not... might be out of his comfort zone so that he's still exposed to those areas because if you're being hired in a library, it's my understanding you ought to know all aspects of library service because what you're doing in acquisitions actually does affect the collection, it affects circulation, it affects how people use the catalog. So it does affect the public service side even if you're working on the back end. Absolutely. I actually have a pen in my office that I got from some conference I can't even remember years ago that says cataloging is a public service. You bet. It's very important. And you know, too, I just had a great thought, a great thing to say and now I've done forgotten it. It was, you know, we do... public service is definitely hand-in-hand with technical services, but also you just don't also know when 80% of the library is going to be out with the flu and they're going to come say to you, go work the reference desk. So you still have to know all of the different... you know, you should cross-train always and know how to handle every aspect. Cross-train. Okay. Thank you so much, Gail. If you think of something that you want to say as other topics come up from some of the other supervisors, just give us a shout out by typing in the questions box. We are going to mute you now so that you can't just interrupt another supervisor. That's probably a wise idea because you know I will do that. And then again, also, does anyone from our audience have a question that they'd like to field specifically for Gail? And if not, at this time you can always pop up later and say I have a question that needs to go back to Gail. So type into your question section, let me know and we'll get your question answered. Thank you. Thanks for your time, Gail. Hope the water stops leaking in your library. I'm sorry. I hope the water stops leaking in your library quite soon. Me too. And so we are going to now speak with Evie Oost from Rock County Public Library, which is in Bassett. And hi, Evie. Hi. You have been a scholarship or an internship recipient. Let's see how many times 2012, 2011. Let's see. You're up here at Bassett 2010, 2009, 2008. So for the ones that have been posted here, you have been a five-time grant recipient. So it sounds like you should be going to the Super Bowl. Well, we too love the program and just find it really nice to work with. And Catherine is wonderful if you have any questions. And we serve all about, we only work a small rural library. We serve 1,500 people, but we only have two-part-time staff. And summertime is our busiest time. And so it's really a great help for us, and that's when we try to use our interns, too, as in the summertime. And we, Catherine, when we talk about a little bit about how we select our interns, we kind of put them through a, we treat this like a regular staff position. We advertise the position through flyers, and we ask the high school to announce it in their announcements, and we put an ad in the paper, and then we ask them to submit, you know, a simple resume, just something really simple. It doesn't have to be anything major. And we want them to kind of get, you know, prepared for the job world, because some of ours, you know, haven't really had a lot of jobs that we've had. And we, and then we interview, we usually select, you know, around three, and then no more than that, and then we interview those students and go from there. And like when you do the application, you know, you do have to come up with that schedule of activities. And so as we're doing that, we think of maybe some things that we would like to accomplish during that internship. And so that's kind of how we choose our intern, too, is, you know, if you have a special project, you know, find out what their strengths are through that interview process. So, and then, you know, we start doing a to-do list of projects right away, too, and so we have a list, so when they get there, we know what we want them to kind of accomplish, and we put them through the same as Gail did. You know, we have them touch on every aspect of library work so that when they leave, they kind of have seen everything we hope. And we've tried something that we do, since we live in a very rural community and we're a long ways away from other libraries, we do have a media specialist in our schools, and they are closed during the summer. So we've taken our interns to a larger community and visited that library, and we've done that a couple of years now, and the first time we took the students to Carney, and one of our goals for that summer was to get a new website updated and redo it, and Michael Sowers was offering a WordPress class in Carney, and so that worked really well for us. I took her down there, and we spent the day in a WordPress class at the University of Nebraska in Carney, so she also got to, you know, at least visit an academic library. And she completed that webpage in no time at all. That was something she had worked with. She was a high school senior. She was the top in her class, absolutely a fabulous student. We were very lucky to get her, and she did a wonderful job on the website, and we're very proud of it, and we still get a lot of compliments on it. And then this last year, we took her to Grand Island, our intern, and she was more interested maybe in the children's side of it, and so they have a children's librarian, and so my assistant director took her there, and they spent the day doing some programming with the children's library and joined right in, and they had a great time. And they came back with really some good ideas of things that we should do. She came back, and she suggested that, you know, we had filed all of our board books, just in the e-books section all over, and she said, well, they in Grand Island, they had them all on one shelf, and so she came back with that suggestion, and so, of course, you know, they get ideas, and after they work with you, they come up with really some good ideas, and every year I think we'd let them go ahead and we'd try it, you know, and it's been great. We also had a student who did our Facebook page one summer, and we didn't have one. I think that was three years ago, and so now we're up and running with Facebook, and we hear from Catherine every now and then on that. I think you called me for tech support. That was a tricky year for Facebook. They were trying to do some tricky things, and so I think you and I both walked through the admin side of creating a page, and we both got frustrated, but she was also there, and I think sometimes when you have a different generation, although you and I are both pretty fearless when it comes to new technology, I think even younger generations are willing to try things and explore more options and just give it a try rather than thinking it through too much. So they're a bigger risk taker sometimes, and I thought that she was a pretty big risk taker, and it all came out good. It all came out for the good. Yes, and we use it a lot now, and so it's been just a good way for us to get that done. I probably wouldn't have gotten it done if she wouldn't have been there to work through that. Our interns have been a good resource for helping me with collection development. I always think the kids can come in and they can say, well, I'd like to try this series, or I've read one of these books in a series. Could we get the rest of them? And the one we had last summer, she was an avid reader, and she was great for that, and so I appreciated that. And then last year, too, we offered a summer reading incentive for our kids, promising an overnight sleepover to students who met their goal, and she offered to come back during her fall break, and so we did it in October, and she was great. She was really good with the kids, and it was wonderful having her there. The two staff really appreciated her. And Catherine also wanted to know how the interns felt about working here, and I said, well, you know, I really don't know how she felt. I mean, to my face, she appeared to really be appreciative and grateful for the opportunity, but we don't get to see those online surveys that they do, and so in the future, I would, I think, probably have a little time one-on-one with her before they walk out that door and just talk to them about that and find out, you know, other things that they wish we could have done differently, or they, you know, I kind of knew what she didn't like and what she liked as far as working in the library, but I didn't really know how she really felt about the program. I hope Catherine knows. You bet, you bet. We do have that information, and maybe depending just so for those of you who aren't familiar with that, we have the students take a baseline survey at the beginning to kind of get a pulse for what they already think they know about library work, what their expectations are, and then at the end of their internship, we follow up with them saying, did it end up being the way you thought it would be? What were the things you cared about? What are the things you didn't care for? And I don't think that in that survey, I think in that survey, we do say their responses are confidential, and so if they spoke with their supervisor, or if the supervisor asked if they wanted to share their responses, they may actually not be as candid in their responses. So what I would be able to share with you would be the collated all of the responses from all of the survey respondents, and you might be able to kind of glean from that, and maybe you would see some responses that you think might have been your interns. But I don't think that I can provide you with their responses, and so for that, maybe an exit interview would be a good idea. I don't have a problem with that. I think it should be confidential because I think they won't be honest if they know I'm going to see it. Right. And then one other thing I wanted to bring up is maybe a lesson learned was that during the orientation, be sure to discuss what the interns should do if they have friends that come to visit while they're working. We're in a small world community and we only had a problem with that one year, but we just now, on day one, we discussed that with them how they should handle that. They can't be there for half an hour visiting with them and so forth. So it hasn't been a problem since we started doing that. Okay. And I have one question. Is there a minimum age requirement for this? You know, it's very interesting because the wording used to be student internship, which would imply that the person is in college or in high school. And actually, there is no restriction on age. Again, we want to remember that we are trying to recruit to the profession. So if there is somebody who is trying to... is considering changing their career at some point in time, whether they're 20, 30, 40, or 50, and they show an interest in working in libraries, they would be a good candidate. You might consider them to be a good candidate. And also, we have so many non-traditional college students, and actually, if you were to look at the age of my scholarship recipients, very few of them are what you would consider traditional college age, which is in their 20s. Quite a few of them are going back to school after having already been in a career. And so if you have somebody who is considering working in libraries as a career or they're considering starting the certificate program through the Community College, Central Community College, certainly they are as eligible to be hired as an intern as a 17-year-old. Absolutely. Does that answer your question, Evie? Well, yes. But we've found that our interns have been, you know, either just graduating from high school or they're in college, and they're pretty set on what they want to do with their life at that point. And I was wondering, can we go down to 15? Oh, I think you want to stick with whatever you're hiring age, whoever would be eligible for employment at your library. So I don't think that 15 is too young, especially if you're trying to, you know, steer them toward library, perhaps a library career. Yes, you might want to catch them a little bit earlier rather than them being a senior and then they've already chosen a college and a major. Absolutely. Well, in our school, the school guidance council does that in their sophomore year, so I kind of want to get them before that. Absolutely. They kind of decided by the end of that year, I think, what they think they want to do. I mean, they'll stick with it. That is really something to consider. I think you also want to consider the maturity of your applicant or your intern. Are they going to be, you know, do you think that they're going to be mature enough to be able to go through the orientation and take on all of the different tasks? But another aspect of this is that we expect our interns to grow and perhaps mature during the internship process. And so that would be something to monitor. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I want to go see the school guidance councilor because I'm not as knowledgeable about the scholarships available as I should be and Catherine is going to send me a kit so I can do that and go prepared and maybe make him more aware of what's available there for the students. Well, you're giving us a bonus there. And it is helpful if you do take your intern and at least make them aware, take them to the now hiring at your library site to the page. We certainly would appreciate that. We would like you to, our supervisors, to make the students and this could be considered part of the orientation and I think it is touched on in the application information but to learn about jobs and careers but also to learn what are the educational options for them, especially here in Nebraska. And then to dangle the scholarship program in front of them to show them that especially right now at the undergraduate level, which is where they would be, we are offering scholarships of up to $3,500 at the associate's level and at the bachelor's level. So that's for something for them to consider. So if our supervisors would take the time to talk about the various jobs and kinds of careers that are available to people who are interested in working in libraries and then also what are the educational options for them and then also to talk a little bit about the scholarships. Then the supervisors would be doing exactly what Evie is talking about in terms of going to the counselors but also doing that with your intern taking half an hour and sitting down and showing them this website. That would be wonderful. Thank you. Okay, thanks. We'll wrap it up with Evie. Does anybody have any questions for Evie at this time? Gail has a comment and I will just... Gail, you're on mute. You can go ahead and say what you picked in there. Oh, okay. I just said one of the things I really like is that our interns have continually stayed in touch with us and they end up being really great volunteers. And my question is, I was listening to Evie talk because she had some really good points, can we apply for more than one intern? Okay, the answer is yes. Awesome. Right now you can apply for one grant which is $1,000 and you can split that up among as many interns as you would like. We have had... Our larger libraries have received more than one grant so Lincoln City Libraries has received, for example, they received five grants. They received $5,000, they chose to hire five interns. Omaha this last year did the same thing and if you can show a justification for that that you would like to apply for more than one grant, the other option again is we've had quite a few libraries who split their $1,000 up among two, especially if they already know in advance that they have a couple of individuals who they feel would make great interns. You can already have your intern in mind when you apply. You can also say no, I don't have an intern in mind but here's my plan for advertising for the position. And so we have had we have had supervisors who hired more than one intern using the $1,000 that they had to spread between two interns and even three interns. And then also we did have we've had supervisors where their intern didn't work out and so they ended that internship and they hired somebody and paid them with the remainder of what was left of their grant. Oh that's good to know, I think that's something maybe that isn't real clear. So that's a nice clarification, thank you. You bet. That's all we have at the moment. And now, last but not least, we have Carolyn Dow of the Pauly Music Library through the Lincoln City Libraries. She's here in-house. I want to go ahead and wave so everybody knows. Here's the camera. And she's going to talk about her personal experience with her particular intern but the other supervisors from Lincoln City Libraries who also had interns have sent her a few comments so she has a few things to share on their behalf as well. So welcome today. Carolyn, thanks for being here. Thank you for letting me be here. One of the things that we've learned system-wide is that all ages really are appropriate and they've done a wonderful job. Last year we had students from high school through doctoral candidates. They all were fabulous, which means we want to do it again. The year before I had a non-traditional student who was completing her bachelor's degree. She again was wonderful but the high school students have surprised us by their initiative, their maturity and even immediate connections that they made with customers. We certainly were not expecting that. Our hiring process we do it as a system to start with. We have a short online application which we then screen. Last year I interviewed eight people and we had a lot of applications that did not make it through the screening which would have also been wonderful candidates. I have to say from the eight people I interviewed, all of them would have been fabulous. I went with a doctoral candidate in part because I know that in music librarianship new music librarians come into the field most of the time after they have already tried college teaching they already have a doctorate in music and somehow they then transition over. So this was able I was able to give my intern an idea of something else she could do if her dreams of teaching in college don't pan out or if she gets tired of them or if she only gets a part-time gig and needs to work additional hours she could consider working in a library especially a music library. Our orientation system-wide goes through the whole internship. In fact we have usually have a tour near the end of the internship where all the interns get together and visit departments such as administration and technical services cataloging our special collections poly, the heritage room and see the other branches so they get a much broader orientation and then our staff generally get and one of the things we learned is it really would be good to broaden that orientation for our paid employees. My intern worked on writing blog entries she worked with our sheet music collection one of the things she had the most fun with was a buying trip to Beats music after I'd had her go through what we have in the areas she would be selecting from on the shelf she also learned to use a number of other tools for acquisitions she helped with weeding basically her special projects were based on our needs and her particular interests it went fabulously every time we have someone come in as an intern their fresh perspective really helps us see what we're doing and maybe find ways of doing it more efficiently or at least being able to explain why we are doing things system-wide most of the interns in the branches help either with circulation to free up people for working with the summer reading program or else actually assisting with the summer reading program I know I benefited greatly from having the additional help because the Poly Music Library is a solo librarianship gig now but I think our customers benefited from her knowledge in materials that she was able to select for the collection in her blog posts and the other work she did I do want to mention Carolyn talks about and I think some of the other librarians have talked about this and that is that often times the interns are hired over the summer particularly for the reason that the busiest time of year for the library and it's nice to have the extra set of hands and also it's nice to have a fresh face and maybe sometimes a younger individual who would have the interest of working with young people but that is not a requirement of the internship program we currently have several internship grant recipients who have hired their intern over they started either in the summer or they started in the fall and they spread the hours out they just need to be done by March of the next year so you can spread the hours out to two hours a week especially if you've got a student who's in high school and perhaps can come in only two hours a week another thing that I did want to mention is there are different ways to pay your intern one is that you can do it as a contract with the intern or you can hire them as an employee and then you have to decide how it's going to go with taxes and that sort of thing if you're going to go ahead and take out the taxes from the thousand dollars or if they are responsible for their own taxes and so this is when it's beneficial to talk with your city personnel office to make sure that they approve of how you're going to hire intern because that is very important some cities would prefer that you contract with your student and there are others who prefer that you hire them and that money is set aside from the thousand dollars to go towards social security and other things that must be that must be set aside when paying your intern also some libraries choose to pay by the hour and let's say that you want your student to work a hundred hours so they're paid ten dollars an hour this may not be looked as favorably upon in a smaller library where you have staff who are not making ten dollars an hour you may consider having your student work more than a hundred hours that is the suggestion it's just an example that's given on the website and it seems that perhaps many of our libraries feel that because it's suggested that's the way to do it but you certainly could require more hours to be spent and then if you look at the average even if you just pay them as a contract you pay them three hundred dollars one month three hundred dollars the next month and four hundred dollars the third month if they're going to work you know three months you could do it that way as well so you're not held to having your intern work exactly one hundred hours you can choose how many hours your student is going to work again that's why it's called an internship and not called temporary employment so that is something to consider as you are applying to that you how you're coming across to the people who are reviewing your application that you understand that this is an internship and that it is not temporary you're not hiring temporary employment although many people do hire their intern in the hopes that they might find those to fit and that is somebody that they might want to hire on afterward in a permanent position and that has happened some of our interns are hired on later the librarians are impressed with the work that they do and the position comes open and it sure makes their resume and their application float to the top some of them continue on as volunteers some of them head back to college wherever they're at but it's possible that you've planted the seed that even if they are already in an undergraduate position perhaps it's in math or perhaps it's in something else but they think about the fact they somehow in the back of mind they keep thinking about working in libraries perhaps having the undergraduate in math they go on for their MLS and they decide that they want to be an academic librarian and they have a strong background in a certain subject matter there was one student that worked at Lincoln City Libraries who really enjoyed the library work but she was hoping to go on she had already applied to a college and been admitted and she was going to have a major in history and I talked to her about opportunities in digital archives and also working with historical societies and that sort of thing so that she can get her undergraduate in just about anything there's not a lot of individuals who go on for their MLS due but they have specialized in something and then they go and get the specialization of becoming a librarian and then there's a marriage between the two so I told her you're not held to going to get your undergraduate in library science of course that would be wonderful but if you have a real passion for history this is the time to pursue that and then consider if you want to work in a library there are multiple options and so I just happened to meet her I just happened to meet her because I was doing my practicum but that might be the role of a supervisor is to find out what their passions are and then show them that there are options in careers in libraries later on down the road if they want to get their undergraduate with a certain major that at some point in time then if they wanted to go on and get their masters in library science there's a way to mesh the two so does anyone have any general questions at this time otherwise I'm going to take the last few minutes and talk about the application and the application process nothing coming in right now but I'll pay attention to these okay we just started a little late you can go just a little after 11 okay thank you two documents that I've been showing you one is the annual report that just was submitted to IMLS in December and in it if you to go to page 17 of the document it talks about the internship program what has gone on sorry for making you dizzy let me get to page 16 page 16, 17 here we go objective 1c increase awareness of careers in library so if you want to see on the back end why we've set this program up and some of this is we allude to some of this actually on the now hiring site as well but if you really want to see what's been going on the bigger picture of all the libraries that have participated you can see the results here you can see where our libraries are from our recipients this year some were urban the ones in blue are considered metropolitan or in a metropolitan catchment area and the others are considered rural this is the census or the OMB's definition of rural you can also see who else has received in the past and maybe you want to contact one of those libraries and talk with one of the librarians and find out a little bit about their experience if you're interested in finding a winning application you might ask them what was on their application also speaking of that if you would like your application to be reviewed prior to submitting it if you would like to see what the questions are that are on the application you can go ahead and start to complete it and just send it to me in Word and I will find somebody who can independent really review it who is not on the review panel and they can get back to you Krista has done that in the past for us actually Krista are you interested? if there's nobody if she's not going to be on our panel she is available to review your application and she might be able to give you some tips knowing what she knows about the program and what the viewers are looking for we don't want you to regurgitate exactly what we ask for we want you to think independently but at the same time we are looking for candidates who are in a good fit for what the objectives of our grant are so there are the participants and then you can see all the wonderful things that might inspire you here are some particular projects that interns have done in the past some of it is a collection development here Carolyn was the music library collection development I talked about that contributing ideas for blog posts a lot of our interns helped in the computer labs and again that's where the risk taking comes in I think that there are some people who come in and they're a little more fearless and they're a little more willing to take risks in terms of helping people push buttons that you normally just wouldn't push or follow a link that perhaps the staff might be more hesitant to do we did have one intern who joined our Facebook group which is let me find it on Facebook Nebraska librarians learning together and she came on here and she actually introduced herself she said hi I'm an intern and I'm having a great time and I'm looking forward to my internship so if you ask them to join this then they would get the kind of professional updates that we give and also if you haven't joined yet we'd love to have you on board typically there's at least one post a day with something of special interest to there are scholarship students or to our librarians something that we would hope that would spark a conversation so give them an idea what's one of the hot topics what are the hot issues in librarianship right now and so that's something that you could look at and then let's go back to the application process here real quickly you can apply it here's the information on applying for grants general information tips for the applicants if you're looking for we require you to have some sort of plan if you know it's if you don't know if it's going to be an eight week or a 12 week but at least you know some of the things that need to be covered there are two there are two things that you might look at and one is the mass blast design and internship wiki page they it's a great wiki that also offers a curriculum for orientation and then there's another that I don't think made it onto the website let me see if I can find it here real quickly nope it's not here there's another one that I still need to add and that was from Ann Arbor I learned about that at ALA so or PLA so there are some things out there in terms of if you want to design your curriculum and have something that is also looked favorably upon during the application process does anyone else have any other questions at this time one of the things is if you're going to take a trip you can budget for that in your you can budget for the mileage and that sort of thing in your thousand dollars that you receive or if you only want to ask for $500 you wanted to do a mini internship or you feel that you can still pay them $500 and still have 75 hour internship or something to that effect that's fine but somebody did ask us can they use their money to take them to the Air Fork Literary Festival Literature Festival and so to pay for their mileage to pay for their meals and that sort of thing sure you can take that out of your budget and consider that if you would like to do that or if you would like for them to participate in a workshop online something that you saw through ALA you certainly can take some of the funding and pay for to pay for that also having them participate in watching Encompass Live we did have a scholarship we did have an intern watch one of the Encompass Lives about the scholarship students who had attended conference and so that was just a really neat thing for them to see what MLS and undergraduate library science students were doing at conference and I think it gave her a lot of confidence to see what the possibilities are for her coming down the road just one year or two years or three years down the road what might be waiting for her so she gave up she sent us a thank you note to Krista who forwarded it to me and just really made my day any other questions at this time if you don't have any questions at this time but you would like more information about the application process or about the program itself if you're considering applying for the internship please contact me at Catherine Brockmire at Nebraska.gov and all of that information is here on the internship page so yeah it's a very exciting program it plants the seeds even if they are already on a certain job track but they're kind of young you just never know maybe they'll work in IT for a few years and then get a little burned out and remember that they really enjoy libraries and library work and they decide to become an IT person in a library I can name somebody who's doing that and he's a scholarship student right now so that is possible planting that seed you don't know when that might flourish but certainly taking the steps and as Abby talked about talking about the careers and talking about the scholarship options for them just might motivate them to even change their track and consider libraries library education or a career in libraries okay okay again many thanks to Gail Roberts to Evie Ost and to Caroline Dow for joining us today thank you so much for your time for doing that and we hope to see some applications come through or at least some emails to me asking a little bit more about the application process the deadline was what? March 15th so you still have a little bit of time once again we are very if you have time to talk with somebody who is not in your public library that you might partner with again that's looked favorably upon and then also just remember when you do the application the president of your library board not your library foundation but your governing body needs to also sign off on this so just be aware of that that they know that you are applying because their digital signature is required I don't know if they need to be present to push the button but they do need to be aware that you are making this application so keep them in the loop and they may actually have a few suggestions for you of what they'd like to see Gail says thanks for having me oh Gail thank you Ellen Evie is questioning is the deadline February 15th oh my goodness did I say March 15th no you're right it is February 15th thank you here it is the award the deadline the application the deadline is February 15th and the award announcement is March 15th and we tried to do that early enough so that you can catch your students because they're looking for especially if you're considering summer job type internships you want to catch them especially the best and the brightest before they get snatched up by something else and so that's why we do offer the announcement by March 15th so that you can start advertising if you don't already have someone in mind so you still have over a month to get yourself standardized and get something submitted right so not a problem okay well thank you very much Catherine thanks Christa everyone who attended that was great I did put up what's next so we will wrap it up for today the website for the internships and the Nebraska Brands Learning Together Facebook page have been saved into the commission's delicious accounts when the recording goes up for this episode those links will be there as well if you want to click link to those and if you go searching for them you'll have them available and next week I hope you join us when Catherine will be back I will again with some of the actual scholarship students on hand with us to talk about their experiences attending conferences this is another part of the scholarship program they can get money to go to actual conferences anywhere they pretty much want to go we did try conference this year because of the Mountain Plains Library Association but we these are for regional and national library conference attendance so we've had individuals go to PLA to LITA to ALA we have somebody who's just going to mid-winter here pretty soon we also had someone who went to the MPLA leadership conference so some pretty exciting things and they come back pretty stoked is the word I would say but pretty excited about what they've been not subjected to what they've experienced what they have experienced and what they have been introduced to so join us next week to hear all about that and also if you are interested we have to do our end of this live website but we are also on facebook so if you do use facebook please go ahead and like us there and you will get notifications via your facebook news feed of when new episodes are coming up when recordings are ready I always give a reminder like I did right here earlier this morning don't forget today's episode is so and so so if you're a facebook user please go ahead and like us there and keep up on what we're doing from there so other than that I think we are done for today thank you very much and we will see you next week see you next week and Catherine will be back for this with a whole new group of people thank you very much bye bye