Over the last decade, JMRL’s Central Library has participated in the annual CommunityAttention Youth Internship Program through the City of Charlottesville.  The program provides employment and workplace skill opportunities for area youth, and past interns have provided a great deal of help with numerous projects. This year’s intern has done some writing for the Grow.Learn.Connect blog, and as this summer’s program winds down, she offers some thoughts about her experience at the Central Library.

Every day I tend to wake up at six o’clock and get ready for the day. At 7: 45, I call my aunt to pick me up from home and drop me off at work. Once I get here, I tend to place my small bag away. Then, I put my Library Volunteer badge on and do my daily work of the Pick List, which includes picking up books from the shelves that people have requested to read. I enjoy doing this, because I can become familiar with the books that are in this library.

My job as an intern is to shadow various departments, so I work all over the library. Down in the reference area, I fold booklets and write blogs. In the central area, I tend to help with the pick list, along with the laminating machine, I shelve books sometimes, and get the books out of the book drop. And in the third floor of this library, I tend to shred papers, work with the Ellison die-cut machine, and do some work in the technical services department, which tends to be routine, and involves scratching the barcode off the books and stamping them in order for them to be withdrawn. I like the fact that I get to work everywhere in this library, because it helps me get to know the library better.

Working in this library makes me feel calm, because there isn’t a lot of hectic events that occur here. Because of this calm environment, I tend to do my job better without getting stressed about anything. And the people I have met here are very friendly, which is always a good thing. I would say that working in a library was a dream come true for me, because I hope to be surrounded by books. And I also have aspirations to become an author one day.