Daniel Yoshio Shartin, a graduate student at the University of Rhode Island, became a Whittemore Library intern about a month ago. He said his grad school required a certain number of internship hours for the completion of the Master’s program. “Since I have no experience working in academic libraries, I wanted to find out if I would like it,” he said. At the moment, Shartin said his job entails as much as he can manage - owing up to his goal of finding out what work in academic libraries is like. His regular duties include attending to the library’s online chat, answering student questions at the Reference Desk, and creating/updating online study guides. He added, “But there will be more, I’m sure.”
He said the favorite part of his job is working with people here. Also, the workplace is “very agreeable” with his preferences and expectations. Although, he said he doesn’t like having to park by the athletic fields, since he has to walk a mile up a hill to get the library. “But at the same time, it’s the most exercise that I get regularly - it’s not entirely bad,” Shartin added. Thankfully, he hasn’t had to deal with rude students yet. He said he has a lot of patience, due to his previous public work experiences. Furthermore, he said his worst experience as a librarian occurred at one of his previous public jobs, in which a person who had lost their “faculties” required lots of professional emergency help. Therefore, he is thankful for every day, since he doesn’t have to deal with something like that again.
Shartin said his grad program is in Library and Information Studies. “So, yes - I want to be a librarian after I graduate,” he added. Finally, he said it changes week-to-week, but two things that he’s really passionate about are cooking and watching the Boston Celtics.
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