“I’ve listened to prospective authors gush over their projects, learned about what factors cause the press to accept or reject manuscripts, spread the word about the press to dozens of university libraries and departments, scoured manuscripts for errors in grammar and formatting, created lists of keywords for scores of books” explained rising junior, Natalie Opdahl, who worked at the UR Press this summer. “And learned more about British plastic surgery during World War II than I had ever imagined I would.”
Opdahl was one of ten University of Rochester Libraries (URL) summer interns working in various departments across the library, from Digital Scholarship to Research Initiatives to User Engagement.
URL’s summer intern program – supported by trustee Barbara J. Burger, David ‘83 and Joanne Rodgers, and Dean Kevin Garewal – immersed interns into every part of the library while allowing them to hone in on a specific division relevant to their career path.
For Opdahl, working with the UR Press allowed her to dip her toes into the publishing world.
“My favorite part of my work this summer was the stereotypical editing that editors are known for. Yes, you’re hunting for typos and incorrect typesetting, but you’re also learning more about the world from the experts themselves,” said Opdahl.
In addition to their internship, students interviewed someone from their desired profession, went through the process of applying for a related job, and delivered a final presentation of their work.
Students were allowed to explore all the different parts that make a library function and learn from each other in the process.
Opdahl explained, “I met so many different people who came from different places and we're here to work on different things, from data science to business and beyond. It was eye-opening to see how many different skills go into running a library.”
The 10-week program was designed to provide students with a unique experience in a new field with guidance from the library along the way.
“We really aim to have the students apply specialized disciplinary skills to an internship assignment so that they can use all of that knowledge they’re gaining from the classroom and natural talents to bring into the work that we’re doing here at the library,” said assistant dean of Engaged Learning & Research at the River Campus Libraries, Kimberly Hoffman.
Other students worked on projects like event programming, experiential marketing, and even curriculum design.
“We don’t want them to think of this as library work because the assignments are really a smattering of real-world careers,” Hoffman said. “We’ll be trying to translate that for them.”
The 2024 UR Libraries Summer Interns are:
- Maggie Beer (Event Programming and Experiential Marketing)
- Libby Braun (Studio X Learning Design)
- Alex Chatterjee (DiscoverUR UX)
- MJ Keller (Online Learning Design)
- Joy Lu (Sibley Social Media)
- Marwaan Maxamuud (Miner AI Health Literacy)
- Natalie Opdahl (UR Press)
- Aabha Pandit (Core 10 Data Collection)
- Megan Wu (iZone Curriculum Design)
- Jodie Zeng (Digital scholarship product development and systems migration)
