Sept – Oct 2023
Subject Area: Librarianship
Format: Internship
Length: 10 Hours
Organisers: Parliamentary Library, Canberra.
Over a four week period I participated in the internship program offered by the Parliamentary Library at Parliament House in Canberra. During this time I moved around the different sections that make up the Parliamentary Library learning about their clientele and collection. Their clients are unique in that they are all in the same field (public service) and are all looking for the same information, which is unlike the diverse range that would be expected at a public library. Their collection is a unique mix of print/monographs, media, serials/journals and digitised information taken from newspapers/online resources which is managed by individual sections of the library. I was also offered a tour through art services to have a look at how the gallery part of the library functioned and how the art used throughout the building was part of the collection, as well as learning how conservators worked, and how the curators designed certain exhibitions for public engagement.
During the final week, interns are encouraged to participate in professional projects which are being conducted by different departments throughout the library. As part of this I worked on a project of spell-checking digitised historical Hansard (Sept 1939) which would be published on ParlInfo for access and text searchability. Historical Hansard is classed as Hansard from parliamentary proceedings 1901-1980. I also contributed to a project which worked to identify, preserve, and sort a small collection of rare books and items from the parliament. I looked at the current catalogue records and made notes of what extra could be added to enhance the record.
WHAT I LEARNED
Being able to participate in the internship program allowed me the opportunity to learn how to deal with clients and client requests with impartiality and confidentiality which is expected at a special collections library like the Parliamentary Library, and how the library chooses, orders, maintains, weeds, and discards items in their collection. The collection is a little unique as they look for more reference items that would be useful for research, while new release fiction is also prioritised for clients in both print and electronic, special consideration is given to procuring works by parliamentary member authors. After completing the audiovisual archiving courses which work towards preserving audiovisual materials for continued access, it was interesting to learn that the Electronic Media Monitoring Unit (EMMU) of the Parliamentary Library works more to ensure short-term access of their audiovisual assets rather than working towards long-term preservation. After completing the internship program and learning what each department within the library does, I used this knowledge to decide on what elective subjects I wanted to complete before the end of my degree to shape my future career.
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