Each year the University of Iowa Libraries employs about 250 students to help keep the library system running smoothly. These students do all kinds of library jobs – checking out and reshelving books, digitizing rare photographs, creating catalog records for items, scanning journal articles and book chapters for online document delivery, assisting people with multimedia projects, repairing damaged books and answering questions at the reference desk.

Below are some comments from Libraries staff about our student employees.

Our jobs wouldn’t be half as interesting or fun without our student assistants, aside from not being able to do this without them. I hope they get as much out of the job as the job gets out of them, I certainly learn as much from them as they do from me. Congratulation graduates!
H J Pedelty, Circulation, Main Library

Daniel Luzum is just an outstanding student assistant!  He has been with us at the Psychology Library for 1 year, and although we are sorry to lose him, we are very proud of his accomplishments and wish him all the best as he graduates from the University this year.  Dan flourished in the Psychology Library’s public service setting. His assistance to our patrons has always been exact and friendly and timely. Dan has been exceptionally dependable, and worked many of our evening and weekend hours during this past year. We have been extremely appreciative of his excellent judgement in all matters. We will miss Dan and his warm personality.
Gwen Elling, Psychology Library

Given the many hours that many of the Libraries are open — and high-volume, public contact — student assistants are essential. There have been many occasions when a student employee has spared regular staff overtime shifts. Likewise, the assistants do an excellent job of handling heavy desk traffic; this is important when full-time staff have to juggle reference questions and online work.
Todd A. DeGraff, Pomerantz Business Library

Lilly has been with us since her first week of school as a freshman, I think, and been a wonderful, conscientious student, doing everything from aerial photo scanning to preservation work to special assignments to the usual. She has been our go-to student.
Erin has been digitizing old county atlases and putting them onto the Iowa Heritage Digital Collections site. This means working with the digital camera and unwieldy old books, massaging the resulting images, creating metadata, and using CONTENTdm to serve up the results for the public to enjoy on the web.
What a lot of talent manifests itself in Lilly and Erin. We will sorely miss them both and wish them only the best.
Mary McInroy, Maps Librarian, Main Library

My book repair students make a concrete contribution to the Libraries; their repairs not only keep the books circulating but the books are more visually appealing as well. They take sad, tired books and rejuvenate them for a longer useful life. I have three students graduating in May: Catelyn Johnson, Anne Nakamura, and Marie Richards.
Susan Hansen, Preservation, Main Library

It’s a fact that we count on our student workers each and every day. They are the face that the public sees from the first worker at the desk to the shelvers in the stacks. In my particular case my students shelve over 200,000 pieces a year. Their shelving contributions make this collection accessible and user friendly. I regularly call on my staff to do any number of miscellaneous jobs that are beyond their normal duties. And they do things time after time without complaint. In short the building could not function without them.
Joel Maxey, Bookstacks, Main Library

Our student employees make it possible for the library to give more services and be open longer hours. Without their help much of what we are able to do for the UI community would not be possible. Our quality and quantity of service would suffer immensely.
Kerry Minner, Physics Library

I have four graduating this year. I will miss them very much. Out of our doors walk four young adults who will be facing a new beginning. Media Services will miss their combined knowledge, sense of humor, phenomenal work ethics. My thanks go out to each of them and so do my wishes for a great future.
Pamela Barta-Kacena, Media Services, Main Library 

Thanks to ALL of our student employees. Congratulations to our graduating seniors.