VII. We strive for excellence in the profession by maintaining and enhancing our own knowledge and skills, by encouraging the professional development of co-workers, and by fostering the aspirations of potential members of the profession.
— from “Code of Ethics of the American Library Association”

The first-annual DLS Winter Holiday Student Appreciation Celebration was enjoyed by all, as our student assistants took a break from finals to join us for pizza, cookies, and non-denominational merriment. The party also marked a successful conclusion to an experiment in supersizing our student workforce, up this semester from two members to eight. This 400% increase was initially regarded with more than a little apprehension, but it turns out we needn’t have worried. Our new assistants caught on quickly, and were soon diligently reformatting images, texts, and audio, creating metadata records, and using asset management systems to build and upload digital objects. Once trained, the main challenge was lining up enough work to keep our students busy, since they often completed projects earlier than anticipated.

Along with excellent assistance from Spencer Wilken (Business) and Pamela Olson (Center for the Book), DLS was fortunate enough this semester to employ six students from the UI’s School of Library and Information Science: Charlotte Baldwin, Si-Chi Chin, Junko Kobayashi, Sally Myers, Laura Riskedahl, and Steve Tatum. Their grasp of library science fundamentals frequently streamlined the training process, allowing them to take on complex projects and quickly produce high-quality results.

These students’ association with DLS should prove to be mutually beneficial. As a supplement to the classroom theory that will serve them throughout their careers, their work for the Libraries is providing practical experience that may help land the all-important first job. Such experience is especially valuable in today’s tight job market, with many recent grads complaining that the much-publicized “librarian shortage” hasn’t materialized in enough entry-level positions to go around. Factoring in the relative rarity of digital library experience and the ever-increasing number of institutions wishing to incorporate such services, we expect our assistants will be well positioned to conquer the profession upon graduating.

DLS is grateful for our students’ participation in our mission to support the University’s teaching, research and creative activities. We’re also proud to assist them in beginning their careers in librarianship.

–Jen Wolfe
Metadata Librarian