When visiting the DePaul University Library, you’ve likely run across students pushing carts, shelving books and checking out material to patrons. Perhaps you’ve received research assistance from one of our Peer-Research Tutors in person or late at night on our instant messaging service. In Autumn Quarter 2013, we had the pleasure of adding a library science candidate to our team of students.
Hosting practicum students is just one of the ways the Library can support efforts to build the University’s strength and education excellence and ensure the greatest return on investment in library facilities, resources, and materials for the University community. Enhancing our partnerships with local and regional Library and Information Science (LIS) graduate education programs helps us to identify and provide short-term field experience opportunities that can provide targeted support for library initiatives.
Elizabeth Hermans joined us during her last semester of graduate school at the nationally top-ranked Library and Information Science program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before her stint at Illinois, Elizabeth received a PhD in English at Purdue University with a focus on American womens and lesbian-themed literature 1880-present. In addition to helping students with research, Elizabeth used her expertise to build an LGBTQ Literature Research Guide.
The LGBTQ Literature Research Guide links to DePaul Library and select Internet sources and offers a thorough bibliography of LGBTQ poetry and fiction. The bibliography is particularly helpful in locating LGBTQ fiction as these items aren’t always labeled as such in library catalogs making them difficult to find. Please share the guide with students and colleagues should it relate to your area of study.
It was a great pleasure to collaborate with Elizabeth and all of the many students who work in the DePaul University Library. We couldn’t do it without them!