Inside the Marshall Library by Barbara Heindl, Work Experience Student from Berlin State Library

When I first applied for an internship at the UL Cambridge, I didn’t expect to get a glimpse into such a diverse landscape of libraries which is part of a university that is at the least just as diverse! Having studied Literature at the University of Tübingen in southern Germany, having started my PhD in Cultural Studies in Frankfurt/Oder and working now in the Berlin State Library while getting another master’s degree in Library- and Information Sciences from the Humboldt-University in Berlin, I thought I knew what to expect. But Cambridge doesn’t work like most other universities. Here, there’s not only the UL, the faculty and departmental libraries but also quite a few college libraries: That means that the entire system works differently and whilst in Germany more or less every person working in a library is called “librarian”, Cambridge offers that title but to the heads of libraries. 

cc-by-sa Martin McCormick https://bit.ly/2CQpI5V

However, after two weeks in varied departments of the UL, I got the chance to spend one week in the Marshall Library and that was quite distinct from what I am used to!

© Marshall Library

The day starts off rather calm in the Marshall Library but that changes around 10 a.m. when a wave of students arrives. Most of them try to spend about an hour working in between classes and take the chance to return or borrow books. As library staff, it’s easy to see which books have been recommended in the previous class because the corresponding copies are in a very high demand. 

Both in the Berlin State Library and in the UL library life follows other rules and is a little less dependent on the schedules of students. Most of the readers come in during the morning, find their preferred desks and then stay until the evening, working on a paper or some kind of book etc.

Being above all a place for students also implicates special tasks – some of which might also be a little special to Cambridge. Libraries around Cambridge University try to get hold of as many reading lists as possible in order to provide students with whatever they might need. That means that library staff is checking each and every list to make sure that enough copies are available and that no one has to check different libraries to get that one book you’ll desperately need for your essay. That service is by no means standard in other universities where either students have to figure out how to get their books or teaching staff is scanning page after page – usually poorly paid.

But it’s not all about books, e-books and journals: The Marshall Library also offers training about finding literature and data searching. The Library also provides access to databases and economic data. 

Nor is the Library exclusively about students, the Marshall Library also supports researchers in Economics.  More and more funders expect researchers to publish open access and to provide open data. Researchers might be happy to learn that the Marshall Library knows what makes a good Data Management Plan and how to deposit works in Apollo. What is more: Did you ever think about the impact factor of your paper or the H-index? As that is part of bibliometrics, the library can help understanding these – controversial – measurements and can tell researchers about other possibilities, i.e. about Altmetrics. That might not sound too fascinating and certainly isn’t idealistic research. But it might help to demonstrate the importance and potential impact of one’s work.

As for me, I really enjoyed helping at the lending desk because I usually don’t get to meet the people for whom I’m actually working. In Berlin I’d only spend two hours twice a month at an information desk in the reading room and so it was quite a pleasure to be in touch with the students! 

As the Marshall Lectures take place in November, I was able to get to know somebody else: Robert Shiller. He will lecture on two occasions and the Marshall Library will put on an exhibition about his life, his works as well as books held in the Library. There will even be a video.  http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/Marshall_Lecture

Something completely different to what I expected

Honestly, since I started year 10, work experience was one of the things I was dreading. I thought it would be two weeks of just doing nothing. However when I came to the Marshall Library I found myself quite surprised with the considerable amount of work to be done, with the varied tasks and jobs required to keep the library running.

On my first day of working in the Marshall Library I was kindly introduced to the staff team by Sue, whom all of which were welcoming. My first day proved to be the most difficult as I was getting into a new routine, as well as in a new place with people I didn’t really know. But as the days went on, work began to get easier and I feel like I made a closer connection with the staff.

Getting to work took me a while as I had to get the 8:11 train and then walk from the station, which took around 25 minutes. However, I soon realised that the library was reasonably close to the town centre, which gave me the opportunity to see my friends at lunch as I had a whole hour, which I took from 13:00-14:00 every day.

During the week my work varied with the tasks I was doing. Firstly I learnt how to issue and receive books to university students as well as collecting book references and checking where they are kept. On one particular day, I was introduced to Anita’s work and how she does cataloguing, which took me by surprise as to how much thorough work has to be done. I found that the work became easier as I became more confident, and it gave me a better understanding of the library environment as well as a work environment.

Aside from all the work, Sue was kind enough to organise visits to other libraries for me. The Cambridge University Library was astonishing; when I was told there were around 8 million books, I found this hard to believe. Finding one specific book which we needed for the Marshall Library was actually enjoyable, and something completely different to what I expected. Because of my particular interest in physics, specifically Cosmology and Astronomy, Sue organised a visit to the Moore Library and the Library of Astronomy. This was exciting for me as I hope to pursue a career in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, specialising in Cosmology.

Overall, working in the Marshall Library was, admittedly, quite intimidating at first as my knowledge of the library work environment was limited. However, as the days progressed I began to get more comfortable with working and found it easier to undertake any new challenges I was given. I was particularly enthusiastic when Clemens asked me if I would like to do a project which revolved around Economics, so I thought I would use my knowledge of the German Economy from 1919–1929 and apply it to the subject of Economics to create a display for the library.

Display at Marshall Library: 'German Economy from 1919-1929''

Even without any knowledge of working in a library, I still found my two weeks at the Marshall Library particularly enjoyable, and I now feel like I have a much clearer understanding of what work may entail in the near future.

Jodie (work experience 6 to 17 July 2015)

Surprisingly more interesting than it seemed...

My first thought of finding out my work experience was at Marshall Library made me think I was going to have a boring two weeks. Working from 9am to 5pm in a library sounded like a dull option but it was surprisingly more interesting than it seemed.

On my first day I met the library staff. They were welcoming about my arrival and the work atmosphere seemed relaxed and friendly. I was taught how they organised books and learnt to issue and return items to students. While I worked part-time doing a newspaper round, this was a new experience for me as I had never acquired the experience of doing a full-time job, nor have I worked in such an environment comparable to a library. The library system was efficient and coordinated; everything was precisely laid out making collecting books simple and easy. Since I am studying economics in school, I decided to take advantage of the resources around me; reading up on certain subjects and looking at the weekly The Economist news. During my stay here, I gained a good understanding of how a standardized library works, learning about the catalogue system and finding out about the extensive collection of dated books hidden away in the basement.

Going to work was quick and easy since I lived in Cambridge.  Travelling by bike, I could avoid most of the morning traffic, allowing me to get to work in roughly 20 minutes. I took a lunch break from 1pm-2pm, often going to meet up with my friends to have lunch on Parker's Piece.

During the week, Sue kindly organised for me to visit the Geography Library, and the Maps Department at the University Library. Andrew from the UL showed me one of the oldest atlases, and I saw the Map's basement, where I saw old maps of Cambridge. Geography is one of my GCSE subjects making it a good opportunity to understand what higher level geography is like. I was given a quick tour of the Geography Library and was shown example pieces of university dissertations.

It was interesting learning the catalogue system and how useful it is to the library. With a few words from the title of the book, we could find out the exact location of the book, alongside a description and publishing date etc. Before going to the University Library with Sue, we searched for a book in the catalogue  before finding its  physical location on the library shelf. It was impressive seeing how large the library was while still being able to home in on specific books easily.

Display case on Brazil: Poverty and Income Inequality

While most new experiences were fun, there was still a bit of repetitive data entry work to be completed, however I soon got used to the routine and became more efficient at it. That's what work is all about. Overall, I learnt a lot from my time at Marshall Library. It was a great experience which has benefited my understanding of work life. Not only have I gained an understanding of how a library works, it also increased my self-confidence and my appreciation of the work environment.

Garrett (work experience 15 to 26 June 2015)

An insight into library working life

Despite not being granted any of my initial work experience choices, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed working at the Marshall Library of Economics.

Admittedly I was a little nervous for my first day of work. On my induction I met Sue and was introduced to a couple of the members of staff. Everyone seemed pleasant, but nonetheless I feared that people would be unaccommodating; after having heard work experience ‘horror-stories’ from older students. Fortunately my fears were needless – all faculty members were polite and accepting of me and any mistakes I made. By the end of the day I’d learnt how to catalogue, figured out how to issue and discharge books, had been given a tour of the basement and had organised out-dated registration forms.

Conveniently my parents work in Cambridge, and were able to pick me up and drop off at their work on Hills Road, and from there it’s a 15 – 20 minute walk to the Marshall Library. My break and lunch hours were flexible - typically I took a half an hour break at 11:00, and an hour lunch break from 1:00 – 2:00. For lunch I either walked into the city centre to meet friends, or grabbed lunch at one of the restaurants along the river with my parents.

I particularly enjoyed myself on Friday of the first week. In the morning I worked with Sue on end of week banking procedures, was shown the university bank, and was given a tour of the University Library. During the induction I expressed an interest in English, so Sue kindly arranged a visit to the English Faculty Library for me in the afternoon; where I was given a tour of the library by a school classmate. Everyone was again very welcoming in the English Faculty, and I was given the opportunity to ask questions about the undergraduate English course.

During my time at the library I was made aware of the library’s presence on social media, and the importance of maintaining a creative and contemporary business via advertising their services. Although the library has a smaller building and less storage space than those of other departments, the Marshall Library is an essential faculty for the economics students to have as a primary working space and resource.

I’ve never had a ‘proper’ job before aside from babysitting, which evidently is nothing at all like working in a university library for ten days. There were a few very quiet times during the two weeks, but ultimately I grew to understand the challenges and advantages of working in a library. I am now encouraged to persevere with my own academic aspirations for the future.

I have undoubtedly learnt a lot during my placement at the Marshall Library. I feel as if I’ve gained a lot more independence, confidence and developed an understanding of university life. I now have a further appreciation for libraries – particularly Marshall Library – as I now know first-hand how much work and dedication it takes to sustain a library that is, perhaps, a little overlooked.

Selin (work experience 1 to 12 June 2015)

Work Experience 9th – 20th March 2015

There was a huge lead up in the week before work experience. The majority of my friends were going to work at local primary schools. I had chosen a University library in Cambridge as I have an interest in books and have worked at my school’s library for 4 years; however, I wasn’t sure what to expect, as every library is different and has different systems to get used to.

I woke up at 06:30 every morning to catch the 08:20 train, before walking to arrive at the Faculty about an hour later. I have regular breaks and lunch at midday to 13:00 and leave at about 16:40 to get home at about 18:30-ish.

I slowly got used to the issuing system, which helped immensely and I learnt a lot about what my school’s library didn’t allow its students to do, such as processing and cataloguing books. The people there were friendly, did the usual work in libraries, such as issuing and returning books and had a look at Bloomberg and Datastream analysis. At the beginning of my second week, I went on a trip with some of the rest of the library staff to the Magdalene Library, to see how things are run there. This gave me a more rounded view of the world of University libraries and showed me the different approaches different libraries have to the same tasks.

Overall, work experience has been a nice change from usual schoolwork and has shown me what it is like to have a job. It has helped me begin to decide which careers I would like to do in the future and taught me a lot about the workplace.

Imogen (work experience 9 to 20 March 2015)

Work experience in June 2014

Although my work experience at the Marshall Library of Economics was not what I had planned, as my previous placement on a children’s petting farm came to nothing, I can honestly say that I have enjoyed my first week in the library- and can say books are a lot different to animals!

Work experience student, June 2014

When I first found out that work experience would be taking place in my school I immediately knew that I wanted to find a placement that involved working with animals, and therefore a library, especially one of Economics (which I had zero knowledge about), would not be on the top of my list. However when I arrived at Marshall Library I was made to feel very welcome and have already completed a variety of tasks in a short time, such as shelving books, issuing books, tidying shelves, processing new stock, and completing projects set such as a Datastream and Bloomberg analysis, as well as a social media project- this was all in my first week! The social media project involved preparing ‘tweets’ and Facebook posts that would alert library users to recent and upcoming news, on the Marshall Library’s Twitter page and the Facebook page. For me, I actually prefer jobs which some may say are boring, such as shelving books or tidying the shelves.

Each day I wake up at around 6:30 to catch a 7:20 bus, which takes an hour or so to get to Cambridge depending on the hold-ups - often I find myself drifting off on the bus only to awake and see that we’ve arrived at Drummer Street. In the morning, I arrive at work at for 9am and complete tasks with other members of the staff, who help me out a lot! Then, I normally have a break between 11 and 12 which gives me an opportunity to speak to the other members of staff in the Faculty of Economics, who are all lovely and ask me how my morning has been and proceed to ask me about how my weekend was, or what stuff was going on at school. After having 20 minutes or so of leisure, I continue with the work I was doing, and then have a lunch break for an hour at 12:30. In the afternoon, I participate in projects, which I find satisfying as at the end of the day you can see what work you have achieved. At 4:00, I leave the library and catch a bus back home.

Being a bookworm myself, working in the library has actually been enjoyable, even though I knew nothing about the subject of Economics. Through my first week of work experience, I’ve already gained knowledge through reading the blurbs of texts books or through listening to other faculty members talk about economics in the common room. One advantage of working at the Marshall Library is that it is not far away from the centre of Cambridge, and is also in the grounds of the Sidgwick site, which is near to many other sites which include departments that I find interesting, such as Science and English.

Work experience has benefited me and taught me a lot about the workplace: I have had to manage my own finances, and find a way to get to work on time. My work experience has definitely given me an insight in to what it’s like to have a job, and has definitely helped to influence me on what career path I want to choose when I’m older.

Rowena (work experience student 9 June – 20 June 2014)