Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color - 263

the goal of increasing the diversity of the profession, if the students do indeed pursue library careers. At the same time, program participants hope to build even greater minority participation in the future. The curricular component of the internship was developed at a three-day meeting in Oberlin in August 2003 that was attended by representatives from each participating library as well as the Program Director and Program Coordinator. The content of the curriculum was guided by the question: “To what do we want to expose the interns in order to interest them in the library profession?” Planning also emphasized that the purpose of the program was recruiting, not training. In other words, our goal is to attract students to the profession and inspire them with its possibilities, not attempt give them the kind of training they will receive if they do enroll in an MLS program. During the meeting, library representatives used an interactive, consensus-building process to develop broad outlines for five units for the curriculum which focuses on active learning, self-discovery, and career exploration: • Why Librarianship? • The Global Information Environment • What Do Librarians Do Anyway? • Management & Leadership • Values The curriculum includes various assessment tools, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)2, the Influence Strategies Exercise (ISE)3, and the Personal Listening Profile4, to enable students to explore how their personal preferences and values fit both the profession as a whole and its various specializations. Active introspection was complemented by interactive group exercises such as case studies to engaging games like “Papyrus to Print to Pixel” (in which students built a timeline of library and information history from 5000 BCE through 2005) to role plays of the reference interview. Throughout the curricular component, the interns were encouraged to discover aspects of librarianship that might interest them. Four colleges (Oberlin, Mt. Holyoke, Swarthmore, and Wellesley) implemented the curriculum during the spring term, and one elected to offer it in the summer (Occidental). The core curriculum was disseminated from Oberlin through its Blackboard course management system. Each instructor and intern was given a login and had the ability to download reading materials, introduce him- or herself, give feedback through discussion forums, and read updates and news items from the field. Although the curriculum was centrally developed and administered, it was built to allow for flexibility across campuses. Each institution made additions to the core curriculum to allow points of emphasis appropriate to the local institutional context. The Curriculum Committee met by conference call at the end of the spring term to share feedback on readings, activities, and overall logistics of the component. Their suggestions for improvement were synthesized into the curriculum for subsequent years. Feedback from the participants and from the librarians who taught the curriculum was enthusiastic. The curriculum clearly achieved its primary goals of increasing students’ knowledge of librarianship, creating a more positive impression of the profession, and heightening their interest in pursuing a library career. In addition to the curricular component, interns engaged in three to four hours of individual project work per week with library staff mentors. Projects varied in scope and content at each campus, from collection development to bibliographic instruction in academic libraries to children’s services to an off-campus project involving prison libraries. Students worked one-on-one with staff mentors for the majority of spring term. Both interns and mentors gave very positive feedback about the experience. Mentors commented on the interns' active participation, attentiveness, and timeliness as well as their contribution to the work environment. Virtually all of the interns who participated in projects indicated that the experience was valuable in considering specific career options within librarianship. Finally, summer internships were made available for students seeking a more in-depth look at librarianship. All participating campuses (with the exception of Occidental, which has 263

Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

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