New Faces for a new academic year

This is an exciting time at the Albert Sloman Library here at the University of Essex because September always sees the arrival of our new graduate trainees.

This year, as last year, we have four graduates coming to gain some experience of library work before embarking on a post-graduate programme of study. Each of our graduates spends three months in our Interlibrary loan department so that means we have to train some-one new about the delights of inter-lending every three months.

Whilst this can be quite a challenge, especially if there are any systems changes or product changes which coincides with the trainees, it also gives us time  to think about how we do things, and we can also get fresh ideas on maybe how to improve things.

What I find particularly rewarding is when I get requests for items from some of our previous trainees who have gone on to work in Interlibrary loan departments around the country. Seeing familiar names always sparks off conversations about good times.

This year our trainees are also going to see the opening of a new partnership project library brought about by Southend-on-Sea Borough Council, the University of Essex and South Essex College. Anyone who went to the FIL conference in Worcester will remember the Hive and I believe that this will be something similar. We are all excited to see what happens after it opens on 30^th September.

What a month of good things to look forward to :)

photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nrbelex/320182643/">Nrbelex</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">cc</a>