Overview

Established over 50 years ago, the SILS and EPA Library collaboration has enabled more than 450 interns to apply concepts and ideas taught in the classroom to real-world library situations while gaining professional-level experience. Former EPA interns can be found in all areas of the library world, and many have gone on to become leaders in libraries and the information industry. The EPA-RTP Library was the subject of a June 2015 article in American Libraries and was recognized as Library of the Year in 2017 by FEDLINK at the Library of Congress.

Interns work 20 hours each week for at least one year. Students must be enrolled in a master’s level library science or information science program at UNC SILS or NCCU-SLIS for a minimum of nine credit hours each fall and spring semester to maintain eligibility for the internship. Students may not hold any other graduate assistantship concurrently.

Internship Rotations

Each semester, the EPA-RTP Library internship provides master’s students the opportunity to rotate through different areas of the library.

EPA Library interns gain relevant professional experience in areas such as research support, literature searching (PubMed & Web of Science), resource sharing, e-resource management, and cataloging while supporting the information needs of EPA scientists, engineers, and regulatory staff. Interns may have the opportunity to work on systematic reviews, provide library instruction, create research impact reports, work with citation management tools, and all work on various special projects in areas such as outreach, collection development, collection management, scholarly communications, cataloging, data visualization, web content management (Drupal, LibGuides), programming (R, Python), and resource sharing systems (ILLiad, OCLC).

Interlibrary Loan Interns are responsible for the efficient management of resource sharing requests from EPA staff and external libraries. Daily duties include processing incoming requests for journal articles and monographs using ILLiad software, searching for and requesting items through OCLC and the National Library of Medicine’s DOCLINE service, and verifying incomplete or incorrect citations by performing expert searches in tools like PubMed, ScienceDirect, ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Collection, and Web of Science. The interlibrary loan rotation provides interns with an introduction to the EPA-RTP collection and encourages the development of expertise in using key resources like the EPA National Library Catalog, OCLC, DOCLINE, and ILLiad.

The Office of Air Quality Planning & Standards (OAQPS) Interns are responsible for providing a variety of library services to the OAQPS staff, including reference and interlibrary loan. The OAQPS intern is primarily responsible for guiding OAQPS-produced materials through the EPA document publication process. These duties include conferring with OAQPS researchers and offering explanations or clarifications regarding the EPA’s current publication guidelines. OAQPS interns also provide examples and templates for researchers to utilize in the preparation of documents for publication. Additionally, interns assign EPA document numbers for OAQPS-produced documents and manage the distribution of completed documents to other EPA libraries, the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), National Technical Information Service (NTIS), and the Government Printing Office (GPO).

Reference Interns are responsible for providing assistance with the many resources available in the library. While developing expertise in the provision of reference services within a scientific special library, interns gain familiarity with a multitude of free and subscription reference tools. As the first point of contact for EPA staff and public patrons both in-person at the front desk and virtually via email, chat and phone, reference interns respond to a variety of queries ranging from environmental questions to requests for specific EPA-produced documents. Reference interns also provide formal and informal training on the use of library databases and EPA online resources. Reference interns may contribute to special projects, such as helping to plan the library’s annual Open House, developing research guides and tutorials, and creating library displays.

Advanced Reference Interns perform in-depth database searching for EPA-RTP researchers and research teams. They become proficient with using scientific literature databases such as PubMed, Web of Science, ProQuest Agricultural & Environmental Science Collection, and many more. Interns may be responsible for steps across the literature review process ranging from selecting scholarly and grey literature databases, developing search strategies, conducting and carefully documenting searches, and exporting and managing results. Other activities of the rotation include teaching library instruction classes (recent topics include grey literature, scientific communication, and EndNote), maintaining the library’s search alert program, and assisting patrons with EndNote.

E-Resources Interns assist the E-Resources Librarian with managing the library’s wealth of electronic journal subscriptions, as well as other e-resources. Interns are responsible for daily management of the serials and e-resources collections, which includes collecting, compiling, and analyzing usage data, verifying access to all the library’s subscriptions and managing holdings. The E-Resources Intern communicates with the library’s staff regarding changes affecting subscription titles and is responsible for maintaining communication with the library’s subscription vendors in the reporting and resolution of subscription-related problems.

Cataloging Interns are afforded a great opportunity to gain invaluable experience in both copy and original cataloging of materials that are added to the library’s collection. Interns perform original cataloging for EPA technical documents, state agency reports and documents, international organization documents, dissertations, and, on occasion, monographs. Cataloging interns utilize OCLC, WorldShare Metadata cataloging platform, and the Alma integrated library system.

Information Science Interns support a variety of systems and services essential to library operation and innovation. Some of the most prominent projects stem from the library’s Research Impact Services, which provides data analysis and visualizations to help EPA scientists understand how their research output has influenced the greater scientific community. Information Science Interns are responsible for maintaining the library’s web presence, compiling monthly analytics reports using Google Analytics, maintaining library databases, and assisting with SharePoint Development. Interns still provide research assistance to patrons, such as EndNote support, but may also have opportunities to develop technical solutions utilizing APIs, programming knowledge, and Power Automate.

For additional information about the EPA Library Internship, please contact EPA Library Director Susan Forbes at Forbes.Susan@epa.gov.