A Library School Intern’s In-house Insights

In June 2004, Elsevier posted on a San José State University School of Library and Information Science listserv an announcement about an internship opportunity with Elsevier. Jill Ovren, a master’s degree candidate with the school, applied for the position. Two writing samples, two interviews and two weeks later, Jill was offered the position and embarked on a 14-week program providing an introduction to the world of publishing.

Jill Ovren, MLIS Student and Issue Manager, Journals Production, Elsevier, San Diego, CA, USA

As an Intern, I worked closely with the Global Account Development and Channel Marketing (GADCM) team, which focuses on creative ways of providing customers with resources beyond what’s included in their licenses. This was such an amazing learning experience; it was great to be able to participate in activities and marketing programs that deal directly with librarians. Prior to this program, I had no idea how much time and energy are spent on maintaining positive relationships with Elsevier customers.

One of the main objectives of my internship was to work on a Library Connect pamphlet focusing on information literacy — a very important topic among librarians these days. I provided research and developed and wrote articles. Particularly I enjoyed communicating directly with librarians across the globe on this project, as well as collaborating with Elsevier colleagues in various locations.

In addition to contributing to Library Connect publications, another focal point

of my internship was outreach to Elsevier customers. I had the chance to visit Pepperdine University in Irvine, California, and with Elsevier colleagues from New York and San Diego put on an event providing graduate and undergraduate students with demonstrations of ScienceDirect, Scopus and Scirus. Pepperdine students and even professors were impressed with our presentations and the Elsevier databases. Many had no idea such great resources were available to them through their university library and were grateful for the instruction. We had a lot of fun and helped participants establish 64 ScienceDirect personal profiles in one afternoon.

Before my internship, I didn’t have much exposure to the publishing industry. I was familiar with end products, but not the processes involved in getting products to customers, or the measures taken to maintain happy customers. It’s nice to have a behind-the-scenes perspective to take back to my cohorts in library school and, as you may have noticed from my byline, my internship in channel marketing led to a job in journal issue management, where I work with different customer groups — authors and editors.

Elsevier and other large publishers tend to have a negative reputation among librarians, but I think this internship program can help bridge the gap between publishers and library professionals.

Would you like to be our next Library Marketing Intern?

Jill’s positive experience, as well as the benefits and insights she brought to the Global Account Development and Channel Marketing team, has strengthened support for an LIS internship program at Elsevier. Thus, we are delighted to announce the program will continue with an internship being offered during summer and fall 2005, in San Diego, CA. Please contact Daria DeCooman (d.decooman@elsevier.com) for further details.