So, Monday I worked my first shift as “Practicum Liz” over at the TWU library. When I walked in and headed for the reference area — which, I should mentioned, is staffed by a group of librarians who I know, almost without exception, quite well — one of the librarians with whom I’ll be working closely said hello and asked why I was there. Then he quickly corrected himself and said, “You’re Practicum Liz today!” Thus was borne my nickname, methinks. 🙂
My practicum supervisor, Andy, gave me the student assistant handbook to read (and OMG, the thing was giving me the heebie-jeebies with all of its out-of-date and grammatically incorrect information, it was all I could do to resist the urge to pull out my red pen and go to work!!). Then I sat down at the reference desk with the two student assistants on duty and they gave me a run-down of desk data. (Where our schedules are kept, how to answer the phones, where we keep extra printer paper, that sort of thing.) All in all, a pretty typical orientation experience.
What I found amusing came shortly before I left my post at the reference desk. A woman came up to the desk to inquire about whether we had any additional library tours or database tutorial sessions on the schedule for Wednesday. She approached the desk, where I was sitting and observing the library. When she spoke, she looked right at me and said, “Are you the head librarian here?” It was all I could do not to giggle. I smiled and told her I was just a student assistant (which is essentially correct, though not technically), but would be happy to help her.
What surprised me was how comfortable I felt at the reference desk in very, very short order. I mean, sure, the library is something akin to my natural habitat, and being surrounded by librarians who have a high level of respect for me and what I do certainly helps. But unlike other situations where you enter into unfamiliar environs and are expected to be able to help people, in this situation I feel completely at ease — confident, even, that nothing anyone could throw at me would throw me for too serious a loop.
And that’s nice. Maybe this practicum thing will be a lot more fun than I had imagined.