Brooklyn Public Library
www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org
Five students spent their Alternative Spring Break with the Brooklyn Public Library system. All enjoyed the guidance and attention they received from BPL staff. In addition to smaller focused projects, students toured several branches of the BPL system and sat in on meetings—giving them a valuable behind-the-scenes look at working in an urban public library.
Joanna Axelrod worked in the children’s/young adult department. There she was given a tour and an explanation of their unique classification system. She also provided reference service and participated in storytime programs.
Andrea
Gietzen worked on a project to
preserve and provide access to valuable archival material in the Brooklyn
Collection.
She also consulted 
with BPL staff
members on
creating a more
efficient workflow
for cataloging
archival
photographs.
With the History and
Biography Department at the BPL, Joan
Swerdloff observed reference service, talked to librarians, and
learned about projects in various departments.
In the
Multilingual
Aiko Takazawa spent two days at the BPL Business Library assisting Reference Services and the Technology Labs. She also spent one full day touring three branch libraries in the BPL system.
What students had to say:
“[Being at the BPL] really confirmed in my mind that librarians are wonderful, diverse, caring, thorough, intelligent people and their passion for public librarianship really ignited a flame in me to pursue that career path.”
“Our supervisor had a broad take on the learning aspect of ASB . . . by the end of the week we had a better sense of the type of organization BPL was even if we didn’t specially learn new skills.”
"The whole experience at the BPL had a big impact on me! Especially as it increased my understanding of the impact of city libraries on the public and the public service role of librarians."
“It was exciting to meet people who were so passionate about their careers and about public librarianship in general. I had never considered public librarianship as a career, but now I think it might be a good option for me.”
Click to see what past ASB students did at BPL in 2004.