Remote Interns for Summer 2020

The Digital Resources Division at the Law Library has had years of experience with remote interns, so we were well-prepared for this pandemic situation and quarantine! We were able to host over 50 remote interns and volunteers this summer to help further our goal of providing access to legal materials. We were also so glad to help students who have had their education affected by the quarantine, some even earning the last few credits of their degree during this internship.

In this summer’s cohort, we have 24 states represented with the largest being in California and Maryland–one on each coast! We also have 21 schools represented with the majority of students working towards their master’s degrees in library and information science (M.L.I.S.). The University of Washington, San Jose State University, and the University of Maryland have the most students, with the University of Alabama and Rutgers University completing the top five.

I must give a special thank you to Bailey DeSimone and Tori Stanek who have been amazing mentors this summer, providing leadership and feedback to our interns.

Here is a look at some of our summer 2020 cohort:

 

Adrian Applin is a current graduate student in the University of Washington’s M.L.I.S. program, with an area focus in the intersections between libraries and archives, technology, and social justice. In addition to his interests in library and information science, he is a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays the piano, guitar, and ukulele.

 

 

Laura Bachor is currently pursuing her M.S.L.S. degree at the University of Kentucky while working in the cataloging department at a public library in Northern Virginia. As a remote metadata intern with the Law Library of Congress, she is assigning descriptive metadata to the private laws in the Statutes at Large to enhance their searchability online. Laura loves connecting people with information resources, and is looking forward to working with the public throughout her career.

 

Molly Benson is a M.L.I.S. student at the University of Washington. She worked in operations and production for several events organizations ranging from Intiman Theatre and Town Hall Seattle to the Seattle International Film Festival and Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. Three years before entering graduate school, she stepped away from event work to teach in a multi-age classroom at a rural elementary school. She currently resides in Seattle, WA, but is frequently drawn back to her hometown in southern Utah.

 

Grace Brindle is a junior history major and digital humanities minor at Carleton College. In addition to being a metadata intern this summer, she is also volunteering for her local historical society and completing a research project on medieval chronicles of London. She is spending this summer at home in New Jersey with her three dogs and many foster dogs.

 

Allison Buser, originally from Omaha, Nebraska, is currently pursuing master’s degrees in library and information science and history at the University of Maryland. Her past professional experience has included curatorial and collections work in libraries and history museums, and she looks forward to continuing to develop a career in public history. This summer, she is adapting to remote work and diving into topics of 19th century legal history to shape creative projects which highlight the Law Library’s digital collections.

 

Angelica Chapman is creating metadata for historical documents in the Statutes at Large collection. She is interning remotely from her home in central New York. On top of the internship, she is an online M.L.I.S. student at Valdosta State University and works as a public librarian during the pandemic. Her summer has been challenging and enriching for her and she says, “every element of my life right now feels like a learning opportunity and while it may not always be easy, I am honestly very excited!”

 

Lauren Clark has an M.A. in history of decorative arts from the Smithsonian and George Mason University where she focused on material culture. She is now a candidate in the M.L.I.S. program at the University of Southern Mississippi. She loves baking, databases, and making things. During social distancing, she has learned to crochet and built a set of patio furniture!

 

 

Caitlin Connelly is a graduate student at Rutgers University completing a master of information degree with a concentration in archives and preservation. She has a BA in history from Gettysburg College and enjoys learning about history and visiting museums. This summer she has been working on a project about the Chinese Exclusion Act and taking an online class about the Vikings, both of which have proven to be fascinating.

 

Justine Criswell has enjoyed a wonderful career as a secondary art and art history teacher for 30 years and is venturing into a second career as an archivist/records manager when she retires from teaching in a few years. She has been living in Upstate New York for 20 years and recently completed her second master’s degree from SUNY-University at Albany, New York in archives. Last summer, she had the honor and privilege of being a multimedia archives librarian intern at the United Nations in New York. This summer, she is enjoying spending time with her husband, abundant garden, and two beautiful children before they both go off to college!

 

 

Jacquelyn Deppe is from New Jersey. She currently works in the Archives and Special Collections Center at Seton Hall University where she started as a student worker back in fall 2014. This summer she has spent most of her time interning, studying, and hiking!

 

 

Sidonie Devarenne is an intern on the creative projects team, where she is researching and writing about the Law Library’s materials on agricultural policy. She is currently pursuing a master’s of library and information science degree at the University of Washington.

 

 

 

Samantha Dickson is currently pursuing master’s degrees in public history and library and information science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has a B.A. in history from American University in Washington, DC. During the academic year, she has worked in UWM’s Archives and the American Geographical Society Library. This summer, she is working on a story map and blog posts on piracy law in the United States.

 

 

Diana Ferguson lives in central Florida and is currently working towards a master of science in information at Florida State University. She has an interest in museum studies and experiencing the ways technology can be implemented to solve problems and further an organization’s goals. Specifically, she loves working with metadata, and in that context, thoroughly enjoyed working with some of our nation’s oldest laws with the Library of Congress.

 

 

Joanne Ferguson has returned to graduate school at Rutgers University and recently obtained a master of information degree with a concentration in library and information science. Previously, she studied engineering (B.S. University of Massachusetts, M.S. Stanford University) and worked for 10+ years at Bell Labs as a systems/process engineer. As an intern at the Law Library of Congress she is developing metadata for archived Codes of Federal Regulation to improve open access to these documents.

 

 

Heather Flynn is a native Texan currently living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She earned a B.S. in geological science from the University of Texas and later earned an M.A. in museum studies from Johns Hopkins University. She has always been a storyteller and this summer has loved developing blog posts and story maps while using the Law Library’s expansive materials! She says, “I believe a well curated collection of original items is crucial to creating an informative and engaging narrative.”

 

 

Hannah Frisch is a graduate student at the University of Maryland – College Park working towards her degree in library and information science. This summer she has been working on the creation of metadata for the Legal Research Reports and the Statutes at Large projects.

 

 

Colleen Gardina is a master of library and information science student at the University of Maryland, College Park. This summer, she is excited to be interning with the Law Library of Congress. She assigns metadata to legal research reports and is creating blogs and story maps to convey the importance of the United States’ landmark environmental laws.

 

 

Monica Greene is an information professional who has worked in the Washington, DC, area since 2011. She earned her B.A. from Oberlin College and her M.L.I.S. from the University of Pittsburgh. She currently works on contract for the Law Library of Congress in the Collection Services Division performing inspection work for newly received items. In her free time she enjoys grain-free baking, photography, puzzles, spending time outside with her dog, and playing viola in a local community orchestra.

 

 

Caitlinn Grimm is a recent MLIS graduate from Michigan. She has been spending quarantine at home with family and staying busy by baking, crafting, reading, watching movies and series, and studying for the Certified Archivist exam. She was also able to go back to work at her library recently with contactless hold pick up and resource sharing.

 

 

Kathryn Gstalder is graduate student in library and information sciences, and was born and raised in Ohio. Now living in Philadelphia, Kathryn is working remotely over the summer—inputting metadata at the Law Library of Congress, as well as conducting research for the Wayne State Humanities Clinic. Prior to this summer, Kathryn spent a year interning in the archives at Underwriters Laboratories, and she is looking forward to graduating with her M.L.I.S. this December.

 

 

Greta Heng is a M.L.I.S. student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She enjoys using her skills to contribute to solving metadata challenges and wants to become a metadata librarian.

 

 

 

Shannon Herlihy is wrapping up her final semester in Florida State University’s master of science in information program and overjoyed to participate in the Law Library of Congress internship program this summer. She does not have previous experience in the legal field, but her academic background in editing and writing paired with her current career in libraries has equipped her to contribute as a member of the creative team. While she is typically used to collection management and electronic resource troubleshooting, working for the creative team granted her the opportunity to work directly with the Library’s digital collections and gain a newfound appreciation for legal research.

 

Nicole Kang is a current graduate student focusing on archives and data systems for her master of library and information sciences at the University of Maryland. For her bachelor’s, she attended Wellesley College, majoring in history and English. She is putting both educational experiences to good use for her 2020 summer metadata internship with the Library of Congress, while quarantining with family back home in Southern California.

 

 

Seth Kurke has just completed his first year as a full-time student at the University of Washington. He is a father of three beautiful children. At the moment, his professional librarianship goals are vast, but he is interested in metadata and database design. His personal hobbies are writing, photography, and video editing.

 

 

Kenny Legg is currently an M.L.I.S. grad student at the University of Arizona. His favorite topic is history and he hopes to one day work in an academic library, helping others on their educational journey just as many great faculty and staff have helped him on his! He is currently focused on the “very challenging but rewarding” remote metadata internship with the Library of Congress, which he says has been an incredible experience thus far.

 

 

Trevor Levasseur is coming at you from Providence, Rhode Island! He is a current archives and records administration student at San Jose State University. He is also a social media analyst, but hopes to break into the archival field after his graduation in December. This summer he has been working as a team leader to fix up the metadata and structure of the legal reports. He says, “I’ve had the pleasure of transitioning to a leadership role and could not be prouder of the work our interns did!”

 

 

Kate McAlister, originally from Atlanta, graduated from Swarthmore College with a major in biology, then worked as an environmental educator in California before heading to Seattle to pursue an M.L.I.S. degree at the University of Washington. Her hobbies include hiking, curling up with her cat and a mug of coffee, geeking out about science fiction and fantasy, and making cheesy dad jokes.

 

 

Laura McGuiness is a recent M.L.I.S. graduate who focused on metadata and cataloging during her graduate program. With several years of experience working in academic and public libraries, her recent move from California to New Mexico provided her with the ability to intern remotely for the Law Library of Congress. This summer, she was inspired by the Netflix documentary, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, and has started to unravel the complicated laws surrounding big cat ownership in the United States and abroad.

 

 

Sarah McKenna is pursuing her M.L.I.S. at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. This summer, she has been working on creative projects for the Law Library relating to the Supreme Court. Outside of the Library, she works with the Historic Maryland Newspaper Project and as a graduate assistant in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions at UMD.

 

 

Hank Morgan is excited to intern at the Library of Congress this summer and produce a story map to engage readers. His goal is to become an equity-focused educator and academic librarian. He has previously taught middle school in Boston, Miami, and Brooklyn.

 

 

Michael Muehe, currently of Providence, RI, is a rising third semester student in Simmons University’s M.S.L.I.S. program, concentrating in cultural heritage informatics, and concurrently works as a new research and access services librarian at Roger Williams University School of Law. Prior to joining the Library of Congress, he was an archives assistant at Harvard Law School Library, where he helped process and analyze Justice Antonin Scalia’s papers.

 

 

Emery Patterson is a library student at the University of Maryland interested in metadata, digitization, and public librarianship. They have long admired libraries as centers for public learning and community building, and hope to center that in their work. Aside from working, they have spent the summer progressing through their personal reading list. Some of their favorite genres include contemporary fiction, as well as science fiction, horror, and fantasy. They also enjoy knitting in their free time.

 

 

Alyx Peterson is a metadata intern for the Law Library this summer. She is a graduate of The George Washington University with a B.A. in history and a current law student at Willamette University College of Law. A native Oregonian, when she’s not studying she can be found playing with her dog, Sam, or sitting in a coffee shop reading. An avid lover of libraries, whenever Alyx finds herself in D.C. she makes time to visit the Library of Congress to stare at the ceiling and peak in to see the main reading room.

 

Alice Pérez Ververa has worked as a law library assistant at the Multnomah Law Library in Portland, Oregon, for the last three years. Working as a law library assistant, she provides attorneys, litigants, and the public with legal research and reference. She also assists with bibliographic data management and cataloging of law library publications both print and electronic resources.

 

 

Jennifer Ren is a law student at the University of Houston Law Center. This summer, besides interning at the Law Library of Congress, she is also clerking at a family law firm. In her spare time, she enjoys baking bread.

 

 

 

Melissa Sanson is an M.L.I.S. student from University of Arizona graduating this year. She currently lives in Tucson and works for Amazon in HR automation. She is working toward a career in taxonomy and knows that learning metadata and research are a great step in the right direction.

 

 

Lauren Shade is pursuing her M.L.I.S. at the University of Washington. Her background is in communications and marketing, and she is currently a marketing manager at a literacy-focused nonprofit. This second summer internship at the Law Library of Congress.

 

 

 

Sydney Stype is a Columbus, Ohio, native who recently graduated with two master’s degrees from the University of Toronto. She was the copy editor of Hockey Abstract 2017 and published a paper titled “Lighting the Lamp: Illuminating the Information Behaviour of Sports Fans.” This summer, she is training for a half marathon, learning French, and taking online classes to learn HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

 

Hannah Sullivan is a full-time student located in Rhode Island. In 2018, she graduated with a B.A. in English from Rhode Island College, and is approaching her final semester of the M.L.I.S. program at The University of Rhode Island. In her free time she enjoys reading, painting, spending time with her dog, and traveling the world.

 

 

Anna Taylor is an intern working on the Statutes at Large, where she assigns metadata to private laws from the decade just after the Reconstruction period. She has run across many interesting laws in her work such as acts allowing First Ladies to send mail for free, acts granting former Confederates the right to hold American government posts, and an act to return silverware to a woman after it had been seized by the Union Army. By day, Anna works as a search engine optimization consultant at a marketing agency, researching lamp and sandwich search trends for two popular retail brands; by night, she is working on watching all fifteen seasons of the ’90s hospital drama “ER.” This fall she will begin her first year at Simmons University’s School of Library and Information Science in the archives management program, where she is most excited to learn how to handle very old documents without hurting them.

 

Mike Uhl is an interpretive guide and library clerk on California’s Central Coast. He is currently pursuing a Post-Master’s Certificate in Library and Information Science from San José State University’s School of Information. This summer he is enthusiastically exploring the Library of Congress’s digital holdings regarding the law and the history of the American West.

 

 

 

Briana Vann has always been fascinated by the way the structures we create and live in influence our lives. So after over a decade teaching middle school, she decided to pursue a master’s degree in library and information science at San José State University (SJSU), focusing on knowledge organization: cataloging and metadata, vocabularies, and ontologies. This summer finds her as part of our inspirational group of volunteers, interns, and mentors, enriching the metadata on legal reports. Outside of her intern work, she is learning as much as possible about linked data in the SJSU summer session, training her dogs, and growing vegetables.

 

Hughston Vasil is studying library and information science at the University of Maryland, College Park after receiving a J.D. from Indiana University, Bloomington. He loves working with legal information and his goal is to pursue a career as a law librarian. In his spare time, he enjoys reading about history and getting into “lengthy debates with his wife about nerdy topics.”

 

 

Monica Westin is a current M.L.I.S. student at San Jose State University and the partnerships program manager at Google Scholar. She lives in San Francisco, where she takes hikes with her musician husband and sweet rescue dog Pepper whenever possible.

 

 

 

Elizabeth Wheeler is a student at the University of Arizona in the library science and information technology program. She is currently working as a graduate assistant for her school’s special collection department helping to archive documents related to the OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Return Mission. Her personal interests include promoting access to public records and archival materials and she hopes to pursue a career as an archivist or historian within the federal government.

 

 

Alicia Zuniga is the media library specialist for the California Tobacco Control Program where she researches and substantiates the program’s statewide media campaigns. This summer she is working as the team leader on the Statutes at Large project, helping to make all parts of the collection online and available to the public. She received her M.L.I.S. from San Jose State University.