Graduate Student Provides Help to Tennessee's Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped

The Tennessee State Library and Archives was fortunate to have some outstanding assistance recently from a graduate student who attends Texas Women’s University.

Maggie Bootman, an Olive Branch, Miss. resident, is an online student in the university's master’s in library science program. She decided to pursue the internship in Nashville after visiting the Library and Archives' booth at the Southern Festival of Books.

While in Tennessee, Maggie provided valuable assistance to the Tennessee Library for the Blind & Physically Handicapped (LBPH). She verified that, in accordance with federal guidelines, the statuses of all of the LBPH’s 671 registered mililtary veterans were given priority in our automated circulation system. This enabled the LBPH to send “thank you for your service” cards to all of the library’s registered veterans in observance of Veterans’ Day.

Maggie also reviewed the library’s records for 298 different book series, ensuring that they were entered consistently and in proper reading order. This helps the LBPH’s reader advisors ensure that, for example, book six of a series is not sent to a patron before preceding books in the series. She made a great start on a big job, since the library’s collections include more than 800 series.

In addition, Maggie entered book cover information and subject codes for books that others downloaded from the Internet to ensure they would be circulated properly. She also cataloged, processed and entered new titles in the LBPH’s large print collection.

Thanks, Maggie, for all of your efforts! We miss you and your work!

For information on internship and volunteer opportunities at the State Library and Archives, go to: http://sos.tn.gov/products/tsla/interns-and-volunteer-program

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State