Can Virtual Library Practicums Be Successful? A Practicum Student’s Experience

During Summer of 2022, a virtual practicum happened at the Gulf Coast Library at USM. Nyra White, a graduate student in the USM MLIS program served as the student worker while Justin Easterday, Education, and Human Sciences Librarian and Assistant Professor, served as the practicum supervisor. Together, Justin and Nyra worked through the practicum process by collaborating Nyra’s librarian interests and current library liaison projects and setting timelines to meet the required practicum hours. Major projects worked on during this practicum included LibGuide creation, Collection Development, Reference Questions, and Instruction Workshop. Justin provided the purpose and tasks for each project along with documents for Nyra to access in a Teams shared file. This allowed progress to be tracked and to ensure completion dates were met. Outcomes of the practicum included the student’s own LibGuide for a designated LIS course, a few added materials to a collection (as well as a few social justice materials), lessons on answered reference questions, and the student completed an instruction workshop, with feedback provided by USM librarians. What Nyra found most successful out of the practicum was creating the LibGuide as it serves as a great resource for students