My name is Maisie Smith and from the week of February 3rd-7th, I was doing work experience at the Glasgow Women’s Library. I am in fourth year, and at my school, we are required to take a week off to go and experience the world of work. I heard about the library through family members and I thought it would be great to ask if I could do my placement here, because in the future I would like to become a librarian. Going into this week I was extremely nervous, like I always am when I do something new, but by the end of yesterday I had a lot more confidence in myself, compared to how I was at the start of the week.
From the moment I first walked in everyone was so welcoming and I felt really comfortable in the library. On my first day I sat front of house where I learnt about the tasks there and also I learnt about some of the library’s history as part of my introduction- I never knew that the library is 28 years old. Then I was shown around the archive to look where all the artefacts were kept. There were rows and rows of turquoise boxes that all contained a small part of women’s history in them. I would never have thought a place could be a library and a museum in one!
During the week I gained some more experience about writing blog posts. I have written three- including this one- one about my favourite books from the politics shelf, and another about the lovely Book Picnic I also participated in. I was shown how to use WordPress to upload my posts, even though at first I had some difficulties with adding images but I eventually got the hang of it. After this experience, writing is something that I think I will enjoy doing a lot more.
Gabrielle had planned for me to do many other thing during the week on top of working at the front desk, writing blog posts, and the Book Picnic. On Tuesday I attended the Open Book workshop where we all wrote beautiful poems surrounding the theme of dreams and later that day I helped set up the SAY Women exhibition. The next day, in the morning, I listened to the team meeting where the staff discussed upcoming events and other things. On Thursday I was put to the task of being the photographer at the spring programme launch where I used a heavy duty Cannon camera for the first time in a while. And today, I had lots of fun making a necklace at Women Making It. This week the work I was doing was so much more interesting to most of the tasks I do at school!
There is so much at GWL for the public to come and enjoy, such as groups and events that the library hosts and there is a vast selection of books either written by women or about women- another thing I learnt this week! The workers and volunteers are very friendly and are always happy to help with any queries you may have; this is something about GWL that I will always appreciate. It’s a library like no other!
Finally I would like to thank the staff at Glasgow Women’s Library for having me here on my work experience and to Gabrielle and everyone who guided me throughout the week for their kind work and for teaching me about the library. I have no doubt in saying that I will definitely come back here again!
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