The UWO SLA Student Chapter organized a trip to Toronto for its members and fellow MLIS students to visit three special libraries on February 20, 2014.
The Ontario Legislature’s library was our first stop. We met Wendy Reynolds, the manager. We also met Cheryl Caballero, Indexing and Records Officer and Sandra Craig, Content Manager. All of them provided details of their profession, such as the efficiency and accuracy needed for cataloguing and indexing. This library handles references services for Members and their staff, but they also provide information for lawyers and other government libraries.
The Bennett Jones’ law library was our second stop. We met Christine DeLuca, the current membership chair of the SLA Toronto Chapter, along with librarians Jane Freeman and Lenore Bergson, Katie Cuyler, an Intelligence Analyst, and Sandra Geddes, a Knowledge Management Lawyer. The staff stressed to us the need to engage in continuous learning, especially with databases to provide reference for patrons. Their library provides research assistance to the firm’s many lawyers and employees.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) was our third and final stop. We met with their Knowledge Management group. From KM Operations, this included Daniel Lee, a former president of the SLA Toronto Chapter, along with Caroline Chung, and Tara Kutlesa, an MLIS co-op student, and from the Knowledge Managers program, Erin McDonald, the current SLA Toronto Chapter president. Researchers Jodi Cecchi and Stacey Piesner were also present. Their work includes managing the organization’s intranet, and supporting research for their local and international clients which impact business decisions.
All three locations had wonderful staff who provided us with advice for professional development and insight into these different fields of librarianship. All of them provide significant support to its clientele and showed us how an information professional’s skills remain relevant in an information age. Visiting all three places have shown us how versatile our MLIS degree can be in our future career endeavours as it can be applicable in government, law and business settings.
— Lisa Chen Lisa is from Toronto, ON, and is in her first term of the MLIS program at Western University. She is currently the first-term representative of the UWO SLA Student Chapter, and has particular interests in academic and special libraries. Follow her on her journey through library school at lisacchen.wordpress.com.