Every year, Pilkington Library welcomes work experience students, giving them the opportunity to explore the wide range of roles that keep an academic library running. This year, we were delighted to welcome Year 10 student from a local high school, who spent a week working alongside several of our teams.
With a love of reading and an interest in the academic sector, she chose Pilkington Library to gain a behind-the-scenes insight into library services.
"I decided to complete my work experience at Loughborough Library because of my strong love of books and interest within the academic job sector."
Like many students starting a new placement, she arrived with a few nerves.
"Before I started the experience, I was apprehensive and quite nervous because I felt as if I knew nothing about how everything operated and the people that worked here."
Those concerns quickly disappeared thanks to a warm welcome from the library team.
"Upon arriving at the building, I was quite surprised to be greeted by a lot of friendly faces... This meeting immediately relaxed my nerves and made me feel far more comfortable."
After meeting colleagues, receiving a tour of the library and learning about health and safety, she began her first placement with the Customer Services team at the Help and Information Desk.
There, she discovered that there's much more to borrowing books than simply checking them in and out.
"At first, I couldn't get my head around the complexity of the job and the little details that go on behind the scenes of borrowing books."
One of the highlights of the week was learning about the Dewey Decimal Classification system and seeing how thousands of books are organised across the library.
"I was introduced to the Dewey Decimal System, which is how the library organises and shelves its books. This was intriguing because, as an outsider, I was in awe at the sheer amount of books the library owns and how they keep everything organised."
Work experience at Pilkington Library offers students the chance to see how many different teams work together to support learning, teaching and research. From customer services and collections to specialist support teams, every role contributes to creating a welcoming and effective learning environment for our University community.
We hope our placement opportunities provide valuable insight into working in a university library and support developing skills for future studies and career.