Option A: Capstone Field Experience

The Capstone Field Experience should provide students with a professional-level work experience. This will require sustained professional interaction with a credentialed LIS practitioner as a supervisor and in many cases with colleagues.

You will need a supervisor for your Field Experience. As a rule, that person will be an employee at your Field Experience location. A supervisor must be a credentialed LIS practitioner. That person will help you learn new tasks, guide you throughout the semester, and fill out an evaluation for you at the end of the semester.

You must complete 120 contact hours with your Field Experience site. This usually means you will need to be onsite working for 120 hours over the course of your practicum semester. You and your site supervisor will determine what will count toward your 120 hours.

As a rule, students do not complete a Field Experience at their current place of work. If you do a practicum at your work site, you must follow all guidelines set by your workplace for paid and unpaid time. The work you complete for the Field Experience should be a new experience beyond the scope of your normal work. The practicum work you undertake should challenge you to learn something new and be recordable for the course. You must consult your advisor and your employer to navigate this situation and get the most from your practicum.

Schedule

• All students take the Capstone during their last semester in the MLIS program.

• When you enter the program: Talk with your advisor about your career interests. Take courses that will help you prepare for your dream job. And start thinking about how the Capstone will cap all of that off. (See what we did there?)

• When you have completed 18 credit hours: Declare for Option A or Option B by filling out this Google Form. If you do not declare for Option B, you will be automatically enrolled in Option A.

• One semester before your final semester: 

  • Talk to your advisor. 

  • Contact Sonia Archer-Capuzzo (smarcher@uncg.edu) for help lining up a field experience site. 

  • Work with your site supervisor to set measurable goals (here's a handy guide!) and submit your goals by the last class day of your penultimate semester using this Google form. 

Finding a Site

• You will need to do the leg-work to line up your Field Experience. 

• Start early!

• Check out the LIS jobs board at https://soe.uncg.edu/academics/departments/lis/lis-careers-and-organizations/jobs/

  • You may find the right opportunity listed here under “UNCG LIS Practicum” or “Internship”

  • You may also get ideas for things you’d like to try that you can build on as you construct a custom Capstone Experience

• Follow the UNCG LIS listserv 

• Call a local library where you’re interested in working (or that is similar to where you’d like to work) and ask if they have opportunities or ideas

• Consider an online field experience. More libraries and information institutions are offering chances for students to intern remotely. 

• Talk to your advisor

• Ask current or former students what they hope to do or did

• Talk to Sonia Archer-Capuzzo (smarcher@uncg.edu)

• Think about the supervisor. They will be an important mentor during the capstone and afterward.

Not sure what you want to do? Here are some ideas:

• Instruction planning and teaching

• Planning and implementing library programming

• Providing reference services

• Developing and conducting assessment

• Working on marketing

• Cataloging a collection

• Digitizing a collection

• Creating finding aids

• Assisting with collection development