Internships link user services to academic departments
Donna M. Raleigh · 1989
To User Services people, networking the campus goes beyond laying cable and connecting hardware. We connect by establishing liaison programs, sending out surveys, and listening to feedback from vocal users, yet sometimes we still cannot get a clear focus on the needs of the academic community. Nor do we develop the trust and respect that the users need to provide us with useful feedback and needs assessments. Establishing the academic network necessary to read the pulse of the campus requires ingenuity, creativity, and sometimes just plain luck. For us in User Services at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's Academic Computing Services, a successful and ongoing internship program resulted from a combination of all three. It established a link which has proven to be a real advantage for User Services, the cooperating academic departments, and the University as a whole.