Following her internship at Yale University, Oksana Zavalina received the Edmund Muskie scholarship to study Library Science. Here she is shown receiving her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2002.

The major goal of my home institution - the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine - is to serve Ukrainian society and to provide it with open access to up-to-date national and international information. One of the library's most important functions is to furnish bibliographical information of the highest quality. It is impossible to provide this service without library automation, an on-line catalog and modern data bases which employ quick search strategies. For example, Yale provides Orbis to its students and researchers for quick bibliographical searches. I have become familiar with this convenient finding-aid during my internship here at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library and am confident that this experience will greatly aid me im my endeavors to help accelerate the automation process in my home library. I believe that my Yale internship will be useful in pointing the way to my library in choosing the most efficient systems for computer-based bibliographical finding-aids.

My goal was to become familiar with the Yale University library system, its organizational structures and operations, and its special collections. I have had an excellent opportunity to examine Yale's area collections - the Judaica, African, Latin American, for example - as well as the marvelous Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library here on campus. I was particularly interested in the Slavic collections, especially with the Yale library's holdings pertaining to Ukrainian emigre literature. I was also able to examine other collections on Ukrainian emigre literature during my visits to Harvard University (and the Harvard Ukrainian Institute), the New York Public Library and the Library of Congress in Washington. D.C. These visits have really helped me in working on my home library's project for compiling a bibliography on Ukrainian emigre literature. In addition, I have been able to access and print out the bibliography on this topic compiled by the Taras Shevchenko Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Institute in New York City. This project is a cooperative effort with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Literature Institute.

My internship at Yale and my various trips to other American libraries were also very valuable in regard to studying the different types of American information services. Last but not least, my internship at Yale has made it possible for me to meet many people who have expressed their willingness to establish contact and facilitate future cooperative projects with the National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine.

Below is the schedule of activities in which Ms. Zavalina participated while at Yale:

General objectives:
-Familiarization with the Yale University Library, its organizational structure, operations and departmental libraries
-Learning Yale's online system (Orbis)
-Attend lectures at Yale

Week 1 September 4 - 14
Left Kiev on an Austrian Airlines flight on September 4. Arrived in New Haven early in the morning of September 5. Moved into residence at the Divinity School dormitory at 49 Seabury Hall the same day.
Friday - Filled out requisite paperwork - registration, insurance etc. Had lunch with William Larsh, Acquisitions Assistant at the Slavic Reading Room, at Yorkside Restaurant.
Sunday - Visited Tanja Lorkovic at her house in Guilford. Tanja took me on a tour of the city.
Monday - First working day in the Slavic Reading Room.***
Tuesday - Friday - Worked in Slavic Reading Room (SRR).
Friday - Lunched with Valentina Chudowsky, Head of the Slavic Cataloging Team at Yale Library.
Sunday - Attended a party at the apartment of Ann Okerson, Assistant University Librarian at the Yale Library.

Enumeration of duties and tasks in Slavic Reading Room :

1. Learned how to use Roman-alphabet keyboard, the Library of Congress romanization system for Cyrillic alphabets and Yale's keyboarding system for adding diacritics for various languages.
2. Learned how to do bibliographical searching using Yale's Orbis computer data-base, and public card catalogs. Also, learned how to do the same with the Library of Congress bibliographical computer data-base.
3. Learned how to derive bibliographical records from the Library of Congress and create new acquisition entries in the Yale Orbis system from these LC records.
4. Learned how to receive new books and create new Orbis records.
5. Learned how to place acquisition orders from various vendors' catalogs and how to use the vendor codes.
6. Became familiar with the Yale bar-code system (used for security purposes and for keeping track as to the location of new books during the initial period of cataloging these items) and created new bar-codes, which are placed into new books after the inputting of a record of this new book in Orbis.

Week 2 September 15 - 21
Monday - Friday - Worked in the Slavic Reading Room.
Monday - Met with members of the Slavic Cataloging Team.
Wednesday - Attended a session of the Bibliographical Printing Workshop, led by Bridget Burke.
Weekend - Visited Valentina Chudowsky, Head of the Slavic Cataloging Team at Yale Library. On Sunday, attended a church service at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in New Haven.

Week 3 September 22 - 28
Monday - Wednesday - SRR.
Wednesday - Had dinner with members of the Ukrainian Table at XandO cafe.
Thursday - Friday - SRR.

Week 4 September 29 - October 5
Monday - Meeting with Nanette Stahl, Curator, who gave me a tour of the Judaica Collection.
Tuesday - Meeting with John Moore Crossey, Curator, who showed me the African Collection.
Friday - Meeting with Cesar Rodriguez, Curator, who gave me a tour of the Latin American Collection.
Monday-Friday - Also worked in the SRR, receiving books and doing bibliographical searches.
Weekend - Visited Atlantic City, Philadelphia, and Princeton.

Week 5 October 6 - 12
Monday - Friday - Worked in the Slavic Cataloging Division; was shown how the catalogers did their work in this department; also did some cataloging work with the microfilms of the Ukrainian Independent Press.

This cataloging work entailed learning how to do the following :

1. The classification system of Slavic Team's cataloging.
2. I made catalog records - using preliminary cataloging records - of approximately 50 items of the newly-received microfiche of the Ukrainian Independent Press.
3. How to search the RLIN bibliographical data-base (RLIN is the Research Libraries Information Network - a consortium of academic libraries which have pooled together their bibliographical resources) for creating extensive cataloging records. In addition, I learned how to transfer these RLIN records into Yale's Orbis system.

Weekend - Stayed with Mrs. Valentina Chudowsky at her home in Weathersfield and visited Mystic Seaport and Museum.

Week 6 October 13 - 19
Monday - Friday - SRR.
Monday - Lunched with Slavic Catologing Team and went to a lecture at the Hall of Graduate Studies on Russian theater and its influence on Russian society in general.
Sunday - Attended a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the New England division of the Union of Ukrainian Women of America in New Haven.

Week 7 October 20 - 26
Monday - Friday - SRR.
Friday - Attended a reception for new library staff in Sterling Spoon and met with Mr. Scott Bennett, SML Librarian, Ann Okerson and with several other librarian managers.
Sunday - Stayed with Tanja Lorkovic at her home in Guilford and met Nicole Bouche, Head of the Manuscript Unit at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library.

Week 8 October 27 - November 2
Monday - Went to a seminar on Internet for library staff at the Cross Campus Library Electronic Resources Center.
Monday - Friday - SRR.
Tuesday - Visited the Acquisitions Department of the library. Lunched with Tanja and Viveca S. Seymour, Chief Acquisitions Librarian and several of her colleagues, at Yorkside Pizza restaurant.
Weekend - Stayed at Valentina Chudowsky's home in Weathersfield and went to a Ukrainian embroidery dance at the Ukrainian House in Hartford.

Week 9 November 3 - 9
Monday - Wednesday - SRR.
Monday and Wednesday - Went to Library computer course at the Computer Center at 155 Whitney Avenue.
Thursday - Took the train to Boston and toured the Harvard University Library (Widener Library) as well as the East European Department collection within the library.
Friday - Visited the Harvard Ukrainian Institute and its library; met with Ksenia Kebuzynska, the Institut's librarian, and with Dr. Roman Szporluk, head of the Institute. Afterwards, visited the Harvard University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library. Met with Mr. Josef Zajac, head of the Slavic unit in the Rare Books Library. Returned later that evening by train to New Haven.

Week 10 November 10 - 16
Monday - Tuesday - SRR.
Wednesday - Friday - Visited Washington, D.C. and the Library of Congress.
Wednesday - Met Jurij Dobzhansky, Senior Subject Cataloger of the Cataloging Department of the European Division of the LC.
Thursday - Mr. Dobzhansky gave me a tour of the Madison Building of LC. Afterwards, we met Bohdan Yasinsky, the Ukrainian-Byelorussian librarian of the East European department. Then went on a tour with Mr. Greg Harkness, head of the Senate Library in the Capitol,who showed me the library. Then went on a general tour of the Capitol itself.
Friday - Worked in the East European Division of the Library of Congress on my Ukrainian emigre literature project. Returned to New Haven later that evening by train.

Week 11 November 17 - 23
Monday - Wednesday - SRR.
Thursday - Went to New York and toured the New York Public Library. Met with Edward Kasinec, head of the Slavic and Baltic Division, and Natalia Zitzelsberger, head of Collection Development of the same department, and Zenon Kurpeta, Cataloger of the Slavic and Baltic unit. Natalia and Zenon gave me a tour of the Ukrainian collection of the library. Natalia also gave me a tour of the special exhibit on the Romanov family entitled "The Romanovs : Their Empire, Their Books". Returned to New Haven later that evening by train.
Friday - Toured the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscripts Library at Yale with Ms. Bouche, head of the Beinecke's cataloging unit.

Week 12 November 24 - 30
Monday - Wednesday - SRR.
Monday - Had special "farewell" lunch with the staff of the Slavic Reading Room at Broadway Pizza restaurant.
Tuesday - Met with Mr. Scott Bennett, Yale Librarian, who inquired about the results of my internship here at Yale. Afterwards, had lunch with the Slavic Cataloging Team.
Wednesday - My last full day at the SRR - prepared reports on my internship at Yale and my experiences in America.
Thursday (Thanksgiving Day) - Sunday - Stayed at Valentina Chudowsky's house in Weathersfield. For Thanksgiving, had dinner at Valentina's sister's home - had lots of turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie!

Week 13 December 1
Monday - SRR in the morning - said farewell to Tanja and the staff - Pauline, Monika and Bill.
Monday afternoon and evening - Departed for New York at 1 p.m. My flight on Austrian Airlines to Kiev took off at 6:25 p.m. Arrived in Kiev at 1:35 p.m. Tuesday.