My stay was very informative, useful and interesting. I became acquainted with the many activities of the Slavic and East European Collection, learned how to work with the list of suppliers of materials, how to search and identify books from Russian publishing houses in the catalogue (ORBIS) within the Voyager program. It was a very interesting experience for me to learn about the process of transliteration from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet and to learn more about Slavic and East European books and languages. I saw the differences of this kind of work at Yale and in an American academic setting. In the National Library of Kazakhstan the description of records is done in other programs and by other standards. 

I learned how to work with several different programs (Meeting Maker and Eudora) and these helped me plan the meetings, trips, to make tours etc. during my 3 months here. 

During my internship at Yale my attention mainly was occupied with work pertaining to the electronic collection. I became acquainted with the head of this collection, Ms. Kimberly Parker and her team, who taught me about the activation of journals and the presentation of electronic materials in the systems of resource administration. I participated in the sessions of the CoDGeR group, which took place twice a month where they discussed the policy of reference services of the whole library system. I also learned how statistics are managed in regard to the use of the databases, and how electronic materials, databases and electronic books are selected and bought. 

Kalee Sprague (Electronic Collection) gave me valuable insights about the new web-site project “MetaLib” which permits users to make quick searches of articles and databases. I also learned about the Project to Compare Link-Only Resources in MetaLib and DBOW, which will be set up in the summer of 2006.  I participated in the work of the committee that discussed the design of the interface of the given project. 

I carefully studied and obtained materials on various websites about the library, the servers and electronic documents delivery. Some of these types of resources are missing from the National Library of Kazakhstan, and my study of the Yale resources gave me many good ideas on the support of websites, on the processes and policies for ordering the delivery of documents etc. This new knowledge is very important and useful for me. The knowledge and experience of my Yale internship will help me in the future to organize this kind of work. I also highly appreciate the work and structure done by the Curators and their teams in creating such wonderful web pages with much useful information about the different areas and the cultures of the many nationalities of these regions. I will recommend to my colleagues when I’m back in Kazakhstan to look at these websites and use them in their work. Last but not least – I met so many friendly people whom I can turn to in the future if I have any questions or problems in my work.

I also came to know in more detail particulars regarding the OACIS project - the purpose of which is to create broad and easy on-line access to journals, books, and microforms of the Near East. I witnessed the process of scanning and recognition of texts in Arabic script in the Sakhr program. 

Furthermore, I was introduced to Yale’s new equipment on which the process of scanning takes place, and I attended the presentation of the new scanner designed for scanning materials of big formats. This is of especial interest to me since in our library at the present time there is a great amount of work on digitization of books, newspapers and other materials. 

During my stay here I had great possibilities to visit many beautiful and interesting libraries and collections. I’m really impressed by Yale’s many different and rich area collections from all over the world. My meetings with the different subject and area specialists were the most important part of my visits.

I took part in a tour named “The Journey of a Book” where I learned about the “journey” of a newly received book at the Yale University Library, how it is acquisitioned, processed, catalogued and in what form it appears before the reader. I had an opportunity to see the many different library processes and departments through which the new book passes. The staff of the Acquisition Department, which processes many books, periodical editions, microforms etc., told me how they worked with the publishers and book-sellers, in order to obtain materials and editions in different countries. They also explained to me about the procedures relating to the procedures of receiving and cataloging items during the cataloguing, classification and bibliographical description stages of the new book’s journey.

I also had a unique chance to visit the Preservation Department, in which old and damaged editions are restored. It was very important for me to see and compare this process because in the National Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Almaty there is at present a lot of work in the selection of book materials for preservation and the transfer of many materials into the new electronic formats.

I paid special attention to the Department of Manuscripts and Archives, where I got acquainted with the collection of archival materials, saw how documents were transformed into electronic form and how a collection is formed. I learned in more detail about the conditions by which readers can access dissertations. 

Also I made brief tours of the Law library, Medical Library, Music Library, Chemistry Library and the GeologyLibrary.

 Moreover, my internship also included many interesting visits to various departments and libraries within the Yale University Library system, as well as great visits to the Cornell University Libraries and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. My visit to the Library of Congress included an i ntroductory tour of the European Division, and after this tours of the African & Middle Eastern Division, the Acquisition Division, the Print and Photographs Division, the electronic database on the Comintern, and the special Ask a Librarian department.

My participation in the conference “Digital Information and Copyright for Libraries”

I took part in the work of the conference titled “Digital Information and Copyright for Libraries,” organized jointly with the International Library Informational Analytic Center (ILIAC) and the Yale University Library. Librarians from the USA, the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Kazakhstan participated in the conference. They presented important and substantial reports, messages and presentations.

The conference turned out to be very useful for me personally since I received answers to many questions that had always interested me, especially those concerning copyright.

I was curious to learn how the librarians of other countries resolved this issue, and in addition I learned about the process of creating electronic collections.

My participation in the East Coast Slavic Consortium

My trip to Cornell University ( Ithaca, New York) was wonderful and useful to me. I participated in the work of the council of curators of Slavic and Eastern-European collections, in which I gave a report about the National Library of Kazakhstan and I answered questions regarding my library. I was very pleased to know that there is great interest in America about Kazakhstan and in literature about my country, but it’s a pity but there is not much literature of this kind here. I also made a tour of the Cornell University Library and I had a chance to compare the libraries of Yale and Cornell. I hope that we in Almaty will find many new ideas about how to improve exchange relations between the National Library of Kazakhstan and the Yale University Library in the future. One good example - what kind of publications from my library would Yale be most interested in acquiring.

My contacts with the government delegation from Kazakhstan.

During my stay in the USA, here in New Haven, twenty four Kazakhstan government officials participated in several special classes at the Yale School of Management. Both me and the Curator, Tatjana Lorkovic, were invited to a dinner on March 8 th where we met these people and their teachers. The meeting was held in a friendly and warm atmosphere.

The second meeting was on March 10. During dinner Ms. Lorkovic told them about my library program, and explained to them that this library program had been inspired by her visit to Almaty in the summer of 2005.

After that I was given the honor to make a speech. I told them how the internship would help me and that it would be very useful for the National Library of Kazakhstan. Also I said to my countrymen that our government should pay more attention to such projects and fully support them. The last meeting with the Kazakhstan government officials was on March 17 at dinner, when the government officials received certificates for their “graduation” from the studies. We warmly congratulated them.

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

2 March - I arrived in New Haven on the evening of March 1. March 2 was my first day of work at Yale. I went to Office of International Students and Scholars, accompanied by William Larsh, Acquisitions Assistant in the Slavic Reading Room, as part of my general registration duties. Enrolled at the Yale Health Plan, opened up a bank account at the Bank of America. Obtained my Yale ID. I also visited the Yale University Tax department to sign tax treaty provisions necessary for tax-free stipend.
3 March - Introduction to the Head of the Electronic Collections, Kimberly Parker, She told me about the organization of work in the "Electronic collections" department.

2nd week
6 March - Talk with Tatjana Lorkovic, Curator of the Slavic and East European Collections, about the Sterling Memorial Library, its structure, different departments etc.
Learned how to search the library catalog Orbis and the Library of Congress database. Searched for Russian books.
7 March - Julia Muravnik trained me on how to work in the Voyager cataloging and acquisitions modules. I created preliminary records for Russian books.
Review with Kimberly Parker on HINARI project
8 March - Orientation to Metadata
-Review with Kimberly Parker on HINARI project and management Electronic Collections
-Meeting with Kazakh Government officials (Women’s Day)
9 March - Exploration into HINARI journals with closed contents. However, content is available - could be contributed to HINARI by the publisher (Project 1)
-Worked in Voyager cataloging and acquisitions module
10 March - Worked in Voyager cataloging and acquisitions module.
-Lunch with Kazakh Government officials

3rd week
13 March - Orientation to digital collection (Jennifer Weintraub)
Orientation for interns to digital collection and conversion activities in the library
- Orientation to cataloging of E-resources
(Orientation for 4 international interns to metadata description in the library's catalog for e-resources)
14 March – Exploration into HINARI journals with closed extents to detainee for then
content is available could be contributed to HINARI by the publisher (Projekt 1)
- Check the list from vendors for duplicates. Create preliminary records in Voyager
15 March – Check the list from vendors for duplicates. Create preliminary records in Voyager
16-17 March – Participatedinconference “Digital information and copyright for libraries”:
- tour of the Campus (city, university, library)
- Round table for Slavic librarians (Beinecke library)
- Conference(Luce Hall)

4th week
20 March – Return to the Slavic Room, which has undergone a restoration
- Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
21 March - project discussion, went to Electronic Collections (Kimberly)
- CoDGeR meeting:
Reviewing items and funds of CERF-funded resources;
Touched base on Wiley "re-basing";
Shaping a central license review/negotiation support team
22-24 March – New project (Kimberly) To identify the number of volumes available to HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program.
-Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books

5th week
27 March – Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
28 March – Introduction to International Digital Special Projects(Presentationproject OACIS) - Elizabeth Beaudin
-Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
29 March - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books. Participated in the “The Journey of a Book” Tour (visits to the Acquisition Department and Preservation Department)
30 March – Worked on identifying the extent of volumes available to HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program. (Kimberly)
- Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- Took first formal English lesson with Siggi, my English teacher.
31 March - project with BD “Elsevier” (Kimberly Parker)

6th week
3 April - Introduction to MetaLib & project discussion (Sprague Kalee) and learning about Websites
4 April – Visiteda public forum on technology & teaching in the library. Technology has become pervasive in today's college classroom and now instruction librarians at Yale and elsewhere have started using it too, often in innovative ways. Forum included four presentations, with practical demonstrations
- CoDGeR meeting (Kimberly)
- English lesson
5 April – Practical work regarding MetaLib project.
- Architecture Tour
6 April – Project OACIS: Introduction to use the programs ACDSee, ScanFax, Sakhr.
- English lesson
7 April – Introduction to Meeting Maker and Eudora
- Worked on identifying extent of items available HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program. (Kimberly Parker)

7th week
10 April – 1)MetaLib & project discussion , 2) Project to Compare Link-Only Resources in MetaLib and DBOW (Kaleed Sprague)
11 April – New Project (Kimberly Parker).To identify title changes, publisher changes or title cessations for journals in HINARI Journal list that have closed volume extents .
- ORBIS (try search)
- English lesson
- Visit to an Exhibition in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
12 April – Meeting about project to Compare Link-Only resources in MetaLib
- Tour of the Yale Law Library
13 April – MeetingaboutUsage statistics for Yale Databases(Kimberly Parker)
- English lesson

8th week
17 April – Project to identify the volume extents available to HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program(Kimberly)
18 April – Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- CoDGeR meeting (Kimberly Parker)
- English lesson
19 April - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
20 April - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- English lesson
21 April - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books

9th week
24 April - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- Went to Library’s “Introduction of New Staff” (SML Lecture Hall)
25 April – Meeting about ORBIS, MetaLib, “Cache” (Kalee Sprague)
- English lesson
26 April - Worked in Voyage module, cataloging records for Russian books
- Tour Medical library
27 April - Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- Visited the Department Manuscripts and Archives
- English lesson
28 April –Worked on project to identify the volume extents available to HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program. (Kimberly)
- English lesson
- Went to Jennifer Weintraub’s presentation on the new digital scanner

10th week
1 May – Attended Manuscripts and Archives meeting on dissertations.
2 May - -CoDGeR meeting
- English lesson
3-4-5 May – Participated in East Coast Consortium of Slavic Studiesmeetings at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York

 11th week
8 May – Meeting about electronic document delivery
- Toured the Beinecke library
9 May – Tour of the Chemistryand Geologylibraries
- English lesson
10 May – Tour of the Department of Human resources to see the central Servers(Kalee Sprague)
- Visit to the New Haven Federal building to get information about my permanent social security number
11-12 May - Visited the Library of Congress: tour of the European Division, African & Middle Eastern Division, Acquisition Division, Print and Photographs Division, Database on the Comintern, and the Ask a Librarian department

12th week
15 May – Beginningtowritemyreport
16 May – Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
- English lesson
17 May – Meeting with Amanda Patrick (Development and Communication department)
- Worked in Voyager cataloging module, records for Russian books
18 May – Worked on projectto identify the volume extents available to HINARI participants for Elsevier journals offered to HINARI program.
19 May – Meeting about Conservation with Giseaa Noack.
- Updated web pages with Kalee Sprague.

13th week
22 May - Worked in Voyager cataloging, records for Russian books
23 May – Tour of the Babylonian collection
- Worked in Voyager cataloging, records for Russian books
24 May – Last meeting with Kim Parker.
- Meeting with Coordinator of Research Services and Librarian for Philosophy, Religious Studies, and Coordinator of Humanities Instruction
25 May – Worked in Voyager cataloging, records for Russian books
26 May - Worked in Voyager cataloging, records for Russian books