The Affirmative Action Student Professionals In Residence (AASPIRE) internship offers on-the-job experience with the City of Madison to underrepresented college students and recent graduates. Interns spend eight to 10 weeks working on projects with a manager in a city department, including Madison Public Library, Madison Parks and many others. In addition to gaining an understanding of their city division’s operations, interns have several opportunities to network with government professionals across Madison. This program is important because it gives young people from marginalized backgrounds the experience needed to get a job with the City of Madison while helping departments accomplish beneficial projects for which they might not otherwise have capacity. Madison Public Library Foundation grant funds the intern’s salary.
This summer’s AASPIRE intern was Adrian Lampron, who worked on several communications projects alongside Madison Public Library’s marketing department. Adrian came into their internship with a passion for politics and a lot of great experience working on campaigns locally. Noting this area of interest, Lampron was assigned to work on improving strategic communications between the library and stakeholders like the Friends of Madison Public Library, the Madison Public Library Board, Madison Public Library Foundation, the Common Council and community partners. Lampron did lots of research into the best means of communicating with each group, which resulted in a summary of findings, as well as some recommendations.
Another project Lampron worked on throughout the summer was writing an Impact Story about the city of Madison’s Parks Alive initiative. This year was the first for this citywide programming, which included more than 25 summer events held in eight city parks featuring free food, DJs, bounce houses and other activities for families. Lampron attended multiple events throughout the summer to do interviews with library staff, interact with community partners and get photos. They also put their writing skills to work on a number of other Impact Stories, including pieces on Voting, Public Health Madison & Dane County, and Sustainability, as well as creating graphics, social media posts and website copy for events like Make Music Madison.
Finally, Lampron was interested in the public relations side of marketing, so the marketing department had them do a 15-minute interview on NBC15 as part of a regular monthly spot for Madison Public Library. Lampron also got to do a tour of News 3 Now (WISC-TV), Channel3000.com with Josh Spreiter, Morning Anchor/Reporter.
“Interning with Madison Public Library this summer has been wonderful! I’ve learned so much about the Library — how everything works behind the scenes and the many things libraries do that the public doesn’t always think about,” Lampron said.