"This it it!" I exclaimed, bachelor's degree in hand. "I am never going back to school for as long as I live!"
Two years later...
"This is it!" I exclaimed, acceptance letter in hand. "I am going back to school to have a job that I'll love for as long as I live!"
Life has many twists and turns, and though I've veered away from my initial profesional intentions from three years ago, there has remained one constant throughout all that time: a desire to work with and for young people. Now that I have fully and officially entered into the world of librarianship, I have discovered a career that will allow me to fulfill that desire and facilitate enlightening and exciting experiences that can make a genuine impact on my chosen service group.
As stated in the introduction to this e-portfolio, it has been my hope that the content and artifacts gathered herein will demonstrate not only my general proficiency in the most important aspects of library science but also my specialties in youth services. I have used the free Blogger web venue to document this e-portfolio, as it is a service that I have been using almost consistently since 2010. The pages are arranged in such way to encourage easy navigation, with core classes separated from electives that illustrate my specialty interests and a unique co-curricular section that details the professional work that I've been producing in public libraries for the last four years.
In my general coursework, I was able to navigate important and topical processes and information such as collection development policies, professional development opportunities, grant proposals, staff administration, research methodologies, and strategies for the categorization of informational bodies. These six core courses combined together to produce a well-rounded examination of the librarian's world from an ethical, managerial, systematic, and critical standpoint. If one were to ask the question, "What makes a librarian?", these six classes could certainly serve as the powerful answer.
Through my electives, my specialties in youth services come to the fore. Two courses dedicated to further building my reader's advisory ("Multicultural Literature..." and "Books and Related Materials..."), two more on the educational opportunities presented by youth librarianship ("Teaching Info Literacy" and "Digital Storytelling"), and two seminars on the public library in general and the serving of K-12 patrons in particular have served as the strong foundation upon which I plan to build my future career development within my community. These courses have allowed me to understand my given audience more deeply and profoundly and to plan for ways in which to maximize the positive effect the library can potentially have on their lives.
With my co-curricular activities, the knowledge and insight gained from my educational experiences in USF's MLIS program have been able to be regularly applied to a real-world context. These activities demonstrate my current and unwavering dedication to serving this audience in all shapes and forms, from performing outreach as a costumed character for children to acting as a facilitator to a group of teen decision-makers. The activities demonstrate a diversified approach to youth services that will only continue to thrive and expand upon my graduation from the master's program.
When I initially came to libraries, I knew them only as a place that had provided me with idle hours of safety and excitement from the possibilities that poured from their shelves. Having now worked in them for nearly half a decade, I am filled with a new excitement altogether, one fueled by a desire to benefit the lives of others rather than my own. This educational experience has helped to bolster my enthusiasm, my creativity, my ambition, and my dedication to children, teens, and their families. It is my hope that upon graduation I will be able to use these experiences to secure an official librarian position and continue to service this audience on a maximized scale. All I know for sure is that things are only looking up from this point forward, and I have USF to thank for allowing me to soar.
