I am ACRL Member of the Week

Curious, adventurous, warrior.

I am one of those people that are always reading multiple books at a time. Currently, I am reading "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman and "Ain't I a Woman?" by bell hooks. I am listening to "Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin and the podcast My Favorite Murder.

Engaging, informative, helpful.

As a fairly new librarian, I value ACRL's webinars and various publications the most. I am frequently partaking in webinars offered via ACRL. I love diving into "College & Research Libraries News" as soon as it hits my door. It helps me stay on top of the newest trends and issues in the field. I am also in the second year of my Doctorate of Education and I am always reading publications that appear in "College & Research Libraries". I hope to one day publish an article in "College & Research Libraries".

My job is new to our organization. I have typical reference duties like one-shot instruction, student consultations, and working at the reference desk but my main focus is creating learning materials for our patrons. My university is a large university and has numerous online degree programs. Due to this, it is impossible to meet and help every single student on campus. A big part of my job is reaching students that may never step foot in a library or who only know the library as our library website. I do this by creating online tutorials to help our students, both those on campus and at a distance, be able to use the library resources efficiently and effectively.

As I prepare to participate in the 2019 Emerging Leader program, I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about the library community as a whole and how to better serve it. What populations can we serve better? What populations are we missing? These types of questions then lead me to how are we educating ourselves on these populations? How are we reaching them? But this line of thinking has gone beyond my musings on what the library community can do for those we serve, but also ourselves. How do we mentor one another? How can we help educate each other and share our successes and failures? How do we lift each other up? I have thought a great deal about the choices I made that propelled me to my career in librarianship and those who helped me get here. I cannot say enough about every librarian that I have met who have been willing to guide me and mentor me as I began my career in librarianship, and let's be honest, who still guides me regularly. You see, we aren't just serving our patrons, but we are a community built on helping others. I hope that I cannot only make an impact on the students I meet but also play an active part in helping propel our profession and leadership within it.