I am ACRL Member of the Week

Connection, kind, empathetic.

I am currently listening to "The Great Alone" by Kristin Hannah. It's a beautiful novel set in Alaska in the 1970s. I've read most of Hannah's work, and especially her period pieces and they are just gorgeous pieces of fiction. This is the third time I've listened to it--I'm a big re-reader because once I find a fictional world that envelops me, I want to live there in my mind as many times as I can.

Collaborative, leadership, direction.

ACRL has given me the opportunity to connect with librarians across the country through a variety of service opportunities. I have enjoyed serving on ACRL committees and hope to continue doing so throughout my career. I am also thankful for the breadth of professional resources that ACRL provides. My department has been on a multi-year educational journey to better understand the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education and we have greatly appreciated the amount of documentation and other useful resources related to the Framework.
 

As a Student Success Librarian, I make a lot of connections across campus with other academic success units, like the Transfer Office, the Writing Center, the Veteran's Center, and more to see how the library can help better serve a more diverse group of students. My favorite program that I've created, and that I think is making a difference to students, is our Personal Librarian Program (PLP). It originally started as just for transfer students and veterans but has now expanded to include first-year students and students at our Casper, WY campus. Programs like the PLP reach out directly to students and put a personal face on the library, which I consider to be incredibly valuable towards building strong and lasting relationships between students and the library. Over the last year and a half, we've had more students than ever reply to thank us for checking in and that it meant something to them that their librarian cared enough to check in about their overall wellness.

The university library is the heart of campus--often literally, but more often metaphorically. In my work as a professional librarian, I strive to create a safe, brave, equitable, and inclusive environment that fosters the creation of and participation in engaging ideas and spaces that help develop cultural competency for all whom the library serves. I have had the chance to develop a range of skills and experiences with underserved student populations, including transfer students and first-generation students. These interactions and outreach have solidified my belief that if the university library is to be the true heart of campus, it needs to be representative of the community it serves and that the community needs to actively see themselves in our services, spaces, collections, and employees.