Have you heard of the Library Routes Project?
This wiki is providing new and future librarians with a great place to learn about the profession from seasoned professionals describing how they got to where they are today. Moreover, it has provided the impetus for my first blog entry and personal introduction. In what follows, I describe who I am and how I came to be standing on the doorstep of librarianship.
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In the beginning…
I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and grew up about an hour outside of the city in the sheltered coastal community of Hubbards. Our house was away from the road, surrounded by trees, and a short walk from a number of beaches caressing the Atlantic Ocean as well as the (much warmer) J. D. Shatford Public Library.
Some of my fondest memories as a child involve visits to the local library; puppet shows, Berenstain Bears and Babar books, the friendly welcomes from staff… Over the years, I went to the library religiously every Thursday night. My family did not have a lot of money nor did we live in a thriving metropolis, so my trusty library card provided me with a means of exploring the world around me in ways that would not have been possible otherwise, and I took full advantage.
Scaling the ivory tower
Led by intellectual curiosity and the inevitable passage of time, in my eighteenth year I found myself sequestered in the basement of the University of King’s College Library for hours each day. I took the college’s Foundation Year Program, which required that I read a broad swath of literature that has helped shape and explain human civilization. This included works by Plato, Dante, Descartes, Shakespeare, Kant, Galileo, Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, de Beauvoir… I struggled with the material, and my grades reflected this, yet I learned a great deal about not only the works in question, but also about crafting original ideas and writing coherent essays. I considered King’s to be “intellectual boot camp” and my experiences there would serve me well in the years to come.
Upon completion of the foundation year at King’s, I transferred over to the neighbouring Dalhousie University. I decided I would major in International Development Studies, which I later changed to Sociology, with a minor in Film Studies, which I later changed to History. Ultimately, I ended up in the honours program in Social Anthropology having come to the conclusion that I had a specific passion for qualitative research and its ability to shed light on difficult social issues. I eagerly wanted to see where this practice might lead me, and what discoveries I might make along the way.
The fourth and final year of my undergraduate education was one of the finest of my life; I studied medical anthropology, feminist theory and labour studies while researching the experiences of university graduates who had taught English in South Korea. It was incredibly engaging; based on these experiences I decided I would pursue graduate school.
But first I would have to save up some money. After graduating from Dalhousie I found myself living in an apartment with my mother in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and working at a call centre on the desolate outskirts of town. Until 3am each night I would talk down angry cell phone customers and help them the best I could. I was good at my job, and felt happy when I could muddle through company policies and technical issues to help someone, but I most definitely needed more than this job could offer. So, sticking with my plans, I sent off grad school applications to the University of Guelph and Dalhousie. I was accepted by each institution, and decided upon Guelph based on their funding package and the many social scientists in labour-related fields there whom I wanted to work with. I then bought a cross-country rail pass and spent 30 days sitting/sleeping in economy-class train seats, visiting friends and seeing the sights from the Maritimes straight across to Vancouver and Victoria and back again.
My bank account now secure and a sense of wanderlust quieted, I packed up and moved to Guelph, Ontario. It was at this point that I decided that I wanted to study the experiences of Mexican farm workers. However, this plan was problematic. First, my undergraduate Spanish classes were of little help to me and second, I did not have a car so as to visit the farms where these workers lived. By serendipitous luck, my advisor suggested I focus instead on the Hotel Workers Rising struggle brewing in Toronto and across North America whereby hundreds of immigrant women were becoming involved in a movement to secure safer, more economically secure working conditions.
The project looked great on paper and aligned nicely with my interests, but in the field I struggled. The hotel workers’ union leaders were swamped with challenges to mobilize their members. Meanwhile, the workers themselves were swarmed by reporters and more established researchers than myself. Eventually, I found myself relying much more on field notes from union meetings and protest rallies that I attended than on interview data. While this was unfortunate at the time and diminished the possibility of producing a thesis, it led to a Major Research Paper that I remain proud of.
Enter librarianship
When I started grad school, I did not know what I wanted to be ‘when I grew up’ but I figured it would lead me somewhere relevant to education and research, be it a PhD program, teaching at a community college, conducting ethnographic research for a government agency, or… something. I knew I loved the inquisitive, benevolent aspects of social research. And I knew that I loved being involved with teaching; in grad school I had numerous gigs as a teaching assistant where I got to work closely with students and faculty, and I very much enjoyed this work. But what could I do with these passions?
Then, late one wintry night in December of 2005 I found my way…
It was Christmas break and I was stuck on a bus in the middle of a snowstorm en route to Montreal to visit friends. To occupy my mind, I eavesdropped on a conversation between some nearby passengers. A young man was talking about how much he loved his job. He had an MA in Sociology (as would I, soon enough). In addition, he had a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree, which led him into a job as an academic liaison librarian. He taught, he researched, he wrote, he engaged with faculty and students, and he got paid to do it! It all sounded too good to be true.
With time, I reached the end of the MA program at Guelph and sent off an application to the MLIS program at the University of Western Ontario. This program appealed to me because the classes offered looked relevant and interesting given my desire to become an academic or special librarian, and the co-op program seemed like a great opportunity to gain experience that would help make me my professional desires a reality.
I began the MLIS program in January of 2008 following a brief visit back to Halifax where I reconnected with family and friends. Now, while many people will argue that they learned nothing in their library school classes, I would humbly disagree. I learned a great deal about both the foundations of the profession and current trends shaping its future. I also learned many practical skills, like the ability to produce worthwhile essays and presentations at a (very) rapid pace, and how to teach information literacy skills without putting your audience to sleep. And, I learned a range of skills relevant to cataloguing, Web design, collection development, social and open source software, management, and the list goes on.
Two semesters into the program, I managed to get an 8-month co-op position at Innis Library, McMaster University’s business library. This experience was particularly beneficial since I got to experience working in a smaller, more specialized library and learn a great deal about business research. The questions I received at the reference desk were intriguing and complicated; the business databases I had to dig through each day cemented my ability to search complicated systems; the staff were tight knit and supportive, and the greater university community allowed me to meet a variety of professionals with a broad range of interests and insights that they openly shared with me. While at McMaster, I developed particularly strong interests in exploring ways through which libraries might fully embrace the potential of social software, open access resources, and course-integrated library instruction. As a result, this experience provided me with a clear idea of areas of specialization that I wish to pursue further as I develop my career.
Turning the Page
This brings us to the present. My co-op position and the MLIS program itself are behind me now and the future is one of uncertainty and anxious anticipation. I have only recently started applying for library jobs, and I expect that the road ahead will be one of many challenges and opportunities. Hopefully, this blog will be a companion to this experience.
For somewhat self-serving purposes, I want this blog to be a venue through which I can promote my professional commitment, interests, and motivations. However, I also hope that it will be a place for me to share information about all of the things I am exploring right now with others. This includes things like interview techniques, job postings, publishing/networking/presentation opportunities, how to make a portfolio, ‘movers and shakers’ in the library world, new technologies and their effect on libraries, and so on…
Best of luck!
