Request for Agenda Items

April 14, 2009

Request for Agenda Items

It seems only sensible to use the first post on my new blog to explain the purpose of the blog (I feel compelled to be orderly and logical in all things, which is probably why I became a librarian).

I am an adjunct faculty member in two library schools (UIUC and SJSU for the curious). My work combines two things I love – teaching and librarianship. It also gives me the opportunity to work with graduate students in LIS, which is absolutely the best job I can imagine having. My students inspire me everyday – their love of libraries; their enthusiasm for delivering high quality services that connect people and information; their passion for information literacy, new technologies, books, intellectual freedom and a multitude of other things – they are the future of my profession and it is in good hands.

In addition to covering the course content I am expected to teach, I enjoy talking to students about the practical aspects of being a librarian – what journals to read, what to expect on an interview, how to find a mentor, and so on. I have these conversations with current students, sometimes as a planned course topic, other times as a result of a student’s forum post or a course discussion that veers into unexpected territory. I also receive email from former students seeking advice on the same topics (for the record, I love hearing from former students, so drop a note and tell me what you’ve been doing). Often times, my replies to these conversations, forum posts and emails duplicate ones from another course or a previous semester.

Eight years into teaching LIS, I had the “a-ha” moment that this could be blog-worthy, especially since a blog would get me outside the confines of any one school’s system or a single course space and into the public sphere where I can talk to all my students at once. I hope my current and former students will visit this blog on an ongoing basis and join me in conversations about success in library school and the profession. At the very least, this will be a place to archive thoughts and resources on these topics for easier access by future students. 

I have some thoughts about future posts, but I’m also interested in hearing from you, my current, past and future students. Class is over, whether for the day or the semester, and now you can set the agenda for our discussions – what would you like to talk about?

Permalink