This month marks my halfway point through library school. A year ago I was waiting impatiently to begin; a year from now I hope to be wrapping up the final bits of my capstone and hopefully doing some real work somewhere, somehow. I still feel as though I’ve only just begun, which sits in strange juxtaposition with my hopeful anxiety about how soon this process will be coming to an end.
This first year has been great. I managed, with the help of a few key people, to really hit the ground running, with a student job in an amazing academic/medical library as well a professional association board appointment within my first term. I have some incredible, talented classmates, and I work with a team of lovely, knowledgeable, enthusiastic librarians and support staff. I’ve been lucky to have so many people around who are willing to share their experience and expertise with me; it has almost been, dare I say it, worth more than library school itself. (Not really, of course... but also, sort of.)
I wanted to note a few of the cool projects I’ve gotten to work on over the course of this first year. I’ve been a busy little badger, doing my schoolwork, working in the library, and then doing all this other stuff besides:
This first year has been great. I managed, with the help of a few key people, to really hit the ground running, with a student job in an amazing academic/medical library as well a professional association board appointment within my first term. I have some incredible, talented classmates, and I work with a team of lovely, knowledgeable, enthusiastic librarians and support staff. I’ve been lucky to have so many people around who are willing to share their experience and expertise with me; it has almost been, dare I say it, worth more than library school itself. (Not really, of course... but also, sort of.)
I wanted to note a few of the cool projects I’ve gotten to work on over the course of this first year. I’ve been a busy little badger, doing my schoolwork, working in the library, and then doing all this other stuff besides:
Hack Library School posts:
All about Library and Information MAD Science. Also effectively a list of people I want to be just like when I grow up.
A description of my LOLbrarian project (as seen below), but focusing on the thought processes behind it. Every assignment is an opportunity to explore something you care about.
If you were attending my perfect library school, you'd be programming by now.
A couple of class projects I’m particularly proud of:
Playtime! This is a presentation I put together for my Organization of Information class. I'm interested in how one might go about organizing collections of items from the Internet, so I decided to try my hand at creating a faceted classification system for Internet memes.
User tagging as a method of adding value to collections: an interesting, alluring idea, but yeah, there are some problems.
Extra-curricular activities:
The amazing librarians of the Oregon Chapter of the Special Libraries Association let me run my own event for library students, and this is what we did. More amazing librarians came to help, and many library students -- myself not least among them -- were very, very appreciative.
A video I put together on behalf of the Oregon Health and Science University Library to express why the OHSU librarians love what they do. I've learned an immense amount from these lovely people, including what librarianship is really all about.
The amazing librarians of the Oregon Chapter of the Special Libraries Association let me run my own event for library students, and this is what we did. More amazing librarians came to help, and many library students -- myself not least among them -- were very, very appreciative.
A video I put together on behalf of the Oregon Health and Science University Library to express why the OHSU librarians love what they do. I've learned an immense amount from these lovely people, including what librarianship is really all about.
There’s so much more I still want to do, I think I’d need four or five years in library school to accomplish it all. I want to publish in a journal; I want to present at a conference; I want to find the practicum of my dreams. But even without dragging my MLS out into the next presidential administration, I’ve got a lot to look forward to in the coming year. I’m hitting the geekwork hard this year, and looking forward to moving into a shiny, brand-new digital-collections-oriented student position at my library in the fall. I’m spending a big part of my “extra” time studying programming (Javascript and Python to start) and hoping to start doing some virtual reference for Multnomah County before long. Year One has been great, but I intend to make Year Two even better. Looking forward to another busy year!
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