• Introduction
• Philosophy
• Competency A
• Competency B
• Competency C
• Competency D
• Competency E
• Competency F
• Competency G
• Competency H
• Competency I
• Competency J
• Competency K
• Competency L
• Competency M
• Competency N
• Conclusion

Reflections

When I began my MLIS program in August of 2006, I had never worked in a library. Consequently, I had only the vaguest of notions about where my interest in the information profession would take me and what sort of coursework I would pursue. I knew that I was very much interested in public service, so I chose many of my courses from the Reference Services and Instruction specialization. I also had a strong interest in technological tools, which I incorporated by choosing several courses from the Web Design and Technology specialization. I believe that the combination of these two specializations provided me with a strong set of skills for public service work. In my current position as Reference Assistant at UC Berkeley's Bioscience Library, I am well served by the foundational principles of reference service and instruction that I learned from such courses as Reference and Information Services (LIBR 210) and Advanced Information Resources and Services (LIBR 228). I also rely heavily on skills learned in Information Technology Tools and Applications (LIBR 240) and in three sections of Advanced Information Technology Tools and Applications (LIBR 246 - PHP/MySQL, Web 2.0, and XML) in order to maintain and create web-based resources for our patrons.

I also realized, at the outset of my library school career, that there's no substitute for professional experience, so I resolved to avail myself of as many opportunities in that arena as I possibly could while in library school. In fact, I decided to stretch out my time in library school to three academic years rather than two in order to give myself the time and flexibility to amass a strong body of professional experience upon graduation. After two semesters in the program, I left my job as staff biologist at a small non-profit bird conservation organization to begin working as a library assistant at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). At the same time, I held a part-time position at SLIS working as a student assistant for the Assistant Director of Research and Professional Practice. I completed one formal reference and instruction internship at UC Berkeley's Bioscience Library (which led to my current position there) and one informal internship, a ten-week data curation position for Cornell's Albert R. Mann Library. Additionally, I sought out opportunities to engage in a variety of professional-level activities, publishing (with two other SLIS students) a column in the summer 2008 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly, presenting the outcomes of my Cornell internship at the DigCCurr 2009 conference in North Carolina, and demonstrating open-source screencasting software to attendees of the Educational Technologies Symposium (Sept. 6, 2008, San Jose), among other activities.

Strengths

I believe that this combination of scholarly and professional achievement has provided me with a number of strengths that will serve me well throughout my career in librarianship. I have a very solid foundation in the provision of reference service, particularly to patrons seeking information in the life sciences, through a combination of the coursework described above and my professional experiences at CASBS and UC Berkeley. I have a similarly strong background in both online and in-person instruction, based on previous teaching experiences in biology, lessons learned in courses such as LIBR 228, and my work at UC Berkeley delivering in-person instruction sessions to undergraduate biology students as well as developing online tutorials to introduce students to finding information in the life sciences. I have good technical skills, earned through the application of lessons from LIBR 240 and LIBR 246, and I believe that I have an aptitude for quickly learning new technologies. These strengths, along with my science background, will be instrumental in helping me to achieve my goal of working as a subject librarian in an academic science library.

Professional Development

In continuing my professional development, I have aspirations for further learning in several key areas that I've outlined in my statement of professional philosophy. Although I feel that I already have fairly good communication and collaboration skills, I would like to work on developing my professional self-confidence to the point where I feel more comfortable representing myself and my library to other professionals and to faculty in the departments I serve. I think that these sorts of skills are developed through practice and time, and I can create opportunities for practice by attending more professional meetings, contributing to committees at my workplace, and by increasing opportunities for interactions with faculty by attending seminars and other departmental events. I plan to further my understanding of instructional design principles and active learning techniques, in order to support my goal of cultivating critical thinking skills in students of the life sciences. A newly-formed Instructor Development Program at UC Berkeley Library, which through monthly meetings will help staff to incorporate active learning techniques into online and in-person instruction, will be one key way in which I can develop these skills. I also plan to further explore my interest in open access publishing, to provide a more solid foundation for advocacy and education activities in that area. One of my supervisors at UC Berkeley is very active in issues surrounding open access; she's on the Public Library of Science's board of directors and spearheads the Berkeley Research Impact Initiative, which provides funding for authors who wish to publish their research in open access journals. I intend to ask her how I can become involved in similar activities, and I plan to keep abreast of developments in the open access landscape by reading up on current happenings in news feeds and blogs. And finally, I would like to expand my understanding of the both the issues surrounding data curation initiatives and some of the technical nuts and bolts of creating data repositories. I'm currently involved in a GIS Task Force at UC Berkeley, for which, among other activities, we're investigating the possibility of building a repository for researchers who work with or create GIS datasets. Work with this task force may afford me with the opportunity to pursue professional development activities in this area; for instance, during the summer of 2010 the Data Curation Education Program at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is hosting a Data Curation Summer Institute oriented towards the curation of GIS and social sciences datasets.

Closing Words

Like just about anything in life, what you get out of an MLIS program corresponds to what you put into it. While working on my MLIS, I encountered many opportunities to explore, to network, and to challenge myself professionally. I'm grateful for all of these opportunities, but I'm also proud of myself for seizing these opportunities, working hard, and excelling in this program. I feel confident that the work that I've done at SLIS has prepared me to achieve my goals, and I'm excited about the future that lies before me.

Affirmation Statement

I affirm that all introductory, reflective, and evidentiary work submitted is mine alone (except where indicated as a group or team project), and has been prepared solely by me.