Narratives of Academic Librarians: Chapter 1: Best Laid Plans

Chapter 1: Best Laid Plans

This is a story I share with my students. 

Because in it, that relates to what I'm doing currently. 

But it's a story I share with my students. 

When I started my undergraduate degree, I was the first person in my family to go to college. 

I had no intention of going to college, and then I hit a point where it was, you know, everybody in my family, we were a working-class family, that was it. 

Then it was what do I want to do? 

I had no clue.

College suddenly sounded like a good idea. I wound up going to school to be originally a history teacher, then English teacher for various reasons.

Then I did my student teaching and realized during the process of student teaching that, as much as I loved the students, I hated working with miserable teachers and parents who were defending bad behaviors and administrators that were enabling the parents. 

My very last semester in college, I withdrew from student teaching.  I had many undergraduate credits.  I didn't know what a master's degree was until my last year of school.

I had no clue that it existed. 

I could have gotten a master's in the process, but I had no clue.

They allowed me to graduate with my undergraduate degree.

And as part of that, I had to because I withdrew from student teaching, they made me do the evaluation just to make sure I was okay, and also a career assessment.

Number one on the career assessment was a [law related profession].

Number two was [marketing career].

Number three was librarian.

Number four was a college professor.

Teacher was like number 15 or 16. 

I still have the document because I showed it to my friends.

I'm like, what the hell does [law related profession] have to do with a librarian?

I'm like, how are these in the top three?

I did not see the connection. 

So, I plan to go to law school around the same time.

That was the best laid out plan to be a high school English teacher.

Then I plan to go to law school.

While I'm working and trying to save money, a friend of mine had a relative who was a library supervisor.

And she was like, “Hey, they need somebody with a bachelor's degree to work a few hours a week in the library. Are you interested?”

 I said “no, that sounds boring. Who needs libraries anyway?”

You know, this was [some time] ago.

I had made it through undergrad barely using my library and not receiving any worthwhile help from the librarians there.

So, like everything's on Google. Why do we need libraries? 

They came back to me two weeks later, and they still need somebody, and it pays less than $11 an hour, which at the time was more than I had ever made per hour in my life.

One of the first things they did for me was teach me how to actually use a library for research.

I was like, why did nobody do this for me(before)?

You know, (I had) over 4 years of undergraduate education.

This was never introduced to me.

I kind of became an evangelist.

Then they let me try everything.

They let me do a little cataloging.

They let me teach a few classes, I mean, just across the board.

Then I made the decision to go get my library science masters. 

So that is what that chapter is, just going from a non-academic library user to somebody that had the advantages of knowing how to use one unlocked for them.

Then going and getting the degree. 

I interned at another academic library, just so I could have a different experience. And I was shocked at how different two academic libraries could operate. 

As I've discovered in my career, every library seems to be different in a lot of key ways.

But that really gets me through, you know, that whole process, my education and my first two libraries that I worked in.