and that's a wrap!

For a final reflection, we are invited to look back and consider where this semester has taken us, and what it has given us as newcomers entering the LIS profession.  And as I look back on the topics we’ve covered and the work I have done, I can say with great confidence that I am glad to have begun finding my way, on this vocational journey!  There are fringe benefits for a naturally curious person like me, to be sure, in a profession that is significantly focused on learning.  But the fringe benefits are far outweighed by the great contributions that the library profession has to offer!

This class has intentionally focused on the LIS profession, and I am grateful to have had this opportunity to think early on about what it means to be a library professional. I have always sought to focus my vocational energies with a strong sense of professionalism, wherever I am – whether that has meant engaging my work and those around me with professional behavior, or standing (and learning and growing and changing) in solidarity with colleagues who share a similar professional identity and imagination.

Towards that end, as a budding LIS professional, I’ve discovered that I bring a strong desire to connect across library settings and specialties, even as I currently maintain a strong personal interest in public librarianship.  That is to say, as I continue my studies and enter into this field, I will not only continue to read and learn across specialties and disciplines, but I will actively seek to help different types of libraries build bridges that will benefit the profession at large, as they also benefit the public good.  Public libraries, school libraries, academic libraries, special libraries – all contribute significantly to the specific communities they serve.  How much more so can libraries contribute if we are able to find better ways to practice librarianship together – creating programs and services that cut across our institutional boundaries, towards greater access to information and individual and communal development?   I know, I know – budgets, time limitations, daily (weekly, monthly) work stresses, etc.  But where such collaboration is possible, it must be brought to fruition (even if it sometimes fails) – and I will bring a serious passion for such collective possibilities to any library where I am privileged to serve.

In my recent journaling about professional journals, I’ve also learned about “progressive librarianship,” and I will count that discovery as one of the more significant things I have encountered thus far.  That is to say, I’ve come to understand that the core values and ethics of professional librarians are indeed progressive values – values that focus on our social responsibility towards every human being’s potential, and therefore toward the public good.  And so, as I began this semester I also now conclude with a key assumption that can be boiled down to this: all the work that we do – the advancements toward new and ever-changing information technologies, the development of information collections, the various methods of organization and retrieval, the ethical considerations, the reference and reader’s advisory expertise, all of it – it’s about the people we are here to serve, and the society to which we offer essential contributions.  The LIS profession is about connecting people with the information that they are seeking (and perhaps even information that they didn’t yet know they were seeking), in order to enhance their lives in ways that are meaningful to them – and, ultimately, in ways that will enhance the communities and society we inhabit together.

I am excited about all that is to come, as I continue on my LIS journey – and I am proud to be connected to a professional community that is so deeply committed to public service, social responsibility and possibility, through the lenses of equal access to information, intellectual freedom and life-long learning.