My Career In The Library

Like most students at Clemson University, I spent countless hours of my undergraduate years studying in the library. Unlike many of them, I also spent much of my free time there, and as a freshman, I was nearly locked into the building one Friday night. (Someone had told me it stayed open all night long...and had failed to mention that only applied to weeknights.) As I worked toward my history degree, searching through the stacks and scrolling through countless online databases was my favorite part of writing any paper. With experience, I became increasingly well-versed in using all the physical and digital resources the library had to offer and enjoyed helping my classmates with their own research. I grew up frequenting my local public library, …show more content…
Aside from my love of research, my time working in a public library has shown me that many people, even college-educated adults, just don’t know the first thing about using any of our resources. I find this troubling, not just because I think libraries are important, but because I can see that the kind of skills that facilitate good library use are desperately needed to navigate the increasingly information-dense world we live in. I want to work with students and faculty to help them utilize the not only the relatively organized physical library, but also the myriad and indiscriminate resources that we carry in our pockets constantly. I’m especially drawn to the idea of working within a community college system, where I may have a chance to make a more direct impact on students and the larger community through instructional programs and classes. The library in which I work is in an area with a significant population of minorities and low-income individuals, and I’ve seen directly the difference that libraries and information access can make for marginalized groups. Community colleges already serve excellently to benefit these peoples, and I think that, with the increasing importance of post-secondary education, they could serve as a wonderful platform to teach students about the function and use of all libraries. I would very much like to play a part in