Demonstrate life-long learning skills by continually acquiring new knowledge, skills, and perspectives to respond to changing conditions
I am a life-long student and naturally curious person. This is a good trait to have as a librarian, and especially as an academic librarian. It helps me to find some interest in any reference query presented by a patron.
Curiosity also pushes me to stay current in my field. I am always interested in the latest development in learning theory, the newest textbooks and reference books, the latest theory concerning best practices in the library.
The skills that I learn as a librarian, combined with my natural love of learning and curiosity, usually result in my career as a librarian bleeding over into other projects in my life. I had the opportunity to take some skills learned as a librarian and apply them to a family project in one of my library courses.
I also had the opportunity to experience a common way for librarians to participate in continuing education while in the profession: conferences. I assisted a professor with a conference presentation, and helped her present the paper at the 13th Off Campus Library Services Conference in Salt Lake City, UT, in April of 2008.
Artifacts that demonstrate this outcome:
LI827 Preservation Strategies
Although I've never met my paternal grandfather, I was able to read and work with a diary he kept while in occupied Japan in 1946. My grandfather was also an amature photographer, so many photos accompany the diary. My project centered around both preservation of the diary, and strategies to share the diary contents without damaging the diary and photos themselves. The project is still ongoing.
Preservation Project
Diary Exerpt
The conference paper studied librarians embedded in online courses, and their interactions with students of the online courses. The paper is part of a series of studies conducted by Dr. Linda Lillard and Scott Norwood. The paper will be published in a spring edition of the Journal of Library Administration.
Conference Paper