Library Careers

Editor’s note: We invited Lawrence alumni who have gone into library work to share with us what they do and how they got there.  Here’s another in a series.

During my time at Lawrence, I chose a double degree in Vocal Performance and Art History that sent me bouncing between both sides of College Avenue on a daily basis, the Mudd Library frequently serving as a midway landing spot for late-night study sessions for art history exams and a place to pick up needed scores, song translations, and research books. I didn’t work in the library but had moments that cemented it as a space and resource that was incredibly valuable to me. For example, a music theory summer research assistantship required me to browse through dozens of CDs in the collection looking for excerpts, and I spent a semester tracking down historic newspaper clippings in a dark corner on the microform reader for Dr. Alexis Boylan. I still remember when Dr. Michael Orr mentioned in a paper advising meeting, “So, there’s this tool called Jstor that you might find helpful…” that sent me down a rabbit hole of hours of keyword experimentation.

As I moved through my fourth out of five years, I contemplated graduate school in art history and decided that a museum internship would be helpful for figuring out my next steps. As I was looking for opportunities I noticed one at the Newberry Library in Chicago that I almost bypassed, but a very wise Dr. Boylan advised me to “leave no stone unturned” if it intrigued me. This was the internship that ended up working out. Stepping into that beautiful architectural space with its amazing historic collections would be enough to sell anyone on the career path of librarianship, but I found I also enjoyed my projects working in the photoduplication department, which involved photographing really interesting historic sources and digitizing print records. My supervisors saw my interest and encouraged me to think more seriously about library school. As I started to explore what library school looked like, I realized that librarianship would allow me to take my arts disciplinary interests and apply them to the field, which sold me on the career path. During my final year at Lawrence Colette Brautigam hired me in the Visual Resources Center at Wriston, and I was able to do more of this interesting work in image management that was beginning to tip towards the digital, both photographing and mounting slides for teaching, but also scanning and cataloging them to convert to electronic form.

The grad school search resulted in me attending Indiana University Bloomington where I pursued both my Masters in Library Science and a Masters in Art History. After bouncing between a number of on-campus library jobs, I landed a paid internship at DePauw University in their Visual Resource Center, which both funded my graduate work and provided amazing professional opportunities. My supervisor and other librarian colleagues were incredibly generous in the opportunities they gave me, allowing me to partner in creative projects, teach, and present at professional conferences so that I could network with the wider field of library professionals. This job also taught me what I was not; it was primarily an image cataloging and digitization job, and I learned over the course of three years that I needed something more hands-on with students. 

When I entered the job market, I looked for academic positions that would involve teaching, eventually landing the Research and Instruction position at Hope College that I have held for the last 10 years. I began as the humanities librarian but had the chance to pivot to the visual and performing arts after three years, again allowing me to apply my disciplinary passions to my work. It is wonderful working in a liberal arts environment, with students who are there to learn to be learners. My day-to-day work centers on classroom information literacy instruction, one-on-one research meetings with students and faculty, just in time support through our Research Help Desk, creation of digital research support tools, and collection development projects. My personal research interests center on how deeper knowledge of arts-specific research approaches can help libraries be more flexible supporters of creative scholarship. I also appreciate getting out of the library to connect with faculty and students and learn more about their interests. Participating in broader campus committees and projects over the years has allowed me to think more strategically about how libraries contribute to student learning. I also love not knowing what fascinating topic I’ll get to research on any given day. As Lawrence springboarded my journey as a life-long learner, it’s a privilege being in a field where I learn new things each and every day.

By Jessica Hronchek, Class of 2005

Editor’s note: We invited Lawrence alumni who have gone into library work to share with us what they do and how they got there.  Here’s another in a series.

At the end of my junior year at Lawrence, while wrapping up a tutorial meeting with Professor Carr, she asked about my post-LU plans. I had myriad answers which, in reality meant I really had no answer at all. All my life, I had been able to answer the question “What do you want to do when you grow up?” without hesitation, but a variety of unexpected, ongoing, and often debilitating health problems screwed up my plans. I no longer had a clear vision. Professor Carr sensed my confusion, smiled and said, “You might want to look into library science.” The rest is history.

Epiphany! Libraries had always been my intellectual and emotional sanctuaries, but, strangely enough, I had never seriously looked into the profession. As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by classification and organization, and not just of books: I’ve always been always curious about the philosophy and logic behind such notions, wanting to know how we describe things and classify them accordingly; the nature of the relationship between the concrete (e.g., a copy of a book) and the abstract (e.g., what a book is about); whether we organize things just for convenience, by convention, or in a manner allusive to deeper assumptions (consistent with the world carved at its joints). It only made sense to pursue a career where I could put these questions to the test and, yes, be surrounded by books, but in truth, that’s merely a bonus to my job; librarianship deals with far more than analog books nowadays. (Yes, dusty, bibliographic curmudgeons, I qualified the term book!)

Thus, I enrolled at UW-Madison’s iSchool (formerly SLIS–School of Library and Information Studies; now the Information School, a humorously vague title). Just as I matriculated, unexpected and unfortunate personal events reared their ugly heads once again, forcing me to take things at a much slower pace than originally planned. What I discovered was breathing room, allowing me to concentrate on doing a stellar job on fewer assignments and gain invaluable work experience, all of which led me to my current, dare I say it, perfect job.

A starter job as a pager in the Special Collections Department (which I loved because it allowed me to go into the vaults and inhale the archival fumes), gave me a chance to do some basic cataloging, and returned me to the meticulous world of bibliographic control. It reminded me of learning the basics of the card catalog back in grade school, when computers weren’t yet ubiquitous. Here it was: a way to utilize my love of organizing, to implement my abstract interests, and to facilitate information access and retrieval (with no appreciation from reference staff—Kidding!…kinda…).

Along the grad school way (actually, before I even started classes), I tripped over a job in the UW Law School Library. The Reference Librarian asked me to help with the library’s brand new institutional repository. Projects involved creating and maintaining collections of digital resources significant to the school’s history. I stuck with it all four years I was a student, and discovered an interest working at the intersection of analog and digital data—a fascination with the juxtaposition of old and new technology (e.g., I created electronic records for archived manuscripts and digitized old, brittle faculty photos). I worked on the faculty scholarship collection, the digital photo collection, and, my favorite, the oral histories. The Law School Library served as a guinea pig testing the new Oral History Metadata Synchronizer (OHMS), an open-source software program facilitating metadata creation for interview recordings (involving former and current faculty/staff members). I indexed, summarized, and subject cataloged entire interviews (ranging in length from 2 to 8+ hours), listening two or three times over to be sure I captured all that might be of interest to patrons. The histories were fascinating, and I enjoyed creating data that (I hoped) would help patrons find what they needed for their research. I plan to do likewise here in DC, working on improving the hitherto neglected metadata for the LOC’s Web Archive.

Speaking of the LOC, shortly before I fully entered the dreaded world of job applications, I came across an interesting opening on the iSchool’s jobs blog: a new residential program at the Library of Congress. Knowing the chances were slim at best, I took a shot in the dark and applied. Thereafter I thought little of it, staying realistic and increasingly preoccupying myself with job applications elsewhere. I had several initial interviews but no job materialized. Then, in February, I received a phone call from the Library of Congress. A section head, the librarian who created the new residency program, asked me if she could interview me. A month and a half after the interview, I was offered and accepted a place in the program.

Six months into the residency, my section decided to hang onto me permanently. I can now call myself a full-fledged librarian. I plan to move up the ranks in my division to a point where I can catalog independently and train other employees. Down the road, my supervisor will lend me to another section to help subject catalog their influx of philosophy materials (I majored in philosophy at LU and continue to study it on my own time). I also plan to get involved in the BIBFRAME Initiative, a program testing the new Bibliographic Framework data scheme to replace MARC (finally!–don’t tell a veteran cataloger I said that). The scheme will streamline cataloging across different library systems and allow users to access the institutional catalogs outside their ivory towers (e.g., when you look up a title via Google, search results finally will include library holdings). As digital libraries continue to grow, metadata remains crucial to navigating bibliographical cyberspace. I’d like to help patrons maneuver through the maze of online resources with clear, concise, and consistent metadata.

I am unbelievably fortunate to have begun my career in the largest, most respected cultural heritage institution in the world.

Thanks, again, Karen. (And thanks, Pete, for letting me pick your brain about the profession.)

By Zachary Fannin, Class of 2012

Editor’s note: We invited Lawrence alumni who have gone into library work to share with us what they do and how they got there.  Here’s another in a series.

Envy. I admit it. That’s what I feel when I think about students in college and graduate school today considering entering the library field (including my son, a current student at Lawrence). Not to be too “back in my day” about it, but when I attended Lawrence in the late ‘80s I can positively state that being a librarian never entered my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my local public library in West Bend, Wisconsin and was a frequent visitor to my school libraries and even the good old Mudd while a student at Lawrence, but it’s hard to describe to students today how much technology and culture have transformed libraries (and the role of the librarian).

Quiet. Sedate. Solitary. The libraries I used to know were filled with knowledge but were not particularly dynamic places. Going to the library (of any kind) meant entering a serious place where mostly silent, individual exploration took place. The stereotypical librarian was a “shusher” with glasses and a prim demeanor. She (typically) served in a gatekeeper role where orderly systems of classification ruled and being a patron had a definite “supplicant” feel. It was not a world I ever envisioned finding the most engaging, dynamic, and fulfilling career of my life. And yet…

If I could have majored in “Liberal Arts” at Lawrence I would have. I was interested in everything and took as long as I possibly could to pick a major, and even then chose one that spanned two disciplines (back then Lawrence had an Anthropology/Sociology department). Plus I threw in an Education minor and earned my teaching license in 7-12 Broad Fields Social Studies. Lawrence made it very difficult to leave the world of learning, so even though I was prepared to enter the classroom as a teacher, I decided to extend my studies into graduate school and entered the Masters in Sociology program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I completed the program with a thesis based on original research on the topic of urban education. After getting married and moving to New York City so my new husband could pursue graduate studies, I entered the world of publishing as an editorial assistant for an editor working on academic titles in the fields of Sociology and Philosophy, while I spent nights teaching GED and ESL classes at a non-profit community organization. Upon returning to Wisconsin three years later I took a job as an academic advisor with a program called Upward Bound, run out of the University of Wisconsin-Sheboygan campus and three years after that I became pregnant with my first child and found myself moving again so my husband could pursue his career. Whew.

Taking time off from paid employment to be a stay-at-home parent to my two children was definitely not time wasted (in fact I highly recommend it if money and circumstance allow), but it did create a sizable hole in my resume when I decided to return to the work world when my younger child started Kindergarten. I knew I wanted a career again, a profession that would be part of my identity and allow me to fulfill my potential. Traditional teaching was obviously an option, but I didn’t have the same passion for it that I did when I was younger. I considered other roles within the education field, such as counselor, or reading specialist, because I had really enjoyed the one-on-one relationships I built with students when I worked for Upward Bound, but I knew I needed to go back to school on some level to refresh my knowledge and credentials before anyone would hire me.

I turned to the website for the UW-Milwaukee Graduate School to see what programs were available that might allow me to combine taking courses in-person with an online component, because I still had young kids and driving 35 miles from my home in Racine, Wisconsin was not always possible. It is there, while perusing the various programs, that I first laid eyes on the School of Information Studies (SOIS). Have you ever had one of those moments where everything just came into focus? I was excited and surprised. Course titles like The Organization of Information, Information Access and Retrieval, Metadata, and Information Ethics intrigued me. What sold me was the ability to combine a Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) with the certification for a School Library Media Specialist license (K-12) by taking courses like Library Services for Children and Young Adults and Multicultural Children’s Literature. It felt like a great fit, so I enrolled in January of 2008 and never looked back.

How had this field escaped my attention all this time? Well, a little thing called the Internet took over the world in the time since I left Lawrence in 1989, and libraries and librarians have been leading the way as innovators and navigators of this brave new world. Now I work as a Library Media Specialist (sometimes referred to as Teacher Librarian) in a public middle school serving more than 800 students in a very culturally and economically diverse community. I am certainly proud of the collection of books I have selected and curated over the years but I am not the English-major book nerd that is often part of the librarian profile. I approach my profession as a Lawrence graduate, a liberal arts nerd who is fascinated by and knowledgeable about many different fields and topics. I collaborate with my social studies, math, science, art, music, and even gym teachers as much as I do my English faculty. The online world is a wonderful and terrifying place for kids and adults and a large part of my value to my school is my ability to make technology and digital information accessible, manageable, and meaningful. I collaborate, I troubleshoot, I teach, I counsel, I provide inspiration and sometimes refuge. Every day is a different schedule and a different challenge. I get to know and serve every student and teacher in my building. I also have chosen to participate in my profession by serving on task forces and committees for the American Library Association (ALA) and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), which is just the cherry on top of my already awesome job because I get to know and work with amazing librarians from around the country. (I’m currently serving on the Odyssey Award 2019 committee which selects the best audiobook created for children each year).

So, yeah. Do I wish I had found this career earlier? Absolutely, but I also recognize that the school library of my childhood was nothing like the one I work in today, so I just have to be grateful that I’m able to spend the 2nd half of my working life in a job I truly love (and also a little envious of those who can embark on a vital career in libraries right out of college).

By Elizabeth Bast, Class of 1989

Editor’s note: We invited Lawrence alumni who have gone into library work to share with us what they do and how they got there.  Here’s another in a series. 

Thanks to the librarian alums who have gone before me on this blog and set the tone of telling the interesting story of how they came to be a librarian! It is one of those professions that prompts that question. From the outside, it’s not totally clear what librarians do. So it’s even less clear why or how someone came to find themselves in the role (other than being big readers, which not all librarians are.)

So here’s my story. During my four years at Lawrence, I was always on what felt like a pretty clear path: I would get really good grades, get my BA, and then go to grad school.

Senior year, I was nearing the end of that path. I had decided to explore journalism after a few years writing and editing for The Lawrentian. I was also armed with the knowledge that, despite working on an Honor’s Project in English, I did not want to pursue higher education in that subject because I did not want to be a professor. After a trip to New York City to explore NYU’s journalism program, I was totally disillusioned. I had a Rory Gilmore moment while there. I was used to being a sort of big fish at a small high school and then in the English department at Lawrence, but visiting a top journalism school in the Big Apple I felt like a single-celled organism floating in the Pacific Ocean. And I felt as spineless as one, too. In the end I graduated and then moved home with no plan.

Through twists and turns, I found myself 18 months post-Lawrence doing the tremendously unsatisfying work of a classified ad salesperson at a newspaper in North Dakota. One day I was walking my dogs and listening to a podcast of the public radio show, To The Best of Our Knowledge (produced right here in Wisconsin!). They were talking about public libraries, and profiled a book called This Book is Overdue! which I promptly went to the library to check out. In pretty quick succession, I applied for grad school, moved to Illinois, and spent two amazing years at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying library science and working as a graduate assistant at the Undergraduate Library. Yes, Lawrentians: they have one whole library just for undergrads! Big schools are so weird!

Now, I am the Assistant Director at Shorewood Public Library.

A few important things happened along the way to becoming a librarian, many of them at Lawrence. I’ll use these experiences to give you an idea of what a librarian does, at least this librarian.

I didn’t have one of those highly coveted jobs at the Mudd, but my jobs on campus gave me what turned out to be relevant experience for what I do as a librarian. Editing at The Lawrentian taught me to work strategically with a team, focus my creativity and turn work around quickly for a deadline. Tutoring at the Center for Teaching and Learning taught me to communicate tricky concepts in easy to understand ways, lead by example, and engage the learner in the process. I call on the multi-dimensional education I got at Lawrence when someone asks me for help finding a definition of modernism in poetry, or finding information on African explorers in the New World, or when I select new music for our collection, or when I write and edit library policies and procedures, or when I have to clean up puke. If only I were joking.

When a young woman asked me recently why people started writing books (I can’t make this stuff up), the librarian in me had the patience and forethought to answer her question as simply as I could (no library patron needs to hear a dissertation, but many want to give you one), but it was the Lawrentian in me who had the knowledge and confidence to answer.

By Emily Passey Vieyra, Class of 2008

My path to librarianship has felt fluid and fated in many ways.  With a multidisciplinary approach to a career in libraries, it is no wonder Lawrence has had such a huge impact on my path.  I have always been a lover of books, spending much of my childhood and adult life immersed in literature and libraries.  But it was fateful day at Lawrence University that set my sites on the world of books as my career.

That day Julie Lindemann and Johnie Shimon took my Intermediate Photography class to the LU Archives, I place I had never stepped foot in throughout my previous time at Lawrence.  Erin Dix, the University Archivist, had brought out a collection of glass plate slides for our class to look at and study.  She talked about the primary sources overflowing the archives and the unique ways such collections came to their Lawrence home.  The best way I can describe that experience of being surrounded by history in those archives… wonderment.  The glass slides tapped into a nostalgia and appreciation so deep it became a day and experience I would ever forget.

But that day came and went.  While memorable and important looking back, I was not as sure of what I wanted out of life as I began wrapping up my time at Lawrence.  After graduating in 2012 with a BA in English and a minor in Studio Art, I spent two years moving around, trying different jobs, and feeling incredibly unsatisfied.  And I know I cannot be the only one to have these post-graduation blues and trials.  After lots of ups-and-downs in my career path (mostly downs it seemed like at the time), I decided to tap back into that day in the archives.  If I could not access a fulfilling career with the credentials I had, it was time to change those credentials.

I applied to six different library programs throughout the United States, and subsequently visited three in person.  And to assist in learning more about libraries and archives while I applied, I went back to Lawrence to volunteer with Erin Dix in the University Archives.  I loved having an excuse to visit campus each week, and loved even more the amount of skills and information I was able to learn from Erin while I worked with her.

I ended up with an acceptance letter to the top library program in the country, in a small town I had never heard of prior to sending in my application, the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (yes, quite the mouthful).  But it was not just the high credentials of the program that drew me to UIUC.  My in-person visit assured my of the breadth and depth the program had to offer.  Not only would I leave after two years with my Master of Science in Library and Information Science (MSLIS, we library-folk love our acronyms), but I could do it by catering the program to my interests in the fields (there is that multidisciplinary approach coming back in).  On top of the academic love for the program I was just accepted to, I also received a Graduate Assistantship in Conservation.  Now, I had never even heard of conservation, but what I learned brought back that archives-wonderment feeling.  A job that blended books, archives, libraries, and art… yes, yes please.

My experience in the conservation lab was nothing short of amazing.  I was able to work alongside of incredibly talented and knowledgeable people in the field who offered me insight and training.  I was able to work on historical items ranging from the papers of Gregor Mendel to an Ian Fleming collection and beyond.  Gaining this incredible work experience alongside of a strong and vast library education gave my career-searching heart everything it was looking for and more.

But graduate school comes to an end all too quickly, and so began a carer-hunt extravaganza.  Months of applications, resumes, and cover letters took over any speck of free time that I had while finishing up my grad program.  All that work paid off when I took on my current job at the Newberry Library in Chicago as their Conservator for Special Projects.  At the Newberry I am greatly involved in the treatment and preparation of the many items that go on exhibit every year, while also continually working on treatment for the vast and varied collections the library houses. (Seriously, these collections are amazing. Next time you are in Chicago, stop by for a visit, the Newberry is free and open to the public, that means you!)  Honestly, it is a dream job.  It blends my interests of literature and art perfectly.  Every day I go to work the library offers new and interesting challenges that bring amazing historic items across my bench.  And it is a career that means I will be continually learning—learning new treatments, seeking new insights from other professionals in the field, researching collections and their uses in the library—which means my career will be a constant source of inspiration and enjoyment.

When I started my education at Lawrence I did not foresee where it would lead me, but as I look back from my bench at the Newberry I see a clear path of how I got here.  Libraries have so much to offer, and I hope that there are many future librarians sitting in Lawrence’s classes today.

By Kasie Janssen, Class of 2012

Editor’s note: We invited Lawrence alumni who have gone into library work to share with us what they do and how they got there.  Here’s another in a series. 

Like many people who’ve found their career in libraries, I didn’t start out thinking I was going to be a librarian. I was a typical Lawrentian in that I had many interests, but I wasn’t sure where they would take me after graduation. As my senior year loomed I was getting anxious about what to do next – I majored in philosophy and German, which while both fascinating, didn’t point me toward a definite career path. Then one day, I was working an afternoon shift at the circulation desk, and I distinctly remember looking around the first floor at all the books and the people studying and thinking, “Hmm, I really like it here.” I decided to follow up on that instinct and started researching librarianship. After reading about grad programs I was still intrigued, so I decided to talk to some real life librarians to find out more.

Hearing the stories of the librarians at the Mudd was what sealed the deal for me. As I listened, I noticed we had a lot in common. They were all multi-interested people with a love for learning and a passion for helping students. They sounded like my kind of people.

The next year, I submitted my application to the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) and was ecstatic when I found out I’d been accepted. I graduated from Lawrence in 2013 and started at Madison in the fall. Madison’s program turned out to be a great fit for me, and I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I had there to get some hands on experience both in my student jobs, and the credit-bearing practicums I completed.

I had the good fortune to work at the Wisconsin Historical Society, as well as at the SLIS Library (that’s right, they have an entire library about libraries). These two jobs were very different, but they taught me just as much about working in libraries as I learned in my classes. At the Historical Society I worked in the periodicals department, checking in magazines and newspapers, and helping with a long-term storage project for their extensive newspaper collection. At the SLIS Library, I worked at the circulation desk, checking out materials, putting things on reserve, and teaching occasional technology workshops for my fellow students as well as those in the distance cohort.

Before grad school I didn’t realize that librarians could also be teachers, but now it’s one of the primary aspects of my job. I learned about teaching in libraries by taking classes on information literacy pedagogy and through an instruction practicum in which I co-taught an online course. I would strongly recommend to any student interested in libraries take advantage of whatever opportunities you can to get some hands on experience. The skills I learned in my practicums and in my student jobs gave me the edge that helped me land my first real library job after graduation.

I now work as the Humanities and Education Librarian at the University of Dubuque, a small private school, only slightly larger than Lawrence. My time is usually spent teaching information literacy in the core curriculum as well as other courses in my liaison areas, helping students one-on-one at the reference desk, and buying materials for the library. I’ve also had the chance at UD to nurture the curiosity I cultivated at Lawrence by doing my own research. Last year I worked on a paper for UD’s character education journal, Character And… about online privacy and character formation. This was especially exciting for me, because it gave me a chance to use the ethics background I gained as a philosophy major.

I’ve been at the University of Dubuque for two years now and I feel extremely lucky to be here. The small college atmosphere is where I feel most at home and I work on a library staff of ten wonderful people who all share the same enthusiasm for their work as I saw in the librarians at the Mudd. My job is different every day, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I didn’t start out thinking I’d be a librarian, but now that I’m here I can’t believe the idea didn’t occur to me sooner. Librarians are curious about myriad subjects, adept at solving problems, and passionate about helping others. All of these characteristics can also describe Lawrence graduates. In conclusion, for any Lawrentians looking for an enriching career, give libraries a chance. I found my people here, and perhaps you will too.

By Sarah Slaughter, Class of 2013