Emily M.

King
Reflective Essay, ePortfolio Requirement
Dominican University GSLIS
November 16, 2015
In preparing to write this reflection on my time at Dominican, I have revisited all the
work I have done in my classes as well as the essay I wrote for my application to the program. I
find myself amazed at the transformation I have undergone from the time I wrote that essay a
little over two years ago to the present day. Deciding to pursue library science as a career was a
long and slow process for meI always loved books and reading but didnt think that I could
necessarily parlay those interests into any sort of career. As an undergraduate, I watched my
classmates find their passions but failed to find a particular subject that awoke the same fire
within me. I was always at my happiest when I was learning something new or digging up
sources to use for a research paper, regardless of the subject. After I graduated, I began working
at a bookstore. I loved the constant challenge of finding just the right book for a customer, but
felt that I could be doing more to help people find the best information to meet their needs.
Around this time, I began researching library jobs and discovered that most required a Masters
of Library and Information Science. I knew right away that this was what I needed to do with my
life, although I still lacked an understanding of what, exactly, librarians did.
One of the questions I am most often asked when someone finds out I am studying to
become a librarian is why do you need a degree for that? I will admit that when I first began
the program, I didnt necessarily have an answer to this question. That started to change during
my first class, LIS 701: Introduction to Library and Information Science. It was here that I first
learned that librarians, like other professionals such as doctors and lawyers, have a codified value
systemthe ALA code of ethics and core values. 701 challenged me to not only learn what these
values are, but to think more deeply about them and how they relate to everyday library
activities. One such assignment was to create an annotated bibliography (Artifact 1C) based on
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one of the core values. This exercise was incredibly daunting at the timeI was still new to
searching Crown Librarys databases and I had never created an annotated bibliography before.
However, once I started finding articles relating to the core value I had choseneducation and
life-long learningit was incredibly exciting to see the innovative ways this value was being
upheld in libraries to the benefit of patrons. During 701, we also kept a journal (Artifact 1D)
throughout the semester to relate what we were learning in class to developments both within the
library world and in the news. My journal reflects my growth throughout the semester as I began
to think like a librarian for the first time. I began to see current issues, such as the rise of big
data, through the lens of the core values of librarianship. I also began to see libraries differently
where once I saw the library as a brick-and-mortar repository for books, I now saw a dynamic
institution where the needs of the community came before the stuff the library housed.
Throughout my career as a Dominican student, I have continued to make connections
between my coursework and the core values and philosophies of the LIS professions. I have seen
time and again that values such as access are not concepts that librarians pay lip service to in
theory while ignoring in practice. One assignment that really drove home this point for me was a
group presentation I gave in LIS 748: Collection Management. During my research for my
portion of the presentation (Artifact 1B), I found several examples of incredible archival
collections that had never been catalogued or described, rendering them all but inaccessible to
researchers. This reinforced to me that collections should be built for use, with the needs of the
community that the library serves in mind. If we simply built collections for the sake of
collecting and ignored the philosophy that libraries are service-oriented institutions backed by a
set of values, they would be merely storerooms for dead paper that would quickly become
irrelevant in the information age in which we live.
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Another thing that I often hear from people when they find out that I am in library school
is will there even be libraries anymore now that we have the internet? Early on, I knew that the
answer to this question was yes! but my yes was not yet backed up by facts. I first needed to
delve deeper into questions like what is information? One assignment that I am very proud of
is a response post that I wrote in my 701 class (Artifact 2A), in which I made an attempt to
define what information actually is. I realized through this assignment that anything can be
information if it is useful to the recipient. This realization also helped me begin to articulate why
libraries will not be going anywhere, even with the advent of the internet. Of course the internet
can provide data, but I believe that libraries are simply better at distilling the huge amount of
data that exists in todays world and presenting library patrons with useful data, ergo information.
One of the ways in which libraries can be certain to be useful is to have a deep
understanding of their communities needs. This point was demonstrated again and again in one
of my favorite classes during my time in GSLIS748: Collection Management. This class gave
me insight into how libraries make the extremely difficult decision of what materials to have in
their collection in order to meet the needs of their communities while also maintaining a diverse
collection, resisting censorship in all its forms, and providing access to the collected materials.
One of the items in my ePortfolio of which I am most proud is the community analysis
assignment I completed for 748 (Artifact 2C). This project required me to delve deeply into a
communitys background, determine its needs, and identify and fill a gap in that communitys
library collection. I chose to study Detroit, Michigan and was surprised by the diversity present
in the citya diversity that was not reflected in the librarys teen collection. Armed with this
knowledge, I was able to add thoughtfully to the collection.

I also had the chance to study my own community later in the program, when I took 885:
Cultural Heritage Resources and Services. In this class, I did a two-part project in which I first
extensively studied the African American community in my hometown of Springfield, Illinois
and analyzed the availability and quality of cultural heritage institutions serving that community.
Once I identified an area in which there was room for improvement, I then created a fictional
service to better serve this community and wrote a grant proposal to secure funding for my
service. I learned so much about the hometown I thought I knew and along the way created a
program for teens, particularly African American teens, to learn more about their own storyone
which was not being told elsewhere. Although I was building a service rather than a collection,
creating the best program for the community and writing the grant proposal (Artifact 5E) were
reliant on gathering information about community needs.
In both of my community analysis projects, the goal was the provision of more
information to library users. In 806: Cataloging Objects, I rediscovered that information can be
anythingeven less information! This class was a radical departure from the more traditional
library focus in many of my other courses and I saw how the skills I was learning in my classes
(analyzing information needs, managing large volumes of data, providing access) matched with
careers I had never even considered. To this end, the final project for the class (Artifact 2D) saw
me styling myself as a personal cataloger and pitching my services to a prospective client. The
client was an art collector whose home the class had visited earlier in the semester. Analyzing
her collection, creating a plan for cataloging it, and selling that plan with my partner was an
amazing experience. It was exciting to put my traditional library skills to use in a totally new
context, while still meeting an information need.

Another important skill that I have developed in order to meet information needs is the
ability to effectively evaluate existing information and to create new information when needed.
Before starting library school, I had certainly been a victim of information overload; finding
too much information and not being able to filter it effectively. As I learned to navigate databases
and other curated sources of information, I found myself seeking out the best information, rather
than the most information. In 704: Reference and Online Services, I created a subject guide
(Artifact 3B) for students in 770: Management of Library and Information Centers needing
information on advocacy and marketing. This guide was my own first attempt at creating a
carefully curated source of information and I am very proud of the result, which is freely
accessible online and provides many different sources of trustworthy information from websites
to reference books.
Although I considered myself a database expert after taking 704, 745: Searching
Electronic Databases taught me even more. In this class, I learned not only how to hone my
search skills, but to effectively evaluate databases and to choose the best ones for my needs. I
demonstrated my ability to find the best information from the best source in my midterm project
for 745 (Artifact 3C), in which I compared Crown Librarys databases to Google Scholar. This
exercise gave me further data to back up my claim that the internet cannot replace libraries
while Google Scholar found the information I was looking for, there were many more irrelevant
results and little full-text access when compared with library sources.
I have also developed the skills necessary to manage information, thanks largely to taking
703: Organization of Knowledge and 882: Metadata for Digital Resources. In 703 I came to
understand that cataloging is an important form of access to a collection, and that providing
physical access to a building without intellectual access through quality cataloging simply is not
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good enough. I demonstrated my ability to use the many tools of catalogers to create my own
original catalog records for the 703 final exam (Artifact 3A), and my internship this semester at
the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has given me the chance to use the skills
I learned in 882 to create Dublin Core records for items relating to Illinois history. As part of my
internship, I have been revising previously created metadata, particularly subject headings.
Although I understood how important correct subject headings were in theory thanks to my
coursework, seeing how messy cataloging affects a collection in the real world has really driven
the point home. For instance, one of the things I worked on this semester at the ALPLM was a
collection of nearly 2,000 images of or pertaining to Abraham Lincoln. Searching for Lincolns
son Tad returned suspiciously few results and I realized that no less than three different terms had
been used for Tad throughout the collection! Had this not been corrected, users of the collection
may never have found the additional images of Tad grouped under the alternate names.
Although my internship has been my first work experience in the library field, I have
been examining how theory affects real-world library practice throughout my coursework. One
of the most significant projects that involved a real-world component was weeding a section of
Crown Librarys Chemistry collection for 748: Collection Management (Artifact 4B). This
project was nerve-wracking at first because I wanted to keep everything just in case I made the
wrong decision about deselecting an item. However, relying on the theory I had learned in class
gave me confidence that the deselection process would actually benefit library users, who dont
want to have to sift through outdated or irrelevant materials to find the information they need.
Although much of my coursework has focused on library materials, this semester in 779:
Planning and Design of Library Space I got the chance to examine how the library building itself
impacts patrons. A site visit to Schaumburg Township Library resulted in a detailed analysis
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(Artifact 4A) of how the theories I learned in class translated to an actual building, and how the
design of the building informed the patrons experience of the library.
Throughout my career as a student in GSLIS, I have been expected to use technology,
work in groups of all sizes, speak and write persuasively and effectively, and to listen
thoughtfully to my colleagues, professors, and guest speakers from all parts of the library field.
The emphasis on collaboration, using technology to accomplish my assignments, and on oral
presentations was particularly striking to me, as I had done very little of any of these things in
my other schooling. However, one assignment in particular drove home why I was doing all of
these things. In 770: Management of Library and Information Centers, I created a marketing plan
for a library (Artifact 5A) and studied marketing and library advocacy in the process. This
project made me realize that while librarians know the value of libraries, we also have to
continuously communicate this value to our communities. What better way to prepare future
librarians for this monumental task than to ask them to communicate effectively through a
variety of mediums and to work together?
I am still not sure exactly where my library career will take me, but I am confident that
my coursework at Dominican has prepared me to excel as an information professional. My
vision of what I can do as a librarian has expanded dramatically as my perception of libraries has
been radically changed throughout my time in the GSLIS program. I am so excited to be entering
the field as libraries are transforming the very notion of what a library is and what it can do. I
want to be a part of this shift and to help create libraries that transform their communities.