I had never considered becoming a librarian when I was a child: I somehow thought they emerged from the ether when needed, fully formed and ready to assist. I know now that librarians aren’t born out of thin air: they’re made. When I started as a student worker at Texas A&M University Libraries, I unknowingly set off on the path to librarianship. As I reshelved books and traversed through bibliographic records, I realized I wanted to do more: to do research, to assist people, to help facilitate this great wave of information as a curator, custodian, and librarian.
The next step was graduate school at University of North Texas at which I combined formal education with practical experience at UNT Libraries, allowing me to explore different avenues of librarianship under a guiding hand. At Texas Woman’s University and University of Texas at Dallas, I accumulated escalating responsibilities as I assisted patrons with their information needs. At Austin Community College, I confronted new challenges as I balanced both graduate studies in Learning Technologies and working full-time.
In one day, I designed and produced marketing fliers and posters for a Banned Books awareness event and oversaw distribution of information about upcoming workshops to the community through social media and internal communication channels. The next week, I finished updating a research guide and curated a selection of new books to purchase for the health sciences section.
On another day, I produced an assessment of our instruction videos and wrote a report for my supervisor which included potential avenues of improvement. In the evening, I helped a student at the reference desk by teaching them how to find articles through our research databases and assisted them in placing an interlibrary loan request.
When I first arrived at UT Dallas, I had bare bones knowledge of video production and had barely been working for a month until we were all sent to work from home in lockdown. Producing new instruction videos became a priority and I took on the task to familiarize myself with Camtasia and other software, taking the lead on helming a new wave of recorded content. Each day demands flexibility and the capability to grow to meet the needs of the library.
I have worked in libraries for over 10 years, each step coming with its own challenges as I progressed through my career. I wielded a vast array of responsibilities, which include library instruction, research assistance, marketing, collection development, event planning, social media management, video production, knowledge loss prevention, and more. I’ve learned to remain flexible and pair it with my innate need to learn and develop my capabilities. I’ve made myself a librarian and wish to continue reshaping myself further as I move along in my career. I consider each new position as another potential opportunity to utilize my current skill set while expanding my capabilities and grow both as a librarian and instructional designer.