Emily Fardoux GSLIS ePortfolio Sp 2014

GSLIS Program Reflective Essay

Due to the nature of the profession, perhaps, the GSLIS program is made up of students of all backgrounds, making each student a wealth of information. Many students that I have met come to pursue a Masters in Library Science from a previous career as a teacher. Some have been shuffled around in budget cuts and asked to run the school library; some have retired, discovered it wasnt for them, and decided to pursue librarianship as a quiet (ha) alternative profession. Some students I have met, like myself, worked in libraries for years and years before deciding to pursue the Masters degree. But all of us had one thing in common, no matter our background a library. Not only that, the people in the program, or at least a large portion of them, understood me understood my affinity for books, my occasional preference for main characters over best friends my love of library. Walking into class each week, no matter what term, was like walking into a room of my own people, and we all were learning, or already somewhat spoke the same language librarian. --From the first day of class to reflecting in preparation for this essay, my perspective of libraries and information centers has, at its most basic foundation, remained static. Libraries are no longer simple lending warehouses for books and other materials. They deal in and protect information and that that information can take the form of a fictional jaunt into a storybook or film world, a learning experience via a microcosm of formats, provision of a tax form, a job training program, toddler story time,

and so many more information of any kind can be acquired at a library, and it is our job as librarians to assist in its provision and free access to all. Not only can and do we protect and provide information, however. A library can be the center where new information is generated, where ideas blossom, flourish, and bloom into reality. A library can be a silent refuge, a social gathering house, and a place to simply experience. This definition of library and of information has not changed since I first set foot through the doors of Dominican University it has only set root further in the core of my identity as librarian. Two beliefs have changed, however, that I could never have predicted when I began the program. The first is my love and admiration for Maurice Sendak. As part of my graduate assistantship working for Janice Del Negro, I helped research a presentation she did on Maurice Sendaks art and illustration for Oak Park Public Library. Initially, Janice tasked me with helping her research; beginning by acquiring as many of the books Sendak illustrated as humanly possible and pore through them to gather images for the presentation and to shape Janices speech. I dreaded this task: as a child, I hated Sendak and his illustrations (though they were in some of my favorite books, like No Fighting, No Biting by Else Homelund Minarik). They made me uncomfortable in a way that I couldnt articulate. I was not overly excited about the task at hand, but began to collect books and mark illustrations I thought particularly evocative of Sendaks style and evolution as an artist. As I did this, I also collected information about Sendak for Janice though I was not myself asked to read it, I often did, interested in the man admired and loved by so many. Finally, the night of Janices presentation came, and I was still fairly ambivalent about Sendaks work, though I had finally found a few illustrations I loved. When she began to explain the perfect specimen

of picture book making that is Where the Wild Things Are the expansion of image as the story progresses, the use of white space when she recited the first sentence of the book everything clicked into place. I had one of those moments every librarian dreams about helping another experience. Her presentation dare I clich - changed my life. See goal 4, outcome for a more poetic waxing on my undying love for Maurice Sendak, and more on this moment later. The second change was my view of and willingness to work in school libraries. Growing up, my school library was always my least favorite place. I never liked any of the librarians at my school they werent anywhere near as fun and cool as my public librarians (whom I now work for and with); the library was arranged differently from my public one, so I didnt know where to find anything and didnt care to learn and I couldnt check out anywhere near as many books as I wanted. My school library was a quiet, restrictive space, where I had to do whatever activity we were doing and I couldnt disappear into the stacks and make a stack of books of my own to check out so when I got to library school, it seemed completely ridiculous that I would ever want to explore working in a school library. But when I was offered a job covering a maternity leave position in a school library, I jumped for it. Then, again, when that position opened up for a longer term, I jumped for it. Now, I spend more than forty hours a week in an independent school library, serving just over 520 students from ages 4 to 18 and it is the perfect environment for me. Through the students at my school, I have learned that a school library space is whatever its librarian makes it and soon pieced together that if I were that librarian I could change someones world. I could be the kind of librarian for a child or young adult that my librarian, Stephanie Sedik (who gave me my first job) had been to me. I

forever will be grateful to my students that not only did this realization come to me but it came to me while I was still in the graduate program. Early in my second year in the program, I began to explore the School Library Media Program requirements. I had no undergraduate background in education or teaching of any kind, so I asked my boss for an opportunity to teach an elementary class or two in our library. I was given the opportunity to teach two first grade units one on the Caldecott Medal, and one on wordless books. I was allowed to design the twoclass-period-long units (which were spread out over about a month and a half) with whatever activities I wanted. Luckily, Thom Barthlemess Services to Children and Young Adults class provided me with the foundational knowledge of programming to children, and I was only slightly daunted. I have not included this experience in my portfolio because the activity itself was not meritorious enough to be a non-program artifact however, I mention it for this reason: I learned that though I enjoy talking to children about books, sharing them, and doing brief instruction teaching is not for me. I am not meant to be a teacher I am meant to be a librarian. And so, as youll shortly read, my ideal job is in a small school library that requires no education background (so, an independent school) and no requirement to teach regular classes. --

Going back to Maurice Sendak for a moment, as hes my touchstone for articulating my definition of childrens librarianship. In an interview conducted with The Guardian before the publication of Bumble-Ardy, Sendak shocked many by stating this: I refuse to lie to children. I refuse to cater to the bullshit of innocence. My desire to work with children and young adults in libraries parallels Sendaks view of children that

they are beings deserving of the world in which we live in full, with no censorship, restricted access, or special treatment. I treat the children I know as I imagine Sendak would have with respect, and like they are my equals. In a library, a child has as much right to access information and materials as any other person perhaps even more so because of their curious, inquisitive, needy minds. This is not to say that I dont steer children in different directions occasionally when they reach a bit over their bounds more to say that I trust children to know their bounds often more than I trust adults, including myself. --Now, back to discussing the GSLIS experience. My most significant learning experiences came from class discussions whether the class session was focused on an issue or topic of library and information science or whether we were discussing a particular book. I have learned just as much from my peers in the program as I have from the excellent professors I have had the privilege of working with. The work showcased in my e-Portfolio is a microcosm of my best accomplishments in the GSLIS program however, as I mention in my artifact descriptions, I do have a few favorites I am most proud of. My strongest assignments were those with close evaluation of a book (or books) as that is my strongest area of library service interaction with the books themselves. There is almost nothing I enjoy more (or enjoyed more throughout my time in the GSLIS program) than sharing a book with someone I know (or hope) will enjoy it. Ill pull out a few examples: a 27-title book talk given in Services for Children and Young Adults in under 20 minutes; the aforementioned Sendak research paper for History of Childrens Literature that I got so caught up in and excited about my research for that I forgot to

actually start writing the paper until a few days before it was due; the challenge of describing the how and why of a fabulously illustrated picture book in only thirty-two words for an articulation assignment in Art in Picture Books; the gloriously long and delightful syllabus of quality young adult literature, six of which I chose to attempt writing professional reviews, assigned for Library Materials for Young Adults. And then there the class experiences not included: being asked by Karen Snow to create an original MARC record for anything, and poring over my copy of the AACR2 to catalog my pet hedgehog, Owl; meeting up with the entire LIS 722 class at the Oak Park movie theater to watch Mirror, Mirror on opening night just because; spending hours searching through lines of code for LIS 773 to discover one misplaced character was the reason an entire webpage had exploded into a 404 error; constant distraction during classes held in the Butler Center because I couldnt stop myself from scanning the shelves to see all the titles of the new books. --Though my identity as a librarian was solid way before I even considered pursuing the degree, it evolved strongly through the GSLIS program. After graduation, I am lucky to be able to evolve a two-year paid internship librarian position at North Shore Country Day School into a third year, where my title officially will be Librarian. Due to the nature of the position when I was first hired in 2012, which was a one to two-year intern-style paid position in the school library (hopeful candidates would include GSLIS students or recent graduates looking for in-library experience) that I am extremely lucky to have managed to extend into a third, non-intern year, less than one year from now, I will be looking for my next step in the library world.

Ideally, I would keep my current job, but gain full collection development responsibilities (as it stands now, our library is made up of four people myself, and one Academic Integrator (or Teacher Librarian) for each of the three school divisions (Lower, Middle and Upper); the Academic Integrators do the collection development for their division. I really enjoy working with the static community base of a school (which I didnt think I would have starting out I like the unpredictability and variety of working at a public library I never know who Ill see and what questions I will be asked. --All I know is, with my new title and Masters in hand, I feel ready.