My journey towards becoming a librarian has been a long and circuitous one. Many people, from a young age, have a clear sense of what they want to do with their lives. I was not one of those people. After graduating from the University of Oregon in 1998, I still had absolutely no idea what direction I wanted to take my life. I was, however, very sure that I did not want to follow the same path I saw many of my classmates taking: retail management, insurance, auto sales and a variety of other mundane vocations which, while being a way to pay the bills, offered no real sense of purpose or service to the greater world. Rather than commit myself to a career I felt no interest or passion in, I decided to keep doing what I had been doing: working at menial, sustenance level jobs while I waited for my real life to begin.
And the years rolled by…
By the summer of 2006, having grown weary of waiting for my true calling to be revealed, I decided to take a more proactive approach. In looking for a career which would be the embodiment of all of the professional values I hold dear (education, community service, and organization), I kept coming back to “librarian". In June of that year, I bought a stack of GRE study guides, and the rest is history.
This portfolio represents the culmination of more than two years of research and work. Within it, I have presented representative artifacts which clearly exhibit my professional development and integration of the Emporia State University School of Library and Information Management's professional values and outcomes. The constant application of these values and outcomes throughout the SLIM program have played an integral part in helping me narrow my professional focus, measure my progress as an information professional, and develop a clear understanding of my newfound value to the larger society.
I feel privileged to be a member of the Oregon 8 cohort. I could not have asked to have been assigned to a better group of individuals. Without their creativity, encouragement, approachability, and willingness to share, the past two years would not have been as enjoyable and inspiring as they have been. I would not be here without them.
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