When I started my master’s program, I knew I would be learning a lot. Logically, that’s what I paid for, worked for, and expected—learning. What I didn’t anticipate, however, was the depth and breadth of knowledge that would become ingrained in my very moral being. I found that earning an MLIS and becoming a librarian is far more than simply learning MARC, the Dewey system, or even how to conduct a reference interview. It means choosing to purchase a book for your patrons—even when it challenges your core personal beliefs—because you recognize the importance of intellectual freedom. It means learning about your community and realizing that, perhaps, the local high school doesn’t offer a basic financial literacy course—so you make sure that the library does.
Truthfully, the role of a librarian has shifted over millennia, just as it has shifted in my own mind throughout my education. I came in thinking I would simply be learning tools, yet I leave with an entirely new lens through which I view service, access, and community responsibility. Therefore, as I built my e-portfolio, I made sure to reflect on just how much I have learned and changed. What follows is an exploration of the most pivotal artifacts I’ve collected and how they helped me meet our five learning goals, and the vital lessons that they imparted. In the process, I hope to show how my voice, perspective, and professional identity have evolved.
Goal one—develop a professional identity and philosophy within the library and information professions—is so pivotal of the career that it deserves its number one spot. Moreover, the goal itself had encouraged me to finally sit down and debate my personal philosophy. It is unfortunately a convoluted answer. In fact, my professional philosophy has changed so drastically since my very first class, I am certain it will continue to evolve with each passing experience. To start at the beginning, as a fledgling worker in the library world—really no more than an amoeba—I held the problematic notion that a librarian’s job was to curate the best reading materials to guide patrons toward (what I thought to be) more enlightened, kind, and educated thinking. How absolutely villanous I’ve now come to realize that notion is. While I can recommend books I personally believe are valuable, it is not my job—nor should it ever be my goal—to provide only those materials. Such a practice is the core of dreaded censorship. This was an early realization. As I continued my education, this anti-censorship philosophy evolved, particularly in regard to a specific demographic: teens.
This major turning point came when I presented raw data on U.S. teens in LIS 222: Library Materials for Young Adults. We explored literacy rates, homelessness, substance use, economic status, and sexual activity. The data was sobering and sad, and it lit a burning fire of indignation under me. I came to realize that teens are some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and yet adults seem to have little patience for them. In fact, some smaller libraries discourage them from entering what is supposed to be a free, safe, and welcoming space for all—with a simple stink eye. I find this to be, frankly, ridiculous. Like the pivotal bad guys in a film.
From there, my personal philosophy began to shift toward ensuring library spaces are truly accessible, inclusive, and trustworthy for all ages and peoples. This growth is reflected in the additional artifacts I provided for this goal—such as a paper on the intentional trust-building librarians have engaged in since ancient times, and professional research I conducted on how to create welcoming spaces, especially for teens. Overall, my philosophy has transformed from a romanticized and exclusionary ideal to a grounded belief rooted in community needs, data, and professional ethics.
Our second goal—understand the essential nature of information and its relevance to our diverse society—has roots at the beginning. In fact, the very first inkling of information sharing begins at the start of life—the sperm carries DNA to the egg, the mother passes antibodies to the baby—and so the cycle continues. Thus, there is no existence without information, and in fact, it is particularly essential when shaping how a society functions. By imparting information about others peoples, times, and predictions of the future, you are shaping how you wish your society to view the world. Unfortunately, libraries and librarians are among the last bastions of free, authoritative information—making them essential to the continuation of an educated, equitable society.
The artifacts I present for this goal reflect the need for uncensored, accurate, and inclusive information. For LIS 702: Facilitating User Learning and Information Needs, I evaluated and compared the selection policies of two school systems—one in Wisconsin and the other the Chicago Public School System. Selection policies are the hub of how a library wants to handle information and impart it onto their patrons. If your policy supports DEI, authoritative authors and materials, and other best practices, then you are helping to promote the essential functions of information sharing. If your policy is not specific, lacks certain verbage, or glosses over these important facets, you are failing to realize the importance of information to our diverse society. The conclusion of this evaluation was that the school in Wisconsin did a much better job outlining best practices in their selection policy than Chicago, who had murky verbiage over the materials they chose to purchase. This was a surprising and unfortunate finding, but it taught me the importance of selection policies when it comes to the importance of information sharing.
To my surprise, the Wisconsin school’s selection policy was far more robust than Chicago’s, which used murky language and lacked clear standards. This was an unfortunate but valuable discovery that deepened my understanding of how policy shapes equitable access to information. Moreover, current events have made the stakes of censorship and poor selection policies even clearer. As book bans rise across the country, and challenges to materials with LGBTQ+ content or by authors of color become more frequent, I have felt even more strongly the need to be a librarian who defends the right to read—the right to information. Selection policies are more than paperwork; they are an ethical framework for resistance, and a way in which libraries recognize the essential need for information amongst our diverse world.
For my second artifact, I created a core collection for a new youth area in a public library. This project reinforced how important it is to acknowledge the power and inherent right of information dissemination. For exemple, choosing a book about a Native American folktale shares vital cultural knowledge. Choosing books that feature protagonists with various physical and mental abilities allows readers to understand diverse lived experiences. Thus, information sharing is essential to cultivating kindness, empathy, and understanding—and I do believe that collection development is at the heart of that mission.
A librarian’s ability to work with diverse formats is key to providing truly inclusive service. Goal three of our five centers on this skill—navigate, curate, and create information across the spectrum of human records. Whether it’s online resources, verbal information, videos, pamphlets, flyers, or even stickers—we must be able to curate and present content across all platforms for all people. This includes having large print books, braille books, braille books about Black American history, large print books about Native American history, books with strong female leads, and books that address tough topics like drug use or sex work. Diversity in content and format is essential, and the ability to do it is a hallmark of librarianship.
For this goal, I would like to chat about multiple artifacts. The first supports the “create” aspect. In LIS 702, I designed a website of resources for stressed-out medical students. The site included journal databases, mental health websites, books on managing stress, and historical texts on medical malpractice to name a few. I navigated the group’s needs, curated useful information, and created a tailored digital resource—a cumulative experience. This project taught me how to deliver authoritative information in a new format to a population I had little familiarity with—truly meeting the goal in full.
Moreover, what made this project especially meaningful was realizing how applicable these skills are to my work with teens, months now down the road. Teens also face pressure, they experience burnout, and they have a very strong need for support. The digital curation skills I developed through this project have helped me shape library resources—both physical and digital—for teen patrons who may not always know what they need but absolutely deserve thoughtful, supportive, and well-rounded services.
My second artifact centers on cataloging, which is foundational to curating any collection. This artifact is my final exam from LIS 703: Organization of Knowledge, where I used MARC coding to catalog materials while reflecting on the course’s impact via searching questions. This experience taught me how to navigate raw metadata and transform it into something accessible and findable for the average patron. It reinforced the connection between navigation, curation, and creation.
Working in a library means constantly adapting theory to practice. Serving the public is inherently dynamic, and libraries must evolve to meet changing community needs. This is where goal four comes in: synthesize theory and practice within a dynamic, evolving, and diverse information environment. Before beginning this degree, I lacked the knowledge to apply key theories to real-world problems. Now, I understand their importance and can recall important, groundwork ethics to help me navigate in the library field.
For example, the ALA Code of Ethics states that we must not “advance private interests at the expense of library users, colleagues, or our employing institutions.” Believe it or not, this tenet helped me explain to a patron why they couldn’t sell homemade bookmarks in the library. This, theoretical grounding supports ethical practice, and makes the public easier to deal with.
A key artifact for this goal was a project evaluating artificial intelligence as a tool for librarians. I asked ChatGPT, a generative AI tool, to create a public library program for teens about digital citizenship. It returned a four-part lesson plan—ideal for a school but impractical for a library, where attendance is usually limited to single-session events. You would have a hard time getting teens to come to the library four weeks in a row for a repeated informational session. Still, it provided great ideas that I adapted to suit my personal library context. This experience showed how theory (AI’s potential) must be synthesized with practice (library programming reality) to be effective—especially when meeting diverse community needs. And although I am still not a fan of ChatGPT, and I know how much clean water is uses with each silly question, I can recognize how it helps connect theory and practice in situations where it is not clear to the human mind.
In my opinion, our final goal rivals the first in importance. Goal five states that one must be able to effectively communicate and collaborate to deliver, market, and advocate for library and information services. Advocacy is critical for library survival, just like any institution in which tests the limits of time and societal development. Libraries that fail to demonstrate their value often face budget cuts or irrelevance. Effective marketing—through social media, newsletters, partnerships, and more—keeps libraries visible, vital and thriving with patrons. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on who you are, it is the reality that librarians wear many hats when it comes to this topic. They must be advocates, communicators, marketers, and collaborators wrapped up in a comfy cardigan. However, such responsibilities are doable, as proved by some of my artifacts for this goal.
My strongest artifact here is a grant proposal I wrote for LIS 725: Curriculum and School Libraries. In it, I sought funding for a CD audiobook collection for a middle school. Writing the proposal taught me how to communicate clearly, market my institution persuasively, and propose a collaborative partnership with the grantor. I learned that funders value proposals that are succinct yet heartfelt, goal-oriented, and outcome-driven. Scary words, but easy to put into practice once you know how. This assignment helped me hone the combination of advocacy, communication, and collaboration that’s essential in our profession.
Finally, as you can see, I have grown significantly—gaining skills, developing a professional philosophy, and internalizing key theories and practices in the field of information science. I feel more prepared to continue my work as a teen librarian than I ever imagined, and I intend to stay on this path as long as it remains fulfilling for both me and my community. This degree has given me confidence, and the artifacts I’ve shared represent the lessons and values I will carry with me long after I leave the ivy-covered walls of Dominican (thought I must say, I am an online student). My view of librarianship has evolved from a romanticized and narrow image to one rooted in ethics, community, and equitable access to information in all forms. I will continue to learn and grow in this career—and now, thanks to this program, I have a portfolio full of my best work and most important lessons to guide me forward. In fact, I am sure I will return to my grant proposal time and time again as a rubric for future submissions. Overall, I do look ahead with excitement that I will keep adapting to the needs of the next generation, that libraries will continue to evolve in meaningful ways, and I hope that my work will help ensure they remain essential, inclusive spaces for all who walk through their welcoming doors.
2025 ePortfolio 