During last summer’s SLA Conference a colleague of mine summed up how most people become librarians. “We never expect to become one,” he said “but somehow we all end out scanning books anyway.” Ok, he didn’t exactly say that but his point was more or less the same – few people plan on the profession becoming their life’s work. I certainly didn’t. And, I’m not sure it’ll be my “legacy” either.
In 2006, I fully expected to go to graduate school. I was going to get my Ph.D, and I was going specialize in Intellectual History. My parents still thought I’d end out going to Law School. I argue like a lawyer anyway…
To make a long story short, nobody in my family knew the first thing about the college admissions process – I’m only a second generation graduate – and my application packets weren’t great to begin with. Realistic about the schools I had gotten into, which still wern’t bad, I took a chance in St. Louis with a internship at the Missouri Historical Society, packed up, and moved from Springfield.
Just before leaving, I applied to the University of Missouri’s School of Information Science and Learning Technology. As it turned out, while writing my senior thesis one of Drury’s Librarians had suggested Library Science as a career avenue. She assuredly said that I could find work after graduating. By 2007 my internship had ended and my boss was offering me a job working on Congressman Dick Gephardt’s Congressional Papers. The advice was paying off, and the rest, as they say, is history. I worked a few library jobs. I moved to Columbia when the Gephardt Papers Project ended. And, I graduated just in time for the “Great Recession.”
Uhoh.
After several months of searching, by chance, a former Professor mentioned that the Missouri Department of Transportation was looking for a librarian. I applied and was hired.
