LAMP Spotlight – Damon McGhee

The friends and acquaintances that I have made at the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign will always remain a memorable part of my life. As a LAMP scholar I have extended my knowledge wonderfully and gained an even more enveloping gratitude for the work done in the implementation of a program like LAMP. I am able to go places and do things that previously were not possible for me. In mid-July, I will be traveling to Sao Tome off the west coast of Africa to investigate the sustainability of computer technologies in a developing country. This move is part of the Community Informatics Initiative, but more than that it is about people communicating with people. Instigating a dialogue between people allows for learning and engages a community. Currently, I am a Graduate Assistant in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Illinois. I hope this work and my familiarity with rare books and archives allows me to gain further knowledge about people and how they use rare books and other materials.

LAMP Spotlight – Bojana Skarich

Libraries have made a huge impact on my life and have given me many tools to succeed. I believe I am a successful person today because of them. My family were immigrants and we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on books, movies or CDs. I remember that my mom would take me to the library and show me that you could borrow all of these materials for free. Her taking me every Sunday to the library gave me an abundance of knowledge and curiosity. Libraries supplied me with the stories, adventures and with educational materials that I could not have obtained otherwise, and with the joy at knowledge for its own sake.

All throughout college, I relied on the Interlibrary Loan system to provide me with text books and this also helped me grow and develop. I loved searching for materials and shelf browsing to develop ideas for my senior thesis. I remember when I graduated from college and was looking for work, I would use the Internet at the local public library in order to send resumes and look up available jobs. There were not many jobs beyond minimum wage -even for college graduates – in Portland, OR where I lived, and I was growing anxious over what I could do to support myself. I worked a couple of retail jobs, and although I could serve people, I felt that I wanted something more to stimulate my intellect. I communicated with several of my friends over email, and one of them, who is a librarian, recommended that I too, become a librarian.

She gave me information about LAMP’s scholarship program and I thought, Why not? I’ll give it a try! When I won the scholarship a few months later, I was ecstatic. I literally jumped for joy. I was flown out to Milwaukee, in Wisconsin for a summer seminar in order to meet with the other scholarship recipients. It was great to get a chance to meet everyone and the scholarship coordinators were so personable and generous. I was later accepted into the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the nation’s premiere Library Science program. I was delighted. My brother was very proud of me and said he was glad I had decided to “stay close to the books.” I have truly found a niche here at Illinois. I’m working as a Graduate Assistant in reference services at the Education and Social Sciences Library, and am also interning at Illinois’s institutional repository. As I help patrons with their research, or think critically about how technology can better serve the academic community, I feel like for the first time in my life I am a professional and that my talents are being recognized, utilized and refined by my classroom and work experiences.

I am interested in digital libraries, metadata standards, and the development of effective and integrated information networks that highlight a university’s intellectual output. I want to continue to grow both professionally and personally in my career and would like to be an academic Digital Services Librarian in Northern California. I want to work in libraries because they are a part of my spirit, and encourage me to continue growing, questioning and discovering.

I look forward to seeing you there,
Gabe

PS: Music suggestions are welcome. Also, if you have any ideas for a reading group over the summer highlighting diversity issues I would welcome those as well.

Lamp Spotlight – Rosalind Fielder

My year-long pre-professional graduate assistantship at the Government Documents Library at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign was essential to my professional development as a reference librarian. The assistantship allowed me to gain significant experience working directly with library patrons in real-time, both face-to-face and via online chat. It allowed me to experience first-hand the unpredictability of patron-librarian interactions, which involve agood deal of give and take, thinking on one’s feet, and making adjustments based on new information, a patron’s knowledge level, or a user’s preferences. I also gained insight into the daily work life of practicing librarians, which often involves navigating among competing demands. ]]> http://lisaccess.org/lamp/?feed=rss2&p=347 142 http://lisaccess.org/lamp/?p=212 http://lisaccess.org/lamp/?p=212#comments Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:26:18 +0000 kayte7 http://blog.lisaccess.org/lamp/?p=212 Title: Wisconsin Library Conference
Location: Wisconsin
Link out: Click here
Start Date: 2008-11-04
End Date: 2008-11-07