"There are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something."
To say I have a singular professional philosophy would be a disservice to the fusion of my background and ultimate view on professional Librarianship and education. To do that would be to imply that one philosophy, one way of doing things, would be all I need to subscribe to throughout my career as a Librarian. That in itself would be against my philosophy. So, I say, that my philosophy transcends a singular existence into a mutable one. My professional philosophy has built itself on both my professional history and my educational experiences.
The idea of Librarianship as a career started as a personal passion and working with books and libraries. Around the same time as I began to entertain this notion, I began my undergraduate education at the progressive, highly underrated Evergreen State College. There, I was introduced to a social, interdisciplinary approach to education where every student's education was approached under an umbrella of a program that explored the interconnected nature of information, as well as, what you learn rather than what grade you earn. As with in a library, in this school, what you put in is what you get out. At this point in my life the world became my library and I began to view the world of information as obtainable, as well as for anybody, not just for Ivy League students, wealthy private school children, or those whom earning A's was just a matter of memorizing facts. Before this, I believed that a good education, and the best of information, was only truly obtainable, to someone else, someone better (and wealthier) than I. This was a huge change in my fabric of existence and the way I viewed the world, not just for me, but for others. And although I may have verbally expressed democratic ideas of information and education, up until this point, I didn't truly believe it until attending The Evergreen State College.
While I was at Evergreen, I began my first job as a library employee in the Campus Library. There I began to explore the Library and what it had to offer. During this time, something extraordinary happened: I got my first computer and the school adopted Google as their main search engine. To say that embracing the computer at the same time as working in the library (and attending such a progressive school) was a life changer, would be an understatement. The electric typewriter was traded in for an old Macintosh after I began spending just as much time in the stacks as I did in the Computer Lab. A new world was opening up, and I could plainly see that it was opening up for the whole world as well. It was a revelation that grew like a snowball throughout my education. Even as I worked at Barnes and Noble Booksellers to help me get through school (and to add financially to the Library Work-Study program), my love of books and information was strengthened by the computer. The computer helped lubricate my search for book titles, as well as, became a source of information itself. All the while, Librarians would assist me in my searches and discovery of how to use these services. Like Linton Weeks stated in the Washington Post, "In the non-stop tsunami of global information librarians provide us
with floaties and teach us to swim." As a result of librarian's assisting me, I would assist others in their search at the Bookstore. It was a spiraling of information that was set into motion and I began to believe what Samuel Johnson stated, "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." Knowledge wasn't this allusive thing that was with-held for the few (the highly educated, the rich, etc). It became my dream to be a conduit, much like a power cord, for information travel and protection of that current. I found that I had a passion and skill for being the "in between" for people and books or information. I was great at both dealing with people and delivering information. Furthermore, I was equally good at displaying, shelving, organizing, and protecting that information, much like the rubber of a power cord. And most importantly, I believed in the idea that everyone had a right to information.
Thomas Jefferson said, "I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the country under regulations as would secure their safe return in due time." So, as I left College and graduated with my new found sense of access to information and bibliophilia, I knew I wanted to be at the front lines of and in libraries, education, information, and books. So I worked at Barnes and Noble until I got my first post B.A. job at The Beverly Hills Public Library. I worked in this field and continued learning and shelving in The Dewey Decimal System, working in Periodicals with the Histories of Newspapers and Magazines, and ultimately readying myself to continue my professional education. I was torn between education (becoming a teacher) and librarianship. I just couldn't choose. The fact that I couldn't choose is ultimately what played the biggest part in the dual nature of my philosophy of Librarianship today. Ultimately, Librarians are both teachers and students, and having a background in education would only amplify my voice as a Librarian. However, I wasn't able to understand this synthesis until later.
I felt as if I was betraying libraries and books, but I chose to study to become a teacher. I felt a calling to do so. I learned about how children and people learn, developmental milestones and psychology, how to teach, and best of all about myself: that I truly had a progressive view of education! I learned about Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory, and for the first time in my life was validated in a belief that everybody could learn and does learn in their own way. I also realized that our current systems of learning in this Country serve only one kind of learner: the one that can memorize and take tests. Furthermore, I saw first hand how schools were only one piece in the puzzle and how crucial Public Libraries really were. Schools set a framework at best, reaching some but not all. Libraries, have an open door to all, and the ability to reach people individually (and that is just the tip of the iceberg).
After I got my preliminary credential and did my student and substitute teaching, I took a job back at The Beverly Hills Library, only this time, I was teaching at the library! Here is where another metamorphosis occurred. I realized that the library was not only a shrine and house of information (an autonomous experience) but rather a learning organization. A place that offered help to people help themselves, whatever they needed to learn. In my case I began to teach in the literacy program facilitating and coordinating the Family Literacy Workshop to help families who had one or more parents who couldn't read (in some case in English and in others the school system failed them) with children under five. The idea being, parents that read to their children help combat second generation illiteracy. This job, as well as the incomparable and uncompromising support and input from my literacy team and professional colleagues, played a huge part in my education.
Seeing the fusion of both my passions lead to the inevitable desire to obtain my Master's in Library and Information Science. With that came the crux of my professional philosophy. I saw the heartbeat of information: the history, the future and where we are in the protection and accessibility of information in America today. My classes focused on public services, Intellectual Freedom, collection development and information retrieval. The MLIS program only scratched the surface, however it become evident that I was a fierce proponent of Intellectual Freedom. It may even be the inner core of my evolving philosophy: the part that never changes, despite the ever-changing way in which we produce, deliver and store information.
The culmination of all that I learned in this program, and even the vast amount of change that occurred within just the three years I attended classes, showed me that reflection and the ability to continue to learn and grow is the most important part of being a professional that protects and deals with information and people. To subscribe to a standard way, an out-dated mode of operation, or a personal stance, is to be in direct opposition to what libraries and librarians stand for. We are our libraries in the sense that our experiences make up the stacks, virtual shelves and architecture of a "library." We are ever changing as individuals and as a society. We learn and hold belief systems in different ways, which are all valid, and should all be represented and respected. Librarians are conduits of this experience and they serve the public to make access of information for all. Having the skills necessary to carry out this mission requires knowledge of every aspect of function of a library or the ability to learn it. It is not what we already know but how we can build upon what we have learned.
Perhaps the biggest lesson I learned is that there isn't just one lesson in order to become a professional Librarian. Learning is ongoing and I hope to begin my career in a Library that embraces the Librarian as a conduit, a teacher and a student as well. A library is not a place to "shhush" ideas and learning but rather should be seen as Paula Poundstone observed it to be...
"It's funny that we think of libraries as quiet demure places where we are shushed by dusty, bun-balancing, bespectacled women. The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community. Librarians have stood up to the Patriot Act, sat down with noisy toddlers and reached out to illiterate adults. Libraries can never be shushed."
From the Library at Alexandria to The American Public Library today, Librarians have been the gatekeepers of the informational and educational movement. Librarians should stand at the precipice of change and usher in progressive practice. They should welcome and outreach ideas and teamwork-fueled management. They should follow anti-censorship values and develop a collection that reflects it. The should attend conferences and be ardent facilitators of staff trainings and continued education. They should be fierce defenders during recession, for like Eleanor Crumblehulme said so unabashedly, "Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague." For me, my path and philosophy is clear. What I have begun here will be the springboard to a continuation of philosophies and ideas about librarianship. But the one thing that will never change is a person's right to information. How we deliver that right is an ongoing philosophy.
"If it is right that schools should be maintained by the whole community for the well-being of the whole, it is right also that libraries should be so maintained."
--Industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, 1904
“Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission.”
--Toni Morrison
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