Ever since I was 17, I knew that I would someday attend the University of Michigan's School of Information to become an ALA certified librarian. I have always loved to read, and during my junior year in high school, I started volunteering at a small academic library. The president of the seminary had donated his own personal library to the school. He had created his own handwritten cataloging system, and the part-time librarian was looking for some volunteer help to convert the cataloging system to the Library of Congress system. What started out as volunteering turned into paying job, and sparked my desire to work as a librarian for my occupation.
Because I have experience working in an academic library, it would be presumed that I will continue working in an academic library when I am finished at the School of Information. However, I do have an interest in working with preservation and conservation, and interests in Youth and Young Adult librarianship. As a child, I loved to read, devouring series after series of books. I read the Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Babysitter's Club, The Saddle Club, and hundreds of other books. I parents would have to pry me away from my fourth book of the day to force me to get some fresh air. I want to be able to encourage children to explore the world of literature, to love the classics, and get lost in the fantasies that are hidden within book covers.
While reading through the competencies of Youth librarians, there was one in particular that struck me: "Instructs children in the use of library tools & resources, empowering them to choose materials & resources on their own." I feel that this is very important to stress to children from early on in their lives. By letting children choose their own materials to read, we can let them learn of their own interests. True, we may point them in a direction that we believe would interest them, but in the end, the choice is up to the patron, no matter his/her age.
As I stated above, another interest of mine is preservation and working with special/rare collections. The academic library where I work has a special collection or works published in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. I have had a lot of experience working with these books, and working to preserve them to be enjoyed and used for research by people around the world. The longer these materials can be preserved, digitally and in print, the longer patrons can benefit from the information they hold.
Our textbook How People Learn seems as though it will be a very helpful resource during the course of this class. Every individual person has a different way of learning new things. In chapter one, it is said that teachers/professors cannot just give an informational lecture and expect the student to remember what was said. The student will retain the information better if it can be experienced hands on, or associated with something that is already known. When learning new things, preconceived and prior knowledge must be kept in mind. A learner has a better chance of remembering something if it can be built on or associated with an already known fact. Also, when prior knowledge may not be correct, and teacher must know what knowledge the student possesses in order to best correct that way of thinking.
I believe that this textbook will be quite useful to me personally to understand how I myself am able to learn to information and how others learn. The more I know about how the human being learns, the more effective I can be in my future career. I look forward to working through the course this semester, and taking what I learn to help others learn also.
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