#ilibcause = I'm a librarian because...

#ilibcause I love books! I realized that I also love the hunt for information. I discovered this new love while working on my secondary education teaching degree. I loved digging through old magazines, newspapers, and documents when working on a paper. After teaching high school English for 8 years (which I loved too!), I was given the opportunity to be the school librarian. I loved it! Immediately after finishing a MEd in Educational Technology, I signed up to get my MLiS. Now I teach my students about the hunt for information. In addition, there is nothing is better than listening to an “I do not read books” student discuss a book that I recommended!

While studying at UPENN for my M.S. in Education,  I got part time jobs in various sections of Penn library system. While working on my research papers, I came to know about ERIC and PsychINFO databases on CD ROM while conversing with librarians during my working shifts in the Library. They encouraged me to take workshops so that I could learn important features of those database. I attended these workshops but in the process I became curious by observing: A librarian teaching a class? Those days I had no idea that to become a librarian one needs a Master’s degree. I asked my mentors in the library about the profession of librarianship. They suggested to me that I should talk to Dr. John Hall at the College of Information Science and Technology at Drexel Univ.(those days) and learn about what programs school offer and whether I would become interested in taking classes there.  Being inspired, I took an appointment with him.  Prior to my M.S. In Education at Penn, I had received my earlier academic training in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Drexel.
Dr. Hall showed explained to me how librarians help in students’ educational process, how they keep current with new information and how they are responsible for developing collections in their libraries. Because of my engineering background, he suggested that I should  also take  ‘Resources in Science and Technology’ class taught by Dr. Katherine McCain those days in addition to the first course L500 (Introduction to Information Resources) which incidentally was also taught by Dr. McCain.

I simply loved those courses. Dr. McCain’s excellent teaching style couples with inspiring assignments and projects, and other courses such as Collection Development, Academic Library Services and Public Library Services continued to inspire me further towards becoming a librarian. I learned through various readings and assignments the importance of getting familiar with information needs of students, the process of conducting reference interview and key methods of using various databases and resources to guide them to find what they are looking for. Being curious, with inherent craving to assist students not only to help them find information but also motivating them to become independent life long learners, it became natural to me that I should become a librarian. It has been both a great learning and teaching  experience for me so far. Involving merging technologies, web 2.0 tools, electronic books and journals. and new and exciting developments in science and engineering fields at Drexel, all continued to motivate me even further.