To Be or Not to Be: a School Librarian

As my final semester at the iSchool approached, I asked myself: what will give me a holistic experience in the field of librarianship? Librarians have multi-faceted jobs which traditional capstone projects only focus on a detailed part. My experience includes working at an academic and public library but not a public school library. Spending my days at the Becker Elementary School Library shadowing and learning from Bilingual Librarian Minda Anderson I experienced the gauntlet of duties school librarians perform both with students and behind the shelves. Reader's advisory, collection development, and faculty collaboration are a few of the tasks in which I assisted Minda. Flexibility and resourcefulness are tantamount to success for a school librarian to manage and curate the learning environment their time at the school has created. I witnessed the challenges and rewards of being a school librarian, and the memories that stand out the most are about connections I made with the students. The daily interactions with kids and sharing my love of reading with them remain at the front of my mind when I think about working in a school library.