Personal Growth Plan

I applied for this program three years ago, and I remember the feeling I felt when I received my acceptance letter. It was a moment of joy as I was ecstatic to begin my career as a LIS professional. When I entered the program three years ago, I found myself working in the field as a Library Aide. Librarianship is not a career path I considered growing up, but I fell in love with the idea of becoming a librarian through my exposure and involvement with the library where I work.

Working for the County of Los Angeles Libraries provided me with many opportunities to sharpen my skills, which include the following:

• Collaborating with library staff and community members to create programs and services that will benefit the community.
• Engage in educational opportunities by assisting children with their homework during homework center hours and summer reading programs.
• Sharpen my communication and customer service skills by serving as an interpreter for patrons and library staff members.
• Provide aid to diverse age groups that require help or guidance navigating modern technology tools.
• Learn how to use digital library tools to engage in the promotion of these services for the community.
• Assist patrons in locating materials that satisfy their information needs.
• Assist Librarians with weeding projects to further my understanding of collection management initiatives.
• As a passport agent, privacy and confidentiality are essential ethical conducts that one must follow to secure the information of patrons applying for a passport. Furthermore, answering reference questions and explaining to patrons where they can find additional information is also part of the process of being a passport agent.

These skills grew over the years, and as a student of LIS, the course work I learned provided clarity and depth that allowed me to excel in customer service while sharpening my skills.

The biggest takeaway from serving communities was learning that information needs have not changed since I was young. Growing up, I frequented libraries quite often because they provided resources that we could not afford. Computer and printers were some of the resources we did not have access to, and the library provided me with these tools to engage in research and complete homework assignments. Entering a library years later as an employee, I romanticized that most people in the modern age of technology had access to portable devices at home; however, my observations at the library demonstrate that times have not changed. There are many reasons behind the absence of not owning a portable device, and tech-literacy is sometimes one of those reasons along with financial instability. The benefit of being a library patron during the modern age of technology is that library staff are very knowledgeable when it comes to technology. As LIS professionals, our technology skills help the library thrive.

My studies in LIS advanced my comprehension of LIS by exposing me to subject areas unbeknownst to me. For example, information retrieval systems are a concept I had not thought about while working as a library aide, yet I interacted with them daily. Learning about controlled vocabularies, designing systems using markup languages, conducting tests that examine the security of information, and designing an architectural interface that is user-friendly are essential aspects one must learn about information retrieval systems. As an SJSU student, professors provide us with the opportunity to learn and design information retrieval systems to advance our understanding of the subject. Other areas where I held personal growth consist of the following topics: online information communities, reference services, teacher librarianship, library and project management, collection management, identifying trends in information technologies, recognizing issues within libraries and library systems that may affect the code of ethics, and identifying sources and measuring data for theoretical research. The materials, lessons, and applied research methods contributed to my competence in multiple subject areas.

As declared throughout my e-Portfolio, I aspire to be a YA Librarian at a public library. To achieve my goals and succeed in the profession, I intend to apply the practices I have learned in LIS at SJSU. The practices constitute performing environmental scans to search for emerging trends within the community. YA Librarians are required to remain knowledgeable in current trends regarding technology and popular culture. Identifying at-risk youth groups and observing their information needs can provide new depths of information so that YA Librarians could thrive. In attempts to serve at-risk youth groups, one can creatively plot new ideas for program and services that will cultivate learning and creative curiosities, a mission across the globe. Providing homework help has prepared me in some ways to address reference questions because I help children find the sources that will provide information. Engaging with reference services at a different level is an area I feel prepared in, but look forward to exploring with different age groups, to educate them in adopting information-seeking behaviors during the information gathering process and apply research methods.

My chapter at SJSU comes to a close, and I value the competencies and skills I gathered as a student to qualify me for the LIS profession. I look towards the future with hopes that I will find a library that will allow me to excel as a librarian by supporting my ideas for library services that can best serve communities and initiatives to widen the cultural scope and embrace cultural diversity by bringing new people together.