Hello, and welcome to my e-portfolio. This portfolio is a collection of my work from the Master of Library and Information Science program at San Jose State University in California. The cumulating experience of the MLIS program asks us to gather pieces of "evidence" to show that we have mastered each of the 14 core competencies of the program. In addition to the pieces of evidence presented here, you will also find statements of competency that will show my mastery and understanding of the 14 competencies, and how those competencies relate to the pieces of evidence I am presenting.
I first began my experience in libraries in the fall of 2019 when I got hired to work at the Riverside County Law Library as a library assistant. After 1 year of working there, I knew that I wanted to make working in libraries my future career goal. So in the fall of 2020, I began my tenure in SJSU's iSchool's MLIS program. When I started the program, I told myself that I wanted to be done in 2 years. I kept my word on that promise to myself. During my course of study at SJSU, I have taken a wide variety of coursework that can help me be more marketable in my career including coursework in academic librarianship, cataloging, reference, vendor relations, prison librarianship, classification schemes, government information sources, information tools and technologies, and many others. When I wasn't doing schoolwork, I got involved with the Special Library Association Student Chapter (SLASC), first just as a member, then as a member of the executive committee, working first as the social media assistant director, then as the social media co-director for the 2021-2022 academic school year. My experience in SLASC helped me see the importance of joining professional organizations, and it helped me understand the importance of using social media in a professional context.
On a personal note, I spent many hours away from my school commitments practicing self care in the form of exploring the outdoors and hiking. I came to love hiking so much that I even created an Instagram account devoted to establishing an online hiking community. I would share hiking pictures from others and promote information for the outdoors and hiking. I'm interested in making the Instagram account become something more someday. My newfound love of the outdoors even translated to school when I participated in an internship as an archives and records intern for the National Park Service's Golden Gate National Recreation Area. In some ways I owe my new personal interest to my journey in the MLIS program.
I began preparing for this project the very first semester I started, fall 2020. I made use of the iSchool MLIS student success planner to list the courses I began taking and list the future courses I wanted to take. As time went on, I would go into the planner and make changes to reflect the courses I ended up taking. I also listed various assignments, discussion posts, projects, and work experience that I felt I could use as pieces of evidence that would contribute to a well-built e-portfolio. Specifically for the pieces of evidence, I used the online application Trello to create a board with each of the 14 competencies. I then added pieces of evidence under each competency and rearranged them around (Ă la card sorting) until I had about 2-4 pieces of evidence for each that seemed to fit what the competency means to me. My final preparations for this e-portfolio included me reading through the Info-289 e-Portfolio handbook on SJSU's iSchool's website. I sat down and read through it to familiarize myself with the portfolio process. Afterwards, I started to write. I'm glad that I took the time to prep by organizing all my evidence when I first started the program. It made the whole process much easier.
I have learned a tremendous amount of information on my "adventure through grad school." I consider myself to be a lifelong learner, so this is only the end of another chapter in my learning adventure through life.
Please locate the navigation menu in the top-right bar of this homepage. You can navigate to each competency page, read my conclusion and affirmation, and navigate back here to the homepage. Happy reading!
If you'd like to reach me, I can be reached at michaelvanaken86@gmail.com
Photo credit: Angeles National Forest, CA by: Michael Van Aken