My name is Jane Susman and I live in St. Louis, Missouri. I have always loved to read, and I decided to purse my MLIS after learning about the innovative and interesting things happening in libraries. Becoming a librarian is a career transition for me as I currently work as a Budget Manager for the City of St. Louis helping to put together the City’s operating budget. Prior to working in St. Louis, I was a performance auditor for the state of New Hampshire helping to ensure good governance in state agencies. In addition to my forthcoming MLIS from the University of Missouri (MU), I have a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs at MU and a BA in political science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
My first library memory is being told in 3rd grade that I couldn’t check out a Cam Jansen book from the elementary school library because it was for older kids even though I had a higher reading level than my classmates. As an adult, aside from frequent visits to my local library, my library work experience was a semester spent organizing books to be moved from the Illinois undergraduate library to an off-site storage facility. I am supplementing this work with my practicum this semester at the St. Louis Community College libraries. In addition to putting everything I have learned in this program into action, I hope to obtain a well-rounded understanding of how a busy community college library functions by talking to professional librarians and observing their work and their interactions with students.
I am interested in several areas of library and information science. All these interests are related to the key library value of ensuring the equal access to information. This program has helped me understand that not everyone has the same ability to access information, and that librarians must continually strive to improve access. First, my background in government finance has led to an interest in library planning and budgeting. Library budgets define everything else in the library, from the number of staff to the number of databases. Budgetary challenges can profoundly affect the equal access to information by potentially cutting services. Secondly, I am interested in how the public interacts with and accesses library technology. It is hard to visit a library today without using some sort of technology. Many patrons use the website and electronic catalog of their local library to reserve and check out electronic and hard copy books. However, other patrons visit libraries for the computers, makerspaces or events and never open an actual book. I am interested in how libraries can accommodate all types of patrons and technology uses, and how librarians keep up. Equal access is vitally important in the realm of technology as some patrons can only access computers at the library. My final interest is in the role of e-books in modern libraries because I am a big user of e-books and because they are relatively new. I have explored the history of e-books including their popularity in modern libraries, a summary of how libraries acquire e-books and a discussion about patron accessibility or lack thereof due to cost of e-readers, lack of internet access or disability. Despite roadblocks like the digital divide and cost, e-books are not going anywhere. I am interested in how e-books fit into to libraries and how this affects budgets and public usage. Again, not all patrons have equal access to e-books because they do not all have the same access to technology.
In addition to a broad interest in libraries, I am organized, detail-oriented, able to manage multiple projects simultaneously and to meet deadlines. I can handle projects of all sizes and work well individually and in groups.