This is the Practicum Site for the SLIS Student Andrew Badger
My Practicum Location: Stow Munroe Falls Public Library
My Practicum Supervisor: Amy Garret, Head of Reference Services
Practicum Adviser: Dr. Catherine L. Smith, Kent State University School of Library and Information Science
Department I preformed my practicum in: Reference/ Adult Services
Semester practicum was completed: Spring 2017
Librarianship is something that has been in my family for years as my father is a Special Librarian and a close family friend was the children's librarian at the Delaware County District Library for years. Whenever I would go see this friend I would go to the library and I was able to browse through both the public area and the staff area learning and exploring about the many services the library had to offer. The ideals of librarianship and the idea of me becoming a librarian were inspired through this experience and strengthened through multiple trips to different libraries during my childhood.
Years later when I was planning for my practicum I remembered my initial interaction with librarianship as a profession. Until this practicum, the brief visits with this friend were the only professional experience I had with a public library. As for years I have been either working in an academic library or using it enough, that it became the main library system I recognized. For my practicum, my main goal was to gain experience working at a public library and see what I could learn from working within one.
I began my search by looking at local libraries and asking for interviews. After interviewing at the Stow library I was accepted as their practicum student. I was excited for it and glad to be there as this practicum would give me a complete view of what librarianship is like in public libraries to accent what I have learned from working in an academic library. This website chronicles my time as a practicum student at the Stow Munroe Falls Public Library.