Intellectual Experience

I had a hard time singling out one particular intellectual experience from my time at the iSchool. The last three years have felt like an unending stream of intellectual challenges.  When I began the program, I had been out of school for fifteen years, so just the idea of readjusting to the scholarly challenges of graduate school was intimidating. While the past 14 years spent working in a library taught me much I was unaware of the rich theoretical, philosophical and technical studies that awaited me at the iSchool. From learning how to think like a cataloger to decoding the underlying message of a court ruling, this program has stretched my mind in ways I never imagined.

Suzzallo Library Reading Room

Given the multitude of intellectual challenges I've met during the past three years, my dilemma was choosing among them which ones to include in this portfolio. I chose the following items because they each represent a new area of exploration or an obstacle overcome for me. Information behavior models comparison (.pdf) = a paper I wrote for LIS 510 during my first quarter at the iSchool - this was significant for me because it was the first paper I had written in many years. The whole process of researching, analyzing and writing a paper appropriate of graduate level work was daunting for me. Once completed however I realized that I was capable of doing graduate level scholarly work. Evaluation of a catalog (.doc) - this assignment was part of LIS 531 - Catalogs, Cataloging, and Classification it is significant to me because it gave me the opportunity to see how cataloging and bibliographic description affect and are affected by the public interface with the library catalog. This was the first time I had taken a scholarly look at the principles behind what I do on a daily basis at work.
Information Resources, Services, and Collections (LIS 520) - One of the assignments for this class was to write a book review as if we were going to submit it for publication. As this assignment progressed we were encouraged to actually submit our reviews. This was a very significant intellectual experience for me. Not only did I have the scholarly experience of writing a review but I also was introduced to what goes into preparing an article for publication. Working with editors and dealing multiple deadlines. Legalities of getting permission to reproduce pictures from the book, and signing agreements with the publishers. After all the hard work it was very exciting to actually see my finished work in print. My article Web-based Instruction: A guide for Libraries - A Review was published in Knowledge Quest v.34 no.4 2006 and can be viewed online.
	Knowledge Quest Cover v.34 no.4

 

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