I now work as a children's librarian/the Harold W. McGraw fellow at Darien Library! It's my first full time librarian gig as a master of information - I graduated in May. Last week we had KidLib Camp - an "unconference" for youth librarians. An unconference is basically a conference organized by the attendees - they vote for the topics, volunteers facilitate, and they share their takeaways. Amazing youth librarians from all over CT, NY, and NJ (even RI!) came and contributed their energy and brilliance.
We opened with a keynote by Lauren Britton, an inspiring PhD candidate who has been a driving force in introducing makerspaces to libraries and encouraging transliteracy. It was particularly important for me to hear her 30 minute speech because I've spent the last 3 weeks getting a handle on my job and impatiently imagining what projects I want to do as a fellow, and this helped me remember why I became a librarian. Watch the speech below, or you can see tweets about it here.
KidLibCamp 2014 Keynote: Lauren Britton from Darien Library on Vimeo.
I have still not figured out what I want to do as a librarian. When I imagine myself in 10 years, I either see myself being "successful" (ie traditional leadership role in my job and in professional circles) or being successful in more artsy ways (ie doing some project that is rad and replicable and connected to other fields) - or maybe some hybrid. I want to be doing what Britton says - not being obsessed with singular tools (ie books!) - but be thinking of the larger goal and vision in libraries right now. Understand tools but know that they are connected to larger skills and purposes - and the tools I want to specialize in definitely include art, books, and technology. I wrote something for my application at my job about how art and libraries both can help people remember their past, be empowered in their present, and envision their future, and now I want to figure out how to put that into action.
My next step at work is to come up with some big visions and take my ever-growing list of project ideas and see which ones fit.