Reading, learning, and the access to knowledge have been core values for me since I was young. I knew that I would always be involved in a profession involving knowledge and education, one way or another, but it was not until I started college at Denison University, Granville, OH, and became a student library assistant in my first year, that I realized that libraries were an ideal place to bring my values to service. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Sociology/Anthropology in 2008, taking on a variety of roles in addition to my primary one as Reserves Associate. I worked in Reference, as a member of various committees and task forces, and continued my education in Women's Studies and Gender Studies. As a part of these studies (and an eventual Certificate of Advance Study), I interned at Gerber/Hart Library of Archives, the largest LGBTQ library in the Midwest. In 2014, I moved to Ithaca, NY, where I started work as the Administrative Supervisor for the Echols Collection on Southeast Asia at Cornell University Library. Here, as I assisted with the Asia Collections and supervised student and temporary staff, I became closely acquainted with the functions and needs of rare and distinctive collections and I was able to explore and create new forms of knowledge through my work in exhibitions. I am proud to have been a co-curator of the Story/Lines: Visual Narratives in Japanese Pop Culture exhibition. During this time, I also had the privilege of being involved with the Assessment and Planning team at Cornell University Library, as I worked on different areas of assessment, including the 2021 Faculty Survey. All these experiences made me realize that a career in libraries is dynamic and multi-faceted, and solidified my intention of receiving my MLIS degree. I knew that my personal life would soon take me to Florida, and I chose to attend the MLIS program at University of South Florida.

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At USF, I received a graduate assistantship, where I assisted in the assessment of the MLIS program in preparation for the 2024 accreditation of the program by the American Library Association. This work, along with my previous assessment-related work at Cornell University, has helped me develop my interest in assessment as a way to continuously improve libraries and library-adjacent institutions. During the course of the MLIS program, I identified new interests in digital librarianship, cataloging, and metadata, and had the privilege of working with the metadata team at University of South Florida Libraries - Tampa on the digital collection migration from Sobek to Bepress Digital Commons during the Summer of 2022. I was also able to participate in more traditional cataloging activities in my internship at the Technical Services and Collection Development Unit of University of South Florida - St. Petersburg’s Nelson Poynter Memorial Library.

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