From the Chair

Although I have worked in libraries since I was in high school (which was much longer ago than I care to admit), I did not become a librarian until 2007. Why I chose to wait so long before going to library school is a story for another time. But there are some advantages to working as a student employee and then as a full-time paraprofessional in a large academic library—in my case, the University of Minnesota Libraries—before going to library school. One is that over the years I have done just about everything there is to do in a library. I have shelved books, worked in circulation, answered reference questions, done collection development, worked in technical services, shifted collections, done preservation work . . . the list goes on. As first a branch manager and now as a library administrator, the depth and breadth of my work experience in libraries has been invaluable; my work as a paraprofessional in particular has had a profound impact on how I approach librarianship in general.