Courses |
Advising |
My first introduction to the MLIS program and Dr. Martens was my participation in a focus group about the future of MLIS education in August of 2015. At this focus group, I met Dr. Martens as well as other potential library school students (including people like Kat LeFevre who became a close friend and work/school colleague). I was also able to share some of my thoughts and feelings about pursuing an MLIS.
I applied for the MLIS program at OU-Tulsa in the spring of 2016 with an anticipated start of Fall 2016. After being accepted into the program, I corresponded with Dr. Martens by e-mail to set up an appointment. I met with Dr. Martens at her OU-Tulsa office in May 2016 where we discussed my goals and interests. We also discussed what classes I should enroll in for fall 2016, with the idea that I would try a path of one core and one elective each semester. My choices were the introductory Information and the Knowledge Society with Dr. Martens and Books and Materials for Children with Dr. Koh (Dr. Martens gave permission for my enrollment in the latter course). In this meeting, I inquired about how academic advisers were assigned in the program. My TCCL colleague Laura Raphael had strongly encouraged me to ask for Dr. Martens as my adviser. Dr. Martens graciously accepted my request and I have been thankful for her support throughout my time in the program ever since! We also discussed some of my previous writing in my undergraduate work and after this meeting I sent her my Honors Thesis from my time at John Brown University so she could see a sample of my research and writing work. In the Fall 2016 semester, I met again with Dr. Martens to discuss my Spring 2017 course choices and my progress thus far in the program. I expressed my interest in the special topics course on Consumer/Community Health Information with Dr. Rubenstein. Dr. Martens agreed this would be a good choice for my goals. For my core course selection I chose Management of Information and Knowledge Organizations, again with Dr. Martens. I corresponded with Dr. Martens over e-mail about my choices for the Fall 2017 semester. I had been communicating with work and school colleague Kat LeFevre about class choices and she encouraged me to take Dr. Martens Introduction to Information Visualization; we both thought this course would be beneficial for our career goals, considering the rise of the importance of data and visualization in library circles, but I had been nervous taking a course that felt far out of my wheelhouse. Yet, both Dr. Martens’ and Kat’s encouragement prompted me to take the leap. I also chose Dr. Abbas’ Organization of Information and Knowledge Resources for my core class for the semester. Midway through my MLIS program in September 2017, I was promoted to a new position as Youth Librarian at the Herman and Kate Kaiser Library. As a result of this busy season of change, that semester is a blur! I chose classes that semester with the input of Dr. Martens and fellow student and work colleague Kat LeFevre, who both suggested the hybrid elective course Leadership and Information Organizations with Dr. Sarah Clark and the core course of Information and Communication Technology with Dr. Kim for the Spring 2018 semester. In the 2017-2018 academic year, I was invited to participate in an internal project at TCCL, tentatively titled “Kids Read,” that would develop a readers’ advisory program aimed at children. I was interested in helping the project lead, Laura Raphael, develop the training and foundation for this project. She suggested inquiring about the possibility of working on a literature review on the subject for course credit. This sparked an ongoing conversation with Dr. Martens and Laura Raphael, which resulted in my Directed Project for the summer of 2018. This process also included an in-person meeting with Dr. Martens, Laura Raphael, and me in the summer of 2018. After I accepted the new position that required my finishing of my MLIS, I considered accelerating my progress in the MLIS program to finish a semester early. However, further review indicated that finishing a semester early wasn’t advantageous enough to outweigh the added stress of taking on extra coursework in a shorter amount of time. When considering this option, though, I did finalize the order of the rest of my courses: a Directed Project in Summer 2018, Community Relations and Advocacy with Dr. Smith-Edwards and Information User in the Knowledge Society with Dr. Brown in Fall 2018, and Research and Evaluation Methods with Dr. Burke alongside defending this portfolio in Spring 2019. |