My Personal Development Plan

a picture of a smiling white woman with brown hair in a yellow shirt

Links

Me on LinkedIn My Resume

Welcome to the page for my Individual Development Plan! Here you can find my resume and professional experience, some of my sample work, my professional skills, and some of my future plans for learning and improving. I am a current student at Dominican University's Master's of Library and Information Science Program and a Library Assistant at the Oak Park Public Library.

Project Samples

Origami Butterfly Tutorial Video (OPPL) Origami Masu Box Tutorial Video (OPPL) Photography Libguide (LIS 702) Signature Presentation Poster: Equity of Access for Library Users With Disabilities (LIS 701) Signature Presentation: Equity of Access for Library Users With Disabilities (LIS 701) Children's Book Reviews Blog (LIS 721) Pottery Portfolio Page (Personal)

My Skills & Abilities

Technology

Library

  • Early Childhood Story time programming. General programs include the reading of several titles that are audience apropriate, singing, dancing, and handplays. Most programs are English/Spanish.
  • Research and database Competency. I have extensive familiarity with all of the research tools offered to Oak Park and Chicago Public Library Patrons, as well as knowledge and experience with general online research. I further build my research skills through coursework and in my day to day work.
  • Readers' advisory for children and teens. I've completed LIS 721: Library Materials for Children and LIS 722: Library Materials for Young Adults. I also regularly perform readers' advisory as a part of my current job.
  • Object Preservation (dolls, photographic prints, documents, textiles). I manage a circulating collection of American Girl Dolls at my current library, and a large part of this work is restoration and preservation of dolls that are actively being played with. My experience with photographic print and document preservation methods comes from my work as the current family archivist for my family. I am currently the manager of a collection of several thousand historical photographs and documents for our family that date back to the 1850s. My experience with textile preservation comes from my hobby work as a collector of vintage and antique clothing and my previous employment in antiques sales.
  • Analog materials digitization (photographic prints, ephemera, books, slides, film negatives). My primary entry point into materials digitzation was my undergraduate coursework in analog photography. I also gained experience in this as a result of the family archiving role that I've taken on, and digitizing documents and ephemera as a volunteer for the Internet Archive.

Other

  • Copy-editing. I was the primary editor for my friend's thesis "Bull and Bear in Tandem: 'Search for the Lost Husband' Fairy Tales and their Impact on National Identity Formation" (2018) and I regularly copy-edit for independent authors who publishing free content online.
  • Sales & customer service/support. I worked in antiques sales for 10 years as a side gig.
  • Communication.
  • Arts (paper crafting, sewing, crochet, embroidery, pottery, collage, inking, singing, ukulele). I often teach art workshops for kids & families at my library.
  • Documentary Photography. You can find some examples of my documentary photography on my pottery portfolio website (not mobile responsive).
  • Teaching (classrooom management, lesson planning, technical integration). Relevant BA coursework: Pedagogy in America & Classroom tech integration.
  • Project management.
  • Writing (creative, promotional, information, technical documentation). In my work as an IT support specialist, I wrote many pieces of technical documentation for end users. I also regularly write technical documentation and how-to documents for users on hobby forums I participate in.
  • Basic/intermediate Spanish Language Proficiency. Relevant BA coursework: Intermediate Spanish

Where I'm Looking to Improve

Goal 1: improve and build my readers' advisory skills! I have a solid grasp on finding titles using LCSH, or using NoveList to aid me in finding titles in the library's catalog. I also have a fairly solid base knowledge of childrens' titles in certain genres/forms, but not more broadly. My knowledge in this was enhanced through my coursework in LIS 721 and 722, but it can always be improved and updated!

Goal 2: improve and build on my Spanish Language skills! I currently know enough Spanish to undestand what people are asking me when they ask basic questions but I lack the practice, knowledge base, and confidence to give fuller response to inquiries. We serve a lot of primarily Spanish speaking patrons at my current library and I know that this is the case at most other Cook county libraries, so it's obviously a useful skill to have.

Goal 3: improve and build on my web design skills! This one isn't directly related to my library work, but it's a generally handy skill. It does come up as I do one-on-one technology skills learning sessions with patrons and they are allowed to pick any topic of interest. I know enough html/css to modify existing code base, edit code, and write extremely basic pages, but I do NOT have familiarity with Javascript or bootstrap, both of which are super common in modern web design.

Goal 4: improve my interpersonal conflict resolution skills! I sometimes struggle to figure out what to do in situations of interpersonal conflict. It can be a really critically important skill in the workplace and while I am familiar with basic tools, there is a whole world of even more effective skills I've yet to learn.

Goal 5: improve my story time programming skills! I have a number of boilerplate story times that I've developed over the years that are successful with my audiences, and I often find myself sticking to these general boilerplates that I've made, switching out only the books. I would like to improve and expand my musical and handplay repertoire. One potential avenue to explore in expanding my musical repertoire would be expanding on my knowledge of children's music in Spanish.

Goal 6: improve my organizational skills. I think I put this on every single one of my self assesments at work because it's a skillset that I can always find room for improvement in as it's something that I struggle with extensively due to ADHD. I think an organizational avenue that I often struggle greatly wtih in my work life is figuring out the appropriate level of detail needed in a particular project or assignent.

Goal 7: developing a better understading of my boundaries and how much work I can feasibly do in a given timeframe or at a given moment. When I discussed this with my supervisor in my last review, she told me that I need to get better at knowing when to say 'yes' or 'no' to a particular project, collaboration, etc. and knowing when to delegate something.

Where to next?

Goal 1: Readers' advisory: I am registered to take LIS 723: Serving Children & Young Adults in the fall which should hopefully include at least a little bit of RA advice. I am also planning to go back and do a deep dive into my archive of work emails for the emails our collections development team sends out about "hot new picks" each month to get an idea what's been coming out most recently that's been well reviewed. Additionally, I have set up to regularly meet with my supervisor to learn more about this topic from her.

Goal 2: Improve my Spanish: I have redownloaded DuoLingo and Mango Languages on my phone and hope to keep up with daily lessons. When I complete my degree at DU I might sign up for the conversational Spanish class that Triton College offers, which several of my colleagues have enrolled in in the past.

Goal 3: Improve my web design skills: I plan to make sure that the course I take for my technology requirement for the MLIS includes at least some web design (haven't made up my mind about which one!). I also discovered that I could take some web design lessons via LinkedInLearning which my library pays for.

Goal 4: Interpersonal Conflict Resolution Skills: My therapist has been a great resource to ask for information about all kinds of social skills, emotional skills, etc. In the past she's given me some great suggested readings on a variety of topics. I plan to ask her for some suggested readings on this topic. I have also reached out ot my current supervisor for support in improving the way I approach and deal with patrons who cause conflict.

Goal 5: Story Time Programming: I have reached out to some experienced colleagues for support and suggestions for story time programming, and hope to be able to fit the next story time programming professional development workshop that we get departmental invites to into my schedule. I also hope to get some support for this topic in my fall coursework in LIS 723.

Goal 6: Organizational Skills: I am planning on asking my supervisor for resource suggestions on this topic, as she has had some helpful suggestions in the past. I am also reaching out in some online professional support groups that I'm in for suggestions.

Goal 7: Saying No & boundaries: This was actually something that my supervisor had suggested as a point of improvement for me in our last review meeting, and it is something that she has offered to work with me on.

Professional Aspirations

In an ideal world, I want to get a full-time promotion at my current library when I graduate. However, I am well aware that this isn't the most likely outcome for me, and plan to apply elsewhere as well.

My five years at OPPL and the coursework I've taken so far in the Dominican program have strengthened my desire to be a librarian who works with youth. I enjoy the work I do already in youth services and would like to continue doing that. To that end my next two courses are LIS 723: LIS 723: Serving Children & Young Adults and LIS 777: Issues of Access, Advocacy & Policy in Youth Services.

I'm not 100% married to Youth Services, though it's definitely my primary focus. Going into the Dominican program I knew that I wanted to use my time in school to explore multiple avenues and paths. The other avenues of interest that I have are in archives and in digital librarianship. I wouldn't mind taking coursework in either of these things in the future as well.

In considering my future I continue to regularly check the RAILS job page to see what positions are coming up and what the job requirements are.

Finally, I plan to get myself into a practicum placement before I graduate so I can get experience working in a different position and library than the one that I currently work at.