Hello everybody, and welcome to my MLS Capstone Portfolio! For the last two and a half years I have been enrolled in the Oregon distance program offered by Emporia State University's School of Library and Information Management (SLIM). Looking back, it's amazing how much my life had been transformed and how far I have come in such a short time: I am now employed in the library of a major international nonprofit and involved in numerous internships and projects for other library organizations; I have presented at multiple professional conferences, both regionally and internationally; I am an active member of local and national professional associations; and I enjoy lasting and rewarding relationships with many amazing people in our regional library community. It's hard to imagine that only a couple years have passed since I was sitting in the orientation session for the Emporia MLS program wondering what I was getting myself into - never having worked in a library and with only vague ideas of what librarianship truly entailed.

About this portfolio

According to Emporia State University, the goal of the SLIM Master of Library Science program is to "prepare creative problem solvers who will provide proactive client-centered services in information agencies." They then further break this goal down down into eight discrete outcomes of the curriculum and five professional values. To your left you will find links for each of the eight outcomes of the SLIM curriculum. These pages each present artifacts (papers, presentations, etc.) and describe activities from my SLIM experience that help demonstrate my achievement of the outcomes. In addition, each page contains a listing of the SLIM values associated with my achievement of that outcome.

Thanks!

I am truly thankful to the Emporia program for the education it has provided me. I feel that Emporia’s flexible, theory-based curriculum has both provided me with a firm foundation upon which to base my professional practice and prepared me (as well as is possible) for the rapidly shifting demands of modern librarianship. In addition to providing a firm academic grounding for my career, Emporia has also provided me with the opportunities and encouragement I needed to integrate myself into the library community. Both my current job and the extent of my involvement in the professional community can be partly attributed to SLIM (and to Perri Parise, the wonderful director of the Oregon distance program). By helping students find relevant opportunities to gain experience, SLIM helps them gain a foothold in the library world and begin to make the connections that will help them throughout their careers.

The library world is in a state of rapid flux and the future viability of our institutions will rely on the strength, innovation, and flexibility of the next generation of library professionals. My fellow fledgling librarians from the SLIM program give me hope for that future. Thanks to them, to Perri, to everybody who has helped me make it this far, and to all the wonderful people I have met and will meet in the library world.

See you in the future!