Class in Review: Week 1

So I had sort of forgotten that we needed to blog about our class meetings as well, and thus I'm doing this almost two weeks after class! So my memory will probably be a little hazier today than on future class in review posts. Oh well.

I had a bit of trepidation after doing the first week's readings, because I was a little overwhelmed by all the focus on teaching an education and as a future archivist, I don't really think of instruction as something that's likely to play a big role in my career. However, I have to say that what we talked about in class assuaged these concerns pretty well. One thing is that though I think of myself as an archivist (to-be?), I really don't mind being thought of as a librarian, and though I'd like to do archival work, I'd be just fine with having a career that focused on working in library settings (such as in the archives division of an academic library). The other thing is that I was actually pretty interested in the things we talked about in class, and because the class seems to be so well-taught from what I can tell so far (not brown-nosing, Kristin, just being honest!), I think I'm going to have an enjoyable time even if I can't always directly see the connection to my career goals.

I'm actually writing this after spending the day at the UM ALA student chapter's Quasi-Con, where one of the sessions I participated in discussed information literacy, which is a concept that came up a lot in class. I have to say that though I've unfortunately never really studied information literacy, it's quite obvious to me after our discussions today and in class that it's an incredibly important topic. As various people in class discussed their own experiences dealing with individuals who needed help to make sense of information, I thought of all the times I've encountered this in my own experience and how much information literacy is a real need in today's world. I'm also beginning to think of ways that this is an issue that I'll deal with, even as an archivist, and it becomes apparent how much helping folks improve their information literacy when it comes to accessing information.

I have to say, I'm looking forward to thinking about these issues again in class and seeing what else is in store. Now on to the readings!