This is a second post in which I am reflecting and reminiscing on my time in my former position, and giving a final farewell to the Lawrence Public Library.

Until my attempts to get a position in a library, I had never experienced trouble feeling confident in interviews and getting jobs. Because I had already met Lynn, though, I was able to relax and feel comfortable again in my interview with her and Sherri, the assistant director of LPL. Afterward, Lynn seemed very impressed and pretty much told me to expect a phone call. She told me that there were a few other people from my library school class who did a reference observation at her desk, but I was the only one who sent a thank you note – and that impressed her very much. And so, just a few days later, she called and offered me the part time Reference Assistant position and my adventure with the Lawrence Public Library began.

Me as Harry Potter at the Halloween themed Caddy Stacks golf in the library event in October 2010.

Once I started, I wanted to do everything. I told myself never to say no to a task asked of me, no matter how tedious. From keeping track of reference desk statistics to helping process interlibrary loan items, from shifting ranges full of books to sitting at the lower level computer lab reference desk for more than 2 hours – I never hesitated to do things some of my coworkers deemed undesirable. In retrospect, I almost feel taking the job was a big risk. I had intended to stay on at Lawrence High, but they weren’t willing to work with me. As librarianship was my intended career path, I gave up the full time job; however, I definitely don’t regret it.

Over the next two years, I managed to gain full time status and then a professional title through a series of fortunate events. In 2010, a coworker who was half time interlibrary loan and half time serials went on maternity leave and decided not to come back, so Lynn merged my part-time reference position with the serials half. She was determined not to lose me, because she knew I was needing a full time position badly. In 2011, the serials responsibilities that I took over were then given to the technical services department. Since I had finished my MLS at that point, administration decided to give me the official, professional title of Reference Librarian, along with all the benefits that come with it. This finally gave me the time and freedom to do what I really wanted.

To be continued again…