MLIS 2013
Systems Librarian
Antelope Valley College
Lancaster, CA USA

What I am doing now.

Systems entails a great deal of technical work in supporting the ILS, troubleshooting problems for faculty and staff, as well as interfacing with various vendors and campus technical support. I also manage the OPAC and have made some changes to make it a little more user-friendly to search. My responsibilities also include reference and collection development. As an academic librarian, my reference work includes both finding information and instruction in the use of the library’s databases. In addition to these duties, I serve as college archivist.

What are the most valuable skills I use in my job?

There really aren’t any courses that haven’t been useful in some form or another, either through their content or encouraging collaboration. While my job relies heavily on technical skills, soft skills are equally as important for interacting with faculty and staff as well as students. Reference and Information Services has been the most unexpectedly useful course, as I did not plan on being a reference librarian. Not only did I end up doing reference work, I find reference work particularly rewarding. I also took courses in archives and metadata that have been particularly useful in this position.

Contact Permission

It is OK to contact this alum.

Send email to: Kimberly Thomas