Like a lot of librarians in general, Rebecca came by way of another path. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in the study of plant physiology and climate change, particularly in how plants are affected by global warming and other altered environmental factors. She worked in laboratories studying the evolution of flowering plants. From there, she spoke with the science librarian at the University of Kansas (KU), discovering that he went into librarianship by way of a science degree and working as a scientist in various laboratories. This reassured Rebecca that making such a switch was possible and happened frequently. She obtained her Master of Library Science degree from St. Catherine’s in St. Paul, Minnesota. In deciding on her librarian track, Rebecca focused from the start on academic librarianship and did not take any classes related to public libraries or school libraries. Within academic libraries, she concentrated on research and data service management.

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Rebecca currently works in the libraries on KU’s campus, where she plans to remain throughout her career. She is a Kansas native and enjoys the place and the people with whom she works and has no plans to make a change. Obtaining the position at the University of Kansas allows her to stay in an environment where she is comfortable and has family nearby. She has worked at KU for two-and-a-half years. She offices in two locations on alternating days, in the main library at Watson Library and in the Spahr Engineering Library. Rebecca described her position as a ten-year faculty track. Her time is split into three categories: 75% professional performance, the act of being a librarian; 20% research; and 5% professional service, serving on national, regional, or local committees. Daily tasks include informational interviews such as assisting with detailed inquiries from the help desk and administrative computer tasks. Rebecca spends a great deal of time in databases researching articles for faculty and outside researchers, as well as for her own research. Team-based and collaborative projects consume a portion of the professional performance time, as does data management. For professional service, Rebecca serves on a university committee to increase faculty and library interaction and ensure that libraries have a continued importance as resources for conducting research.

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While no day can be described as typical, certain tasks recur throughout the semester. Rebecca holds a faculty-focused position, where she liaises with ten departments in the sciences including Engineering, Biology, and Atmospheric Sciences. She is well-versed in some of the subjects but not as much in others, encouraging her to stretch her skills and knowledge. She is expected to perform outreach activities with the faculty members to satisfy their professional research needs and to connect students in their classes with library services. To complete this task, Rebecca conducts ten to twelve instructional sessions with undergraduate and graduate students per semester. She prepares lesson plans based on information literacy, finding resources, and integrating ACRL strategies and values with classroom instruction.

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She has a goal to increase the number of these sessions but runs into resistance from certain professors. Some professors are ready and eager to include the librarians in their lesson plans for the courses and get students into the libraries for research. For the most part, these sessions are related to seminar-type courses and capstones where research is required for discussions and papers, not for basic lecture or lab courses. For example, the morning of June 14th, Rebecca conducted a session for the Haskell Indian Nations University summer program supporting students in research. This joint mission with the nearby university in Lawrence broadens the outreach of the KU libraries to other students and residents in the area. Rebecca did state that the professors change for different semesters and not a lot of repeats occur in consecutive semesters.