2006 ARL Leadership Symposium

Recently I had the honor of being chosen as a ARL Intiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce Participant. One of the perks is getting an all expenses paid trip to the ARL Leadership Symposium where academic librarians across the country come to present to future librarians like myself. The cool thing about this Symposium was that it was preparing minority librarians to compete in a career dominated by the majority culture. The workshops included--Writing a Resume, Publishing in Academe, Networking, LibQual in Your Library, and much more!

This is a wonderful time to be a minority librarian! Particularly if you are working in an academic library. Because the funds are virtually unlimited to pursue library and information science education. And the jobs are unlimited to--provided you can relocate--as diversity fellowships and library residiences abound to give minority librarians cutting edge expertise in the field of academic librarianship.

Big props out to my mentors: Carla Hayden, Sybil Moses, Dr. E. J. Josey, Jerome Offord Jr. and last but not least Sylverna Ford--I wonder why I never hear your names mentioned in library school alongside Melville Dewey. Photos of this event soon to follow.