DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Paul, E. (2017). Personal philosophy paper. Unpublished manuscript, St. John's University, Queens, NY. 

 

LIS 204 Introduction to Library and Information Science

Dr. Kevin Rioux 2017

Personal Philosophy Paper

 

Description

This artifiact is my personal philosophy paper that was meant to be about what I believed our library profession was all about. Throughout the class itself, we had learned about the foundations of librarianship and its importance to succeeding in the librarian profession. The concept of democracy and freedom of information was what truly stuck out to me during the class. I had never realized the importance these ideals had to our profession. We were told to keep in mind all of these concepts and foundations we learned through the class for the final paper which would ask us to write about what our personal philosophy of our profession was. While deciding what to write about, I realized that everything I thought about ended up coming back to democracy and freedom of information. I decided to focus in on these ethics and my beliefs on the importance of them in the library profession.

 

ALA Core Compentency one states that students must understand, "The ethics, values, and foundational principles of the library and information profession" as well as "The role of library and information professionals in the promotion of democratic principles and intellectual freedom (including freedom of expression, though, and conscience)" (ALA, 2009). This class taught me all about the ethics and foundations of the library profession while this paper helped me to clarify my thoughts and recognize the importance of democracy and the Library Bill of Rights in relation to the library profession. I was able to discover why we champion freedom of information in this profession and how I can continue to make the library a place of democracy. Through this personal philosophy paper, I am able to showcase my proficiency in the Foundations of this Profession.

 

Reflection: Analysis and Professional Growth

This was one of the first classes I took when I entered this program, and I definitely feel as though I grew a lot from. In general, it was one of my favorite classes I took. I am a big proponent of freedom of speech and have always been against censorship in books and media. This class was able to actually connect my concerns about censorship with my future profession. Learning about how important democracy is to the profession invigorated me. It made me so excited to work in a library setting and provide people with the information they were seeking. While I already had a passion for freedom of information, I had never realized its connection or importance to libraries. 

 

Reading over this essay again, I am actually quite proud of what I wrote. My one critique that I have of the paper is that I wish I connected it specifically to youth services which is my focus of interest. While I do mention teens in the paper, I don't think I focused enough time to the relevance of freedom of information in relation to youth services. I would have liked to bring up parental complaints about books and challenged books. However, being aware of such things now helps me sta on top of these issues and discuss their relation to the Library Bill of Rights to my coworker and director. This paper taught me the importance of freedom of information and how it can relate to all aspects of the profession, including in youth services.

 

References

ALA. (2009). Core competencies. American Library Association. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/educationcareers/careers/corecomp/corecompetences.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.