A professor observed in class one day that people often make the mistake of not reading the introduction to a work. Introductions set the stage for the work itself, providing background information and stating presuppositions (explicitly or implicitly) that are key to the reader’s understanding of the work. The work in this case is a portfolio of my coursework in the Master of Library and Information Sciences program of the iSchool at the University of Washington, and related professional work I did while in the program. I hope this introduction will provide a context for the portfolio as a whole. The reader should be aware that it is not designed to serve as, or take the place of my résumé, which is linked in the sidebar to the right.

A few words to introduce myself

I am a native of San Diego, California, but I have lived in New York, Washington State, Alaska, and now in New Mexico, where my wife and I plan to lay down permanent roots. I am married with two young adult children. My son left the nest in Alaska and is growing his own family now, while my daughter still lives at home.

My enthusiasm for my work thrives most when I am able to combine various skills, like I did working at Apple Tree Press. I used my language skills this past Summer in my Directed Fieldwork when I was called upon to catalogue texts in Russian and Old Church Slavonic, plus a little Romanian, French, and Greek.

Adaptability is another asset I value in myself. The study of language itself requires a great amount of adaptability. Learning a language well means recognizing similarities and differences, rules and exceptions. Likewise, while all libraries do the same basic thing, no two work environments are the same, and the needs in each library will vary.

Goals in Librarianship

It will become immediately apparent in the following pages that I have a strong interest in church work. All of my actual library experience so far has taken place in theological libraries and I have two theological degrees. Of course, it would be great to find a position in a theological library, but when my family left Alaska in search of a warmer climate, finding a job specifically in a theological library was not on the list of priorities. Theological libraries are both academic and specialized, and it is to these two classes of library that I am most drawn. I have always functioned well and enjoyed academic environments, and delving into an area of specialization, be it theology, or languages, or another field gives me a particular sense of purpose. However, I see a great value in expanding my horizons in either of two directions: First, would be invaluable to have the experience of working in a larger academic library. My work so far has been done in a very small library, in which I was the only permanent, full-time staff member. Experience working as part of a large library team, and developing an experiential knowledge of the operations of larger libraries would naturally expand my long term future potential.

Alternatively, the experience of working in a general public library would give me a greater ‘real world’ feel for the direction of libraries as a whole in the information age. In our coursework, and my instinct tells me the same, we learned that libraries are being challenged to provide a broader range of resources and services to help people function in the global village of the information age. It would be helpful to learn from experience what exactly patrons are seeking, how public libraries addressing these needs, and what challenges they face in doing so.

In either context, I would hope to have the opportunity to work in the reference department, cataloguing, and collection development. Any one of these departments would itself provide a great deal of direct insight. Reference work provides direct contact with the patrons, and therefore an avenue to find out what their questions are; cataloguing would teach me more about the resources themselves; and from collection development I would learn about the various limitations libraries face in providing the broadest possible range of resources suited to the type of library.

Whether in a general public library system, or in an academic or specialized library, there is a third possible avenue that I would find beneficial and highly enjoyable: working in a virtual extension of the library. Aside from theological academia, I believe that my love for the use of technology will stand out in the following pages. I have always been fascinated with the use of technology as a means of providing information, and that fascination in the past has been expressed in my desktop publishing work. Without wishing to dismiss the value sitting down and reading a printed book, I have been particularly fascinated by the capacity of technology to make information come alive and engage the senses as well as the intellect. Working in a virtual extension of a library, making resources and services available over the Internet, or by other digital means, would give me new opportunities to explore the use of technology for the presentation of information.

Coursework in the iSchool

Courses I took at the iSchool included cataloguing, collection development, information systems, instructional strategies management, and reference work. Below I have listed each of the courses I took in numerical order, and in the sidebar to the right I have provided a link to the course descriptions page at the iSchool web site.

LIS 500    The Life Cycle of Information (2 cr)

LIS 510    Information Behavior (4 cr)

LIS 520    Information Resources, Services & Collections (4 cr)

LIS 521    Principles of Information Services (4 cr)

LIS 522    Collection Development (3 cr)

LIS 530    Organization of Information and Resources (4 cr)

LIS 531    Catalogues, Cataloguing, and Classification (4 cr)

LIS 533    Advanced Cataloguing and Classification (4 cr)

LIS 538    Metadata: Evolving Principles and Practices (3 cr)

LIS 540    Information Systems, Architectures and Retrieval (5 cr)

LIS 541    Internet Technologies and Applications (3 cr)

LIS 542    Conceptual Database Design (5 cr)

LIS 550    Information in Social Context (4 cr)

LIS 560    Instructional and Training Strategies for Info. Professionals (3 cr)

LIS 570    Research Methods (4 cr)

LIS 580    Management for Information Organizations (4 cr)

LIS 590    Directed Fieldwork (4 cr)

Overview of Past Education and Employment

From 1990 to 1995 I was a student at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVS) in Crestwood -Tuckahoe New York, where I earned a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) and Master of Theology (M.Th.) degree. I also spent two Summers working as a student assistant in the library. I consider that experience to be what launched my library career. Eleana Silk, who is still the librarian, is one of the two best people I have ever had the pleasure to work for. Her continuing support has been invaluable.

From 1996 - 2002 I worked as an Ad Production Clerk for the Yakima Herald Republic in Yakima, WA and I ran my own desktop publishing and Spanish translation business, Apple Tree Press. Working at the YHR, my primary responsibilities including scanning and processing photographs and other artwork using Photoshop.  All members of my department were responsible for creating layouts for display ads to be run in the newspaper. As Apple Tree Press, I performed a combination of typesetting, graphic design, and translation work.

In 2002 my family and I moved to Kodiak, Alaska, where I took a position as instructor and eventually librarian at St. Herman Seminary and I continued in that position until the Spring of 2007. It was as a direct result of that work that I entered the Master of Library and Information Science program, and my experience there figures prominently in this portfolio.

We left Kodiak in 2007 and we spent a year in Bremerton, Washington so that I could take Advanced Cataloguing on campus at UW In order to support us, I returned to my desktop publishing and Spanish work on a part-time basis, working for WorldLink Technologies, a multilingual translation agency. We settled in Albuquerque in the Summer of 2008. I spent the Autumn 2008 Quarter focusing on completing the MLIS program.

Organization of this Portfolio

Being cognizant of the fact that we all face information overload, and that employers will have limited time in which to review the materials I am presenting, I do not expect any single person to read every word I have written. Having first reviewed my résumé and found points of interest there, the reader should be able to come to this portfolio to learn more. If you have come to this portfolio first, I invite you follow the link in the sidebar of this page to download my résumé and review it before you proceed.

The portfolio is divided into components, all of which can be accessed at the top of every page. Each component will describe in narrative form an area of academic and/or professional experience I have had, and will provide links to relevant documents in the sidebar. The sidebar on each page will keep a consistent appearance, listing “component files” and providing my contact information for quick reference. All links are in capitals and in deep red, which turn to blue as you roll over them, followed by captions in black, briefly describing the document linked in order to help the reader determine which documents are most relevant to his or her needs. Those documents are all examples of actual academic or professional work I have done. It is difficult, if not impossible, to make rigid distinctions between the component areas; because of the overlap, I have linked some materials from multiple component pages.

Although this portfolio will touch on my past desktop publishing work and other experience I have insofar as they relate to my library work, it has been designed to be specifically a portfolio of the work I have accomplished while in the Master of Library and Information Sciences program. In accordance with the requirements set by the iSchool of the University of Washington, it takes the place of an academic thesis. If you are interested, you can learn more about my work as Apple Tree Press by following the link in the sidebar.

Unless otherwise noted, all documents are presented in Adobe Acrobat™ (PDF) or Quicktime™ format. Adobe Reader™ and Quicktime Player™ can be downloaded for free, though most likely your computer will already be equipped at least with Adobe Reader. Just in case, click on the icon in the sidebar to reach to Adobe's web site where you can download the latest version of Reader.