Reflection

What is innovation? In our digitally-dominated world, the word "innovate" probably calls to mind the technologies that cemented this dominance: computers, the internet, integrated library systems, search engines, RFID scanners, public catalogs, smartphones, et cetera, et cetera. According to Merriam-Webster, though, innovation is something much more mundane: "to make changes," or "to do something in a new way" (n.d.). Sad as it is to say, the needs of diverse communities were have historically been ignored or overlooked in library services (Leung & López-McKnight, 2021); and as such properly integrating these patrons entails will involve adjusting library operations. Meeting their needs, then, is not necessarily developing entirely new services from the ground up, but simply meeting these patrons where they are: learning these needs, and figuring out how to add or modify services accordingly.

Multiple assignments featured in my portfolio are in this mold. For my Spanish-Language Collection Plan, research emphasized the need to select books that are specifically rooted in cultures with the largest local diasporas, leading me to consult population data for the Spanish-speaking community surrounding my system of work. Later on, my internship in the collections department involved repurposing an existing collection chronicled in the Adventure Pack Refresh: inspecting a declining collection of juvenile library of things items, and systematically deciding what activities would be best to bring forward into a new set of kits based on Virginia's current educational standards. Familiarity with these standards made the task of creating the Reconstruction Paired Text Guide that much easier, featuring a variety of activities that are intended to be part of a directly educational, dual English and History curriculum.

Bouncing back to a bold posture, the initial version of the SLO matrix posted on the Portfolio page had every single assignment tick the box for this specific objective. This, of course, did not remain so in the final version—research should be an activity as fundamental as reading for anyone who calls themselves an information professional; yet high-quality research wasn't necessarily essential to every single assignment. Alas, when the collectively-professed-slash-economically-inflated replacements for longstanding services are deliberately eroding their basic functions with disruptive results¹, good research might just be worth everything!

My internship supervisor stressed the need to do one's due diligence for even the most neglected of final copies to discern whether a patron might need a book in the future. Even before he put this in words for me, witnessing a decline in quality information as it affected my personal pursuits led me to put an emphasis on quality research in coursework. My JRPG Pathfinder focused on gathering together what scholarly material existed about its topics out of personal respect for a medium that barely values it. The Spanish-Language Collection Plan was created by consulting the extensive reports of foreign-language collection and circulation at other, larger public library systems, while also proving an opportunity to merge all the collection analyses and community demographics I myself had gathered into a foundation used over the entire program. The Juvenile Adventure Pack Refresh, synthesizing these assignments and the rest of the program together, combined that foundation with the extensive research required for its process: contextualizing the history and viability of Library of Things collections, situating the subject collection alongside past circulation data of its predecessors, compiled into multiple graphs to visualizing that data in an accessible fashion.

¹ ^For the unreliability of search engines that were/are overwhelmingly dominated by SEO spam, see Bevendorff et al., 2024. For the steady disappearance and link rot ("Link rot," 2025) of internet content, see Chapekis et al., 2024. For the increasing unreality of search engines and the internet at large caused by the spread of generative AI, see Kant, 2025. For the deluge of AI slop appearing in eMaterial catalogs and storefronts apparently already known as vendor slurry (Crossett & Halperin, 2024), see Maiberg, 2025. For a nice little summation on the indignity of it all, see Bennett, 2024.

If the dismissal of digital technology in the first SLO and that nice big foot in the third don't make things obvious, the "technologies" part of this SLO is one that I'm more than a little wary of. Though our role as information professionals obligate us to keep current with technology, when considering the implementation of digital technologies enveloped by a lot of fanfare, we should be certain not to lose track of what is feasible for library services. When looking to improve procedures, should we be swept along by the promise of new technologies at the expense of longstanding staples? Evolution in library services should first and foremost be evaluated for their potential to improve services that are already available, not to heedlessly chase after the latest overvaluation.

Admittedly, my work in the intended outcome of this objective is rather unremarkable. My JRPG Pathfinder is notable for its focus on video games, a growing aspect of some public libraries services due to patron demand, not necessarily because the (conventional understanding of the) medium is truly cutting-edge and/or inherently deserving of its usage in libraries. The Juvenile Adventure Pack Refresh, at least, is likely a strong enough example. As detailed in the report, library of things items have proven popular since their widespread adoption in the 2010s, and the efforts documented sought to integrate new educational materials with existing books and research resources available in the system.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat things: I find this to be a strange objective! Ironically, the essay I wrote to get into the MLIS program in the first place was based around disabusing my incredulity at the notion of deliberately structuring one's lifelong learning. And yet, through dozens of assignments across five semesters of coursework, this disbelief managed to persist 'till the very end, and will likely continue to do so indefinitely. The only assignment ticking off this objective is the Transgender Research Guide, only for an offhand mention of finding more sources for the future, which did eventually happen.

I still find the notion of structuring my learning strange, I think, specifically because of my guiding professional standard. If you want to do your job as a librarian well, learning is the job. If you want to create innovative responses for your community, you have to deliberately seek out that community, and learn what they need through outreach. If you want to spearhead a new service, you have to learn about how other libraries or organizations have implemented said service, while also considering factors affecting how it will take shape at your specific library. If you want to build a rapport with a specific patron, you have to be interested in learning what they like and value. If you want to point patrons to suitable books on a topic you know nothing about, you have to learn about that topic, or at least look for experts who have created verifiable resources that allow you to grasp that topic. If you are going to provide authoritative information about a topic that you already know a lot about, you still have to keep current with new developments on the topic. If you want to pick up a new skill that your workplace cannot immediately provide, you have to seek out professional development programs from learning organizations.

Heck, as far as I'm concerned, constant learning is essential to living a full life. William Hazlitt, a little-known English literary critic, once wrote:

All that men really understand, is confined to a very small compass; to their daily affairs and experience; to what they have an opportunity to know, and motives to study or practise [sic]. The rest is affectation and imposture (1924, p. 82).

Being a librarian is a constant act of convincing others that you, in fact, can coherently see beyond your infinitesimally tiny corner of the universe, despite ample evidence to the contrary. In acknowledgement of my own limited perspective, learning a constant priority for myself. I understand the need to learn about certain topics systematically for a specific purpose—developing activities for the Juvenile Adventure Pack Refresh being the prime example—but I don't necessarily see the need for a comprehensive plan, because these are things I already value. The learning I do for my own pursuits informs the coursework I completed for the MLIS program, both of which inform my professional practice. This symbiotic cycle will continue long after my graduation from ODU, as I continue to become the best librarian I can be.