“I got to know the wonderful librarians on staff....”

by Laura B., October 2007

Working at the Champaign Public Library led me to a career as a librarian. During my freshman year at the U of I (way back in the mid-1980s), I accepted a job in the Circulation Department. I worked there for four years, first as a shelver, then as a Library Assistant. While working there, I got to know the wonderful librarians on staff and started thinking, maybe I’d like to do that.

After I graduated with a degree in history, I worked at a local bookstore for a couple of years, then decided that graduate school would be a good idea. I chose library school over law school and have never once regretted the decision. Now I feel like I was meant to be a librarian, but I don’t think it would have occurred to me to apply to library school without the guidance of the librarians I met when I worked at CPL.