Member A-LIRT:  Jana Edwards

An adult reentry student, Jana  did not enter college until she was 24 years old.  Working for AT & T in its  offices and factory was lucrative, but very unsatisfying, so she decided to move from the Chicago area back to her roots in Southern Illinois to enter the local junior college.  It was hard adjusting, but she stuck with it until she got her Associate's degree and moved on to the local university. 

At Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Jana earned a degree to teach Social Sciences (history) at the secondary  school level and minored in Educational Media, which she  took to  like a duck to water.  She says, "It was cool playing with all those film projectors, overhead transparencies and other media while also delving a little into librarianship.   She had hoped to get a position teaching in Southern Illinois upon the completion of her  bachelor's degree, but she also applied for  and received a fellowship to attend graduate school at SIU-C, where she completed a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction.  She volunteered as a librarian at John A. Logan College (the local community college where she received her AA 
degree.)  The job was mostly cataloging, but the experience turned out to be very valuable when she applied for her first professional position, as Reference Librarian at Rend Lake College. 

Rend Lake College was a great place to work! During her five years there, Jana gained a wide variety of experience: she was in charge of technical services (acquisitions and cataloging), managed the reference desk and reference services, and coordinated BI.  Sounds horrendous, but when you are one of five staff members in a small library serving a community of 2,500 students, "you have to diversify or die."  After a couple of years, Jana realized that she wanted to move into a higher level of academic librarianship; for this she needed an MLS.  Quitting the regular paycheck and job security was scary, but she knew that the intellectual atmosphere and stimulation of working with well known librarians and professors were just what she needed. 

Jana was granted an assistantship at Indiana University, Bloomington, where she managed the Collins Living/Learning Center Library (a library in a small residence hall) as she earned her degree.  Later she worked as a reference assistant, experience she feels is essential for any library school student. "You learn twice as much," says Jana, " working with an experienced librarian on the desk as you do from reference courses (which are invaluable, too.)   The same goes for Library Instruction.  The theory classes are a necessity, but you need experience in the classroom, too." 
 

While Jana was at IU, she became attracted to LIRT because she had the opportunity to work with two very dynamic women involved in the organization, who served as her mentors.  Mary Popp was head of the instruction services at IU when Jana was in school, and she was fortunate to work with Mary as a graduate student assistant in her office, and then to collaborate with her later as the Undergraduate Libraries Instruction Assistant, and then as the Technology Coordinator.  Jana reports that Mary was always immersed in LIRT issues and projects, which she often shared with her graduate assistants.  It was excellent training.  "I can't thank Mary enough for all that she taught me about teaching, management and life in a large academic library", says Jana. 

Emily Okada was another influential person Jana worked with, while at IU.  "The things that Emily modeled for me were self-confidence, how to provide superior reference service and how to be a team player.  She also encouraged me to get involved with LIRT and then later had enough confidence in me to turn over the production reins of the LIRT News and mentor me in that position."  Jana adds, "I've met many wonderful people in LIRT since then, who are a constant source of support, new ideas and just plain fun.  Sometimes we forget that we can have fun while teaching and working with our users." 

After graduation from library school, Jana held two positions with the Undergraduate Library Services of the Indiana University Libraries.  The first was Instruction Coordinator (an assistant to the UGL Instruction Librarian), then the position of Technology Coordinator or "computer wrangler" as Jana likes to call it.  She fell into this because, "I knew that computers were the wave of the future and wanted to be there in the crest." 

After her divorce in 1993, Jana wanted to spread her wings and look for a faculty position in a good university. Since geography was no longer an issue, she ended up at the University of Florida, where she is today working with "a great group of people who are very interested in teaching information skills and in providing quality service."  She thoroughly enjoys her job as Reference Librarian/Outreach Specialist in the Humanities & Social Sciences Services Department of the George A. Smathers Libraries because "I get to teach classes and because I have the latitude to exercise my creativity in such outlets as being the department webmaster, and (of course) production of LIRT News.  It's a great place to be!"  Jana is especially excited about the upcoming fall semester, because she will be coordinating a three hour honors course called, "Research in the Virtual Library." 

In her spare time, Jana likes to travel and likes the water  (boating on the local lakes and of course, the ocean!)  And she's  recently formed a little business with a colleague in the Networked Writing Environment at UF, designing web sites. 

Creative, eclectic, enthusiastic, vivacious, are all adjectives that suit our wonderful Jana Edwards.  What an asset she is to our LIRT family! 
 

Judy Clarence is Music Librarian and a member of the Instructional and Interpretive Services Department at the Library at California State University Hayward.  She is a member of LIRT's PR/Membership Committee.