by Kaitlyn R. Carpenter, MLS, MLIS

Introduction – A Moment of Tension

Sitting in the cafe with a colleague I admire, I watched as she tore my first attempt at a curriculum vitae (CV) apart. Every criticism held an undertone of ‘I know you do more than this’ and ‘this is a CV of just a school librarian’. Her daughter recently graduated from the high school I have been serving as the solo librarian at for the past three years, so she was well aware of the extent of work I put into my current position. She gave me the valuable advice that the hardest part of my transition from high school librarian to an academic librarian would be “breaking the bias” because so many librarians are siloed in their own areas that we each have our own preconceived notions of what each other does. Next, she gave an example of what many academic librarians would think when seeing my current CV, “How cute, you gave little Jenny a romance book!” This comment both raised my hackles ready to fight and defend school librarians, but also made me hang my head in defeat and think ‘yeah, who am I kidding trying to make this leap? I am obviously not qualified.’ As a school librarian, I feel this dichotomy often—the feeling of fierce independence and confidence, while also feeling that I have no value as a librarian outside of the k12 environment.

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