City Library Staff Members Receive ALA Scholarship
We’d like to congratulate two of our long-time staff members who were both recently awarded the American Library Association’s (ALA) prestigious Spectrum Scholarship! Marisa Bell (2023) and Ina Samuel (2024) are both enrolled in graduate school to pursue their Masters of Library Science degrees. This scholarship provides financial support for tuition and other costs, along with professional development, networking, and mentorship opportunities.
You might think that everyone who works in a library is a librarian. Not so! Librarian is a specialized job title. Many librarians have master’s degrees in Library Science or Library and Information Science. There are no institutions in Utah that offer these degrees. Staff members enroll in out-of-state programs and pursue their post-grad education remotely while working full or part-time at the library.
While the role of librarian is always evolving, at The City Library it could include duties like managing the collection, planning programs, designing reading challenges, managing databases and electronic resources, customer service, and readers’ advisory, i.e. helping you find your next favorite book! No matter what their day-to-day work is like, librarians can be considered managers of information.
Ina was born and raised in northwest Salt Lake City and has worked in a variety of positions at The City Library since 2019. She has served on committees for staff training and led initiatives for staff mental health support. Ina has recently joined several committees that help shape the customer experiences at The City Library. Ina will be helping with community art exhibits, the Seed Library, and adult services.
Marisa has been working in libraries for seven years — five with The City Library — and is now the Assistant Manager at the Sprague Branch. “After graduating from the University of Utah, I was searching for a career and profession that I could truly be a part of and stumbled into Public Librarianship. I started in youth services and am deeply passionate about playing my part to help children and teens learn & grow in the library. Now I work as an Assistant Manager and it is my absolute honor to lead a team of wonderful people to provide services to our community and work together to make things better!” Marisa has served on several committees at the Library, including Staff Development and the 2019 Game of Thrones Celebration. “In my day to day, I work to ensure our spaces are accessible and love to try new things to see what will best serve our community.”
We asked Ina and Marisa about their experiences and why they’ve chosen to complete a master’s degree.
“Becoming a community-driven librarian has always been a dream of mine, and pursuing an MLS is one stepping stone on my path,” says Ina Samuel, currently the Adult Services Librarian at the Day-Riverside Branch and a master’s student at San Jose State University. “I am learning how to analyze my community’s needs and find professional trends. Further, my degree’s focus in technical services will help me understand the minute details of information organization and find new ways to connect people to resources.”
Marisa adds: “While I have learned a lot on the job, the degree has given me time and space to deeply think about librarianship, connected me to my peers throughout the country, and crystallized my understanding of how we are united in our dedication to Equity, Access, and Intellectual Freedom.”
What’s it like being so involved in library happenings while working on a post-grad degree? “Working while going to school is a balancing act, whether or not it is a long-distance education. You have to make sacrifices when it comes to things like having hobbies or keeping up with the latest TV shows and movies,” Ina says. “The hardest part of long-distance education for me is staying motivated to do homework while still finding the time and energy to be present with loved ones. You have to delineate time and space between your personal, work, and school lives, even when they tend to bleed over.”
“Balancing the limited time I had outside of work was definitely a challenge, but even more so was having to choose which classes to take!” Marisa says. “My program with the University of Alabama was excellent and their class topics made it difficult for me to pick every semester. I also missed being able to be physically in the room with my peers as they were all so brilliant and we didn’t get as many opportunities to collaborate with each other as I would have liked.”
The ALA’s Spectrum Scholarships are awarded each year to racially and ethnically diverse Master of Library Science students. Scholarships are highly competitive and awarded to approximately 1 in 4 applicants. This school year a total of 70 students from across the country were awarded Spectrum Scholarships, “based on their commitment to community building, leadership potential, and planned contributions to making social justice part of everybody’s everyday work in [library and information science].”
Besides the financial benefits, Ina describes the scholarship experience: “As a mixed-race individual, I have struggled to find spaces that reflect my lived experiences. Joining the Spectrum Scholar community is an amazing opportunity to meet and collaborate with a cohort of information professionals who understand what it is like to be a BIPOC individual in the field. This community is dedicated to connection, learning, and growth, and I am excited to be a part of it.”
Marisa: “The Spectrum Scholarship connected me directly to an incredible group of peers who will be with me for the rest of my career. When we first met, it felt like I had found more of my family. Not only that, but during my first time at ALA (the largest conference of librarians you will ever see in the United States), the Spectrum Scholars looked out for each other and helped me navigate what would have been an otherwise overwhelming experience.”
Next time you see Ina or Marisa at the Library, say hello! What’s next? Once Ina graduates: “I plan to continue working as an adult services librarian and to use all that I learn in my MLIS program to develop meaningful programs and services for my community.”
Marisa: “I plan to continue pursuing leadership positions in the library and engage with librarianship on a national level. I hope that I can become a leader within our profession who will ‘dismantle barriers and create spaces that are accessible, welcoming, and beneficial for all.’”
