SIRLS Course Justification for John Stanton
December, 2004
 
Introduction
I have still not completely figured out my career goal. Where I end up may be determined by what jobs are available to me. I have volunteered in a public library for nearly two years and have greatly enjoyed my time there.  I have completed an internship at Grossmont College (a community college) and received an excellent introduction to the duties of a librarian in general and experience with the academic world in particular. I believe that I would enjoy being an academic librarian and suspect that a community college would be an environment I would especially enjoy. I am also trying to make contacts at UCSD, SDSU, and USD because all three of these universities have large staffs of librarians. And I suspect I would also enjoy working for a university. I will consider working as a librarian at a corporation if I cannot find a position in either a public or academic library.
 
My academic goal was to learn the knowledge required of an entry level librarian and to receive a MLS that would allow me to work in a library as a professional. I had decided that working in a library was something that I wanted to do, and I decided that if I was working in a library I would probably be best served by being a librarian instead of say a clerk.
 
Exposition
 
The selection of my courses was governed by what was available to me at the time and the fact that I wanted to complete the program in less than two years. I was also limited to taking only virtual classes at SIRLS because I live out of the area. I also took two courses as electives at SDSU at the suggestion of my faculty advisor, Cheryl Malone. These classes were regular live classes with weekly lectures. It was fun to take at least two regular live courses. The classes where I did the best and enjoyed myself the most were the classes with an in-person component. But I am grateful for the opportunity to have taken the virtual classes because without them I would not have gotten my degree.
 
Five of the classes that I took were requirements:
 
IRLS 501 ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION
IRLS 506 RESEARCH METHODS I
IRLS 520 ETHICS FOR INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS
IRLS 524 INFORMATION RESOURCES EVALUATION
IRLS 613 DECISION MAKING FOR INFORMATION PROFESSIONALS
 
All of the above classes were very good and I learned a lot from them. IRLS 613 was the only management class that was available to me virtually.
 
IRLS 588 ISSUES IN INFORMATION RESOURCES: Info Tech
 
Even though I have a pretty strong technical background, there were a lot of subjects covered in this class that I knew nothing about.
 
IRLS 617 SOCIAL EPISTEMOLOGY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
 
I read the course description of this class and it sounded interesting to me in that it was the theoretical underpinnings of library science. But this was not a good class for me. It was essentially advanced philosophy and I had a very difficult time with the course.
 
IRLS 695E CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES
 
I have always had an interest in Information Architecture and at least part of this course related to that subject. Learning how to create thesauri did not help me with my academic goals, but there were a limited number of virtual courses available and I had to pick the best one for me and this was it.
 
IRLS 575 HUMAN FACTORS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
 
This class deals with Human Computer Interaction (HCI) issues and the design of web sites which are interesting to me.
 
IRLS 588 ISSUES IN INFORMATION RESOURCES: Cataloging

A friend of mine who is a retired librarian told me that Cataloging is an essential class to take in library school and I am glad I took  this class -- it was a great introduction to the subject. I also served as unofficial TA for the class and designed all the technical aspects of this class using WebCT.
 
IRLS 693 INTERNSHIP
 
Because I have so little real world experience with libraries (and in particular academic libraries) I felt that it was important to do an internship. If I would have had time I would have done two of them. This was an invaluable class for me.
 
IDS 691 Decision Support Systems (SDSU)
IDS 695 Info Systems Development I (SDSU)
 
I needed to take two non-SIRLS courses and I wanted to take a couple in-person classes so I took the Information Decision Systems department courses at the suggestion of a professor in that department at SDSU. These courses built on my background as a software engineer while being in the field of Information Systems.
 
Summary
 
IRLS 501 was a very valuable introduction to library science and taught me a lot of practical skills. The reference class (IRLS 524) was an essential class for me; doing reference work is something that I want to do in my career and I learned a lot in this class. The cataloging course is something that I am sure I will be using in the real world as well. The ethics class contained a good introduction of some of the issues I might deal with in my career. The research class is valuable in case I ever need to analyze research projects.
 
The Decision Making class was a very good class. I did not do well in this class due to some medical difficulties I had over the summer, but I learned a great deal from this class regardless and I suspect it will be helpful to me in my career.
 
The classes that taught me about Information Architecture and web pages (IRLS 575, 695E) will probably be valuable to me no matter what career path I take. The Information Technology course was valuable because I will probably be involved in the technical side of the profession no matter what I wind up doing.
 
The Decision Support Systems and Information Systems Development classes could very well be helpful to me depending on the type of work I do.
 
The social epistemology course taught me some interesting concepts about the nature of knowledge as it applies to libraries

The cataloging class taught me many valuable things about the technical aspects of being a librarian including classification, MARC records, and descriptive cataloging.
 
I feel like a received a good education at SIRLS and am thankful for the opportunity. The WebCT GAT position has also been very helpful to me and taught me a lot of useful skills.