Do the Research, Be the Researcher

Prior to this class, I'd probably have said “I have no previous experience as a researcher per se, although I’ve done plenty of research, I don’t exactly classify myself as a “researcher” alone.” But then you’d have corrected me and told me I was a researcher the first time I set out to look for information on something I was interested in or forced to study in school! Don’t we all start out that way?


It’s nice to look at the big picture and realize I was a researcher long before I knew how to really do proper research. What’s even more inspiring, is that we start researching the very moment we have a desire to know more about something. Rewind to my my early experiences with my first rock collection and even further ahead to my interest in the history of Marvel & DC Comics, I began like many of you: in a library.

My first few successful attempts at researching information for my own personal use got me tapped into the realization that places like libraries were portals to anything and everything I could ever want to know provided I devote enough time to dig. That realization of course led me to feeling like I could do well in school, and perhaps become a teacher! Of course, reality actually hit wandering around from job experience to job experience in my high school, undergrad and early married life, I realized I had a passion for instruction and coupled with my love of reading, books and resource pools I found myself here in library school: the mecca for portals of research possibilities.

With the internet at our fingertips--armed with the know-how and where-with-all for proper search strategies in undergraduate school and then in graduate school we’ve pretty well equipped to being some spankin’ detailed researchers. The possibilities are exciting!