Susan has served as a Science Reference Librarian at Salisbury University for several years. She initially wanted to go into the field of marine biology; however, she found that she enjoyed research and problem solving itself during an internship. According to Susan, any ‘librarian’ is currently in high demand. An individual can graduate with any degree and still chose to become a librarian, a path that is ‘easy and enjoyable.’ Susan states that librarianship requires multitasking and critical thinking, but is also very rewarding.
Transcript
>> My name is Susan Braser and I'm the Science Reference Librarian here at Blackwell Library. On a daily basis I do not have actually a daily basis. My job changes from day-to-day depending on where we are in the semester or what's needed. Generally speaking my job duties include teaching for the Henson School of Science providing library instruction classes. I order books for those departments in the Henson School of Science. I work with students who have research projects within the Henson School of Science one-on-one and just kind of troubleshoot anything that comes up that they might need plus I provide general reference assistance, research help to anybody who needs it at any time. My hours are extremely flexible which is nice. I mean I generally come in about the same time every morning. I can leave in the middle of the day if I need to do something which is really helpful as well because sometimes I'll need to come back at 6 o'clock at night and watch someone give a presentation and I'll go and I'll teach a late class. Like if there's a graduate biology class that's maybe 7 to 8 or 7 to 9, I might come in for the latter half of it and provide instruction to the students on how to do research, get them started on their master's thesis or something like that. We do have students that meet on Saturdays, non-traditional students or distance education students if they need to come in for like a couple of weeks. So they'll come in on a Saturday and because that have my day is really flexible where I'm in and out of the office. I'm in and out of the building. I'm on and off campus so that's really nice. I don't travel a lot because we're geographically isolated. We do have to travel some. It's usually not for my immediate jobs needs. It's for committee wore or consortia work within the state of Maryland. It's not for everyday kind of things.
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