Tiffaney s Conner

Timing is everything. In the winter of 2020, I had just started working part time at my local public library when the pandemic known as Covid-19 was becoming a global crisis. As I started exploring my opportunities within the field of Librarianship, I found my way into the graduate program of the Master of Arts in Library and Information Science (MLIS) at the University of South Florida. This blessing has brought me into an amazing field that fits just right, and offers me plenty of room to grow. The sky is the limit.

​

As I now complete my sixth and final semester of being a full time graduate student in the spring of 2022, I can pause for a moment and reflect. These past two years have been intense. The global pandemic is still happening, and there is confusion, division, and much uncertainty around the world. Information is spreading rapidly, across countless channels, and the call for protection of free speech has been sounded. Librarians and information professionals are being asked to step up, to call for accountability across libraries and cultural institutions, and protect the right of individuals to read, learn, speak, and be free. Integrity. democracy, and honor are at stake and it is our duty to promote liberty and justice within our communities and country.

​

My passion and interest throughout my MLIS has been in promoting and advocating for health literacy and cannabis education throughout library systems. Many of my proposals, research ideas, community engagement and outreach projects were focused on access, awareness, and availability for library resources and support for them. I chose to take my elective graduate level classes specifically and with the intention of creating, maintaining, and putting into practice a cannabis education library and archive. With my past teaching experience and consulting skills, plus my knowledge of the current and past cannabis industry in Florida concerning medical, business, outreach, and education aspects I can successfully help patrons, create business plans, determine budgets, make collection decisions, design websites, and conduct research. 

​

The field of Librarianship and Information Science is limitless. To have had 2 years of experience working part time in the public library, combined with internships at a special and a school library, plus the opportunity to work on campus of a cultural institution is awesome. I chose to go on dozens of related field trips, interacted politically by sharing my voice, and met many likeminded professionals. As this long, strange, wonderful trip continues, I am open to the countless opportunities that will present themselves. Or I will create them. Only time will tell. I am forever grateful for this experience and the ones yet to come.