MU Libraries recently welcomed a new librarian to the Instructional Services Department! Jennifer Gravley was a former graduate student in the Library and Information Science program at Mizzou, and our library staff is excited to have her back in a professional capacity. Here's a quick interview, so you can get to know and love her as much as we do.
Q: How did you come to be a librarian?
Jennifer: I suppose I went to library school as part of a midlife career change, but it wasn’t a new consideration. I am definitely not the first person from my creative writing program to go on to become a librarian! I’ve brought the experiences of having taught college courses and worked in scholarly publishing with me, but that’s part of why I love working at a university—there are so many people working in so many different ways to achieve the overall mission of education. Gaining understanding of the different aspects of the scholarly community helps me see more of the big picture.
Q: What aspects of your job at MU Libraries are you excited about?
Jennifer: I look forward to working with freshman writing instructors and students. Having taught freshman writing myself, I know that this is a course that challenges students to become more skillful researchers as well as more proficient writers. And that’s quite a task for any of us to undertake! Growth is uncomfortable but rewarding. It’s now my job to introduce these students to library resources and help them learn some basic research skills to use those resources more effectively.
I also never know what questions will come my way at the reference desk. This isn’t the most common transaction, but sometimes students will come to the desk for help and know what they are looking for, where to find it, and how to find it—but they don’t know that they know. Those opportunities to confirm someone’s research abilities, to help them gain the confidence to utilize the skills they already have, are just as important as helping students gain those same skills in the first place.
Q: Since we are librarians, we have to be stereotypical and ask about books. What was your favorite book you were assigned to read in college, and what are you reading now?
Jennifer: Beloved by Toni Morrison in college. I recently read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, which was incredible.
Stop by Ellis Library to say hi to Jennifer at the reference desk, or to ask about library instruction.
