Award-winning LIS Alumna Offers Advice to Current Students
Leslie Morgan, LibSci ’05, was selected as the recipient of the Indiana Library Federation’s 2007 Outstanding New Librarian Award. Now, Morgan is offering advice to current students on how they also can become successful librarians.
Morgan suggests that students begin building their professional networks and relationships before graduation. To achieve this goal, she suggests that students join professional associations. For example, as a student, Morgan joined ALA and wrote e-mails to librarians in academia about the profession. She also approached the librarians at Wayne State’s Undergraduate Library about gaining experience and began a work-study project. Her work-study project later became a graduate student assistantship at the library.
Of her experience at WSU, Morgan says, “My former colleagues at the UGL were wonderful ‘hands-on’ mentors. As a result of taking these steps, I have a professional community of academic librarians who are open to continued professional dialog.”
Morgan is currently the First Year Experience Librarian at the University of Notre Dame. She is a “renaissance woman” in promoting librarianship, encouraging the development of librarians of color and leading literacy initiatives in her community.