{"id":11,"date":"2023-04-24T20:35:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T20:35:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/?page_id=11"},"modified":"2025-03-03T15:31:53","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T15:31:53","slug":"introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/","title":{"rendered":"Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

This e-portfolio represents the culmination of my two years of study in San Jose State University\u2019s Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) program. The idea of studying information science bounced around in my head for years, but it wasn\u2019t until 2022 that I made the firm decision to leave my career as a public interest attorney to focus on obtaining an MLIS. I knew going into the program that I wanted to mainly focus on studying archives.<\/p>\n

Preserving information from the past for the benefit of the future has mattered to me for a long time. I don\u2019t know when I first heard about the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, but the story stuck with me. All that knowledge, lost forever, was unbearable to me. Later, I learned that there wasn\u2019t really \u201ca\u201d single fire or incident that destroyed the library, it probably declined over hundreds of years, and the information contained within wasn\u2019t completely lost. Library history scholar Dr. Colin Higgins suggests that \u201cbecause we want to believe so much about [the Library of Alexandria], the myth of the library remains a powerful draw for a miscellany of television producers, utopians who dream of a universal library, and designers of contemporary library buildings\u201d (Higgins, 2015, p. 73). In reality, Higgins states, \u201cit is worth remembering that most library destructions are actually deaths by a thousand cuts\u201d and that the library (or libraries) of Alexandria likely \u201ccrumbled away, a victim of the humid and variable [shoreline] climate, budget cuts, and administrative disinterest\u201d (Higgins, 2015, p. 74).<\/p>\n

Even if the Library of Alexandria wasn\u2019t destroyed in some epic, romantic, and tragic way, it sparked a desire in me to learn about archives so I can do all I can to help preserve information, whether it be through preservation and conservation practices, or ensuring that archives and other information centers continue to operate successfully.<\/p>\n

Organization<\/strong>
\nMy e-portfolio consists of four sections: an introduction, which you\u2019re reading now, the competencies, a conclusion, and a statement of affirmation that this work is my own. Each competency (A-H & J-O) includes a description and the work I\u2019ve selected to demonstrate how I\u2019ve mastered the competency.<\/p>\n

Throughout the MLIS program, I made sure to keep copies of every assignment submitted. I backed everything up at the end of each semester so it would not be lost. The spreadsheet provided by the iSchool was very helpful in keeping track of which classes and assignments could relate to each competency. When it came time to start working on my e-Portfolio, I took notes on each competency and listed the assignments I thought would best encompass the competency.<\/p>\n

References<\/h2>\n

Higgins, C. (2015). The destruction of the Library of Alexandria as myth and metaphor. In M. Collier (Ed.), What do we lose when we lose a library? Proceedings of the conference held at the KU Leuven 9-11 September 2015<\/em> (pp. 69-75). University of Leuven.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This e-portfolio represents the culmination of my two years of study in San Jose State University\u2019s Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) program. The idea of studying information science bounced around in my head for years, but it wasn\u2019t until 2022 that I made the firm decision to leave my career as a public … Read moreIntroduction<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11","page","type-page","status-publish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eportfolio.ericaleff.io\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}