For Angela Bardeen, who’s always loved libraries, it didn’t occur to her until a couple years after graduating college that librarianship was a profession she could pursue.
“I worked as a counselor at a domestic violence agency and an educator for a few years, and I did Teach for America and taught in New Mexico,” she said. “I really enjoyed teaching, but I realized that maybe working with a different audience would be interesting to me.”
For Suchi Mohanty, it was a work study that introduced her to libraries and pushed her on a path toward her current position as head of UNC’s undergraduate library.
But no matter the reason — or the road that led them to libraries — both share the same passion about their careers.
Bardeen, behavioral and social sciences librarian, said the experiences she had working with students and faculty as a research assistant in the undergraduate library as a graduate student were what initially excited her about being an academic librarian.
“They’re just always following these new ideas and often helping people with research. I’m getting to learn about things I might normally think about,” she said.
Bardeen, who consults student looking for help with research and also helps build the library’s collection related to her fields, also said she loves the energy of being a librarian in an educational institution.
“We just had two Nobel laureates in Davis Library today talking to the students a little bit about their research, so that’s the kind of thing you don’t get all the time that you do get at an academic institution if you’re lucky,” she said.
