On the south side of Chicago, Sandra Aya Enimil was arguing with one her seatmates on the bus when someone told her she’d make a good lawyer. She was seven years old at the time.
“I didn’t know exactly what the word meant, so I asked my mother what a lawyer was, and she told me it is somebody who helps other people,” Enimil, a current GSLIS student and LAMP scholar, recalls. “I became focused on that idea, and from then on, I always had the goal of eventually going to law school.”
Enimil’s determination did indeed earn her a juris doctorate in 2004, but her academic and personal journey to that point has been a fascinating one that stretches across the Atlantic and includes multiple successful careers and academic degrees. As she finishes up her LEEP courses this semester, she’ll add a master’s in library and information science to her already impressive list of accomplishments.
“I’ve been very lucky in my life to have many supportive people, especially my mother and family, to help me meet my goals, and I’ve had the opportunity to take many different paths to get me where I am today,” she said.
Those paths include her time at the University of Michigan where she earned two bachelor of arts degrees in political science and psychology as well as her education at the University of Ghana where she earned a graduate degree in international relations. After her return to the States, Enimil landed a position at the Council of Foreign Affairs in New York, where she spent the next few years researching U.S. foreign policy towards Africa and women’s human rights, until she decided to pursue her law degree at the University of Illinois.
While in law school, Enimil worked as an intern for Kate Spade in New York, which is when her interest in copyright issues was sparked.
“I had always thought I wanted to go into international law,” Enimil says, “But my time working in the fashion industry really got me thinking about trademark and copyright law. The significance of branding and what owning rights mean became really fascinating.”
Although she was aware that her interest in copyright law intersected with the library world, it wasn’t until after she earned her law degree and began working as the archives and copyright manager for the Chicago Defender newspaper that she considered a career in libraries.
“To be honest, I kept saying to myself ‘no more school!’” said Enimil. “But through my position at the Defender, I met many archivists and librarians who told me that the LIS field is really at the forefront of copyright issues and encouraged me to consider going back to get my degree. In the end, it just seemed like that was the logical next step for me.”
As it turned out, those enthusiastic librarians were right and, after being awarded a LAMP scholarship and beginning classes at GSLIS in the summer of 2011, Enimil feels like she has found herself a wonderful niche in the library world that directly fulfills her childhood aspiration of helping people.
Enimil is a LEEP student, and appreciates the fact that she has been able to continue to develop Pretty Afrika Designs, the fashion design business that she started with her mother, while finishing up her degree.
“I definitely feel like I am at the right place at the right time,” said Enimil. “I am already learning so much that is making me reconsider what I thought I knew about owning rights and access. It is a complicated issue, and it is only getting more complex as information becomes digital. My goal is to help people understand the issues and get them the information they need.” Happily, Enimil will do just that when she begins her new position as head of the Copyright Resource Center at The Ohio State University Libraries in April.