Master's student Victoria Turner has been selected to receive a scholarship from the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI). Awarded for the first time in the 2020-2021 academic year, the CARLI Scholarship provides financial assistance to current employees of CARLI Governing Member Libraries pursuing graduate studies leading to a master's degree in library and information science at the University of Illinois. CARLI provides library services and support to 128 Illinois public universities, community colleges, private colleges and universities, and special libraries.
For Turner, a cataloging assistant at Harper College Library in Palatine, Illinois, being in the MS/LIS program at Illinois is "a professional dream come true." She started her first library job in August 1999 and earned her Library Technical Assistant (LTA) certificate from the College of DuPage in 2006.
"Within two months of earning my LTA, I became a full-time copy cataloger, a position I have held in both public and academic libraries ever since. However, after years of working as a paraprofessional, I realized that I wanted to do more in-depth cataloging work that was reserved for professional librarians," Turner said.
She returned to college while working full time and graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Illinois University in December 2018, with a major in general studies and a minor in sociology. Turner started her MS/LIS studies at Illinois in January 2020.
"I have already learned so much in my first semester at the iSchool," said Turner. "My professors and classmates are so encouraging and provide so many new insights to the field. I am interested in studying information organization and access services, since I have been working in Technical Services for more than 20 years now, and I have a love of the catalog."
After completing her degree, Turner hopes to find a professional position as a cataloging/metadata librarian.