About Me

Introduction

I am Sybil Maimouna Touré, widely known as Mouna. Welcome to my ePortfolio. This portfolio is prepared in partial fulfillment of Old Dominion University’s requirements for a master’s degree in library and information studies (MLIS). I expect to complete all requirements for my degree in May 2023.  

My aspiration is to become a standout youth services librarian.  I am currently doing my practicum with the youth services team at the Chantilly Regional Library in Chantilly, Virginia.  It is part of the Fairfax County Public Library System.  

Greetings! Hola!  Bienvenu! Konnichiwa!   Welcome to my ePortfolio.  This ePortfolio is presented in partial fulfillment of the Old Dominion University’s requirements for a master’s degree in library and Information Services.  The other requirements are 30 hours of coursework and a practicum. 

Let me begin this walk through my ePortfolio by sharing with you information about my journey to professional library studies.   By the way, you may have noticed that I began with a greeting in English, Spanish,  French and Japanese.   I did this  as a tribute to the increasingly multiethnic, multilingual communities our libraries serve.  

My journey:  From a young age I had an unrelenting obsession with drawing and knew that I wanted to be a cartoonist.  For this reason, my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is focused on visual arts, specifically animation.

But, while studying art, with its countless hours spent in  museums and libraries doing the research associated with learning about, creating, promoting, and commercializing art as an entrepreneur, I came to see that my passion is broader. It can be more broadly defined as gathering and organizing information, and then figuring out how to make it as accessible as possible to a variety of audiences.

It is, in effect, helping to  make sense of the world and the connections between the old and the new.  This realization, a love of books,  and early, up close exposure to the joys of being a librarian have all fueled my interest in pursuing professional library studies.  

I  became exposed to library environments and loved libraries and bookstores at a very young age.  Seriously.  Without knowing it, I gradually absorbed a love of the library profession from my aunt, a proud professional librarian with undergraduate and graduate degrees in library science from Syracuse and Pratt Universities, respectively.

As a little kid, I would staple stacks of paper together to create my own books, hoping  my aunt would place them in her libraries. 

When my aunt managed libraries for the US military in Germany and Kuwait and would organize summer reading programs for the kids there, I helped choose the Arthur themed prizes given to the lucky participants.

Even though I lived and traveled in many countries as a Foreign Service kid, I thought my aunt’s job was the coolest because she got paid to ‘live’ among so many books.

Visiting her at her libraries was always a highlight because she would select great stuff based on my interests, whether in mummies — when we lived in Egypt, or Stanley and Livingstone – – when we lived in southern Africa. Eventually, she worked at the highly specialized Army Corps of Engineers’ library at Fort Belvoir — no fun for me.  However, that’s where I saw that maps, architectural drawings, and engineering publications each had their own special audiences and had to be preserved and organized for efficient retrieval.  I now know that these speak to Ranganathan’s third and fourth laws of librarianship– “every book its reader”; and “save time for the reader.”      

While working in the comic book industry, I came to realize that the retail end  has similarities with being a librarian.   I often had to draw from my deep well of knowledge of manga publishers, authors, genres, etc., to recommend titles to customers based on their individual needs. I would first ask about their favorite genres, themes, character types, the target age, and gender demographics, just as a librarian might do in seeking to help patrons find the right materials.  As a vendor and panel speaker at many industry events, including the Small Press Expo, DC Zine Fest, and DC Art Book Fair, I had to have the knowledge and communications skills to be effective.  I had to develop elevator pitches for each of my publications. At these events, I frequently spoke of the importance of normalizing diversity within storylines. I have even donated many of my self-published work to the Library of Congress. 

I have brought and applied these experiences to my preparation to be a professional librarian. Alongside my coursework I have been active in the youth services space on multiple levels. As examples, at the ALA 2022 Conference in Washington DC, I was a selected  exhibitor in the conference’s Zine Pavilion and delivered public readings of original works. Based on this exposure, I was invited to develop and deliver a county-wide program for young adults. It was hosted by the Burke Centre Branch of the Fairfax County Library during summer 2022. I also collaborated with this library and an elementary school to develop and deliver book talks to fifth and sixth grade students.

I have been engaged with libraries’ outreach to young adults for a while.  But now, with my extensive MLIS preparation, I soon will be a full-fledged, professional  librarian, trained in a ALA-accredited program.

This ePortfolio is organized into six parts, each with its corresponding tab or dropdown menu. In the remaining sections you will find the following:

  • About Me, with my philosophy of librarianship, and my resume.
  • Artifacts— past assignments that are representative of my two years of MLIS studies.  Each begins with a brief description, followed by the artifact itself, and that is followed by the MLIS Student learning outcomes the artifact satisfies.
  • The next section consists of a curated list of resources I expect to draw upon to aide in my continuing professional development.
  • Next come my reflections on how the MLIS program has prepared me for a career in librarianship through intensive coursework grounded in the standards of learning.
  • The final two sections are a blog, and a form you can use to contact me.

Thank you for visiting  my ePortfolio.  I look forward to hearing from you if you have questions or comments.