Dream Job

by Meagan Lacy

How does one bag her dream job on the first try?  To find out, I asked Erin Conor, an MLIS student and soon-to-be Research Librarian for the Performing Arts at UC Irvine. 

Yes, this position was the first she applied for, but it wasn’t the only one.  Also, the process was not exactly speedy.  She applied for the job in November 2007, had a phone interview in January, and had a daylong, on-site interview in late April.  She accepted the position in early May.  That’s six months – not counting all of the time it took her to qualify for the job in the first place.

Her path to this position stretches as far back as childhood.  Conor grew up in Olympia, Washington.  Since age six, she has been playing the violin.  Her love for music led her out of state to Oberlin College, in Ohio, where she planned to be a performance major.  Once in college, she started working at the reference desk at the music library and discovered her joy of helping students through the research process.  After a summer internship at Yale, where she processed a couple of scores in its music archives, her career goals shifted, and she decided to be a music history major instead.  Her new plan was to go to graduate school.  In particular, she wanted to go to a college with both a good music history program and a good library science program.  The University of Washington was her choice.

In 2004, she graduated from Oberlin and returned to the West.  She earned her Masters in Music History in 2006, after completing her thesis on 1960s rockabilly singers (think:  Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee, and Janis Martin).  She began the MLIS program in the fall of 2006.

Having just finished the program, Conor says that her DFW in music cataloging at the UW Music Library, her GSA position at the Music Library, and her other firsthand experiences have prepared her most for her new position.

Her placement begins July 7, 2008.  Her duties will include reference, instruction, and collection development for the music, dance, and drama departments.