An Inspirational article.

Doug Achterman and Joyce Kasman Valenza’s article, “Why Enter a Doctoral Program in Library and Information Science?” was published in February 2007 on School Library Media Activities Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 6 (pp. 56-58). Their personal stories are very inspirational. In this article, Joyce explains the reasons why she entered a doctoral program in library and information science:

“After thirty years in the library world, the certificate process didn’t seem the right step for me. I had reached a point where I didn’t need to prove myself to my administrator or to fellow professionals.”

“I wanted to add my practitioner’s voice to the intellectual dialog to combine my knowledge of practical with the theoretical. I wanted to take a leading role in the profession I adored. Without the doctorate I was cut off from making the types of contributions I longed to make.”

As I read these few beautiful lines, my heart struck. And I embrace her and admire her ultimate ambitions. I have heard some doctorate students call us, the professional librarians as the “mainstreams” who are usually NOT considered as “intellectual scholars” in the academia's ivy tower. I disagree. We are the practitioner, yet we also have the ability of doing intellectual research. That stereotype certainly needs to be re-imaged.