Join us in welcoming Rebecca Blunk to the North Las Vegas campus! While Rebecca isn’t new to CSN Libraries, she begins a new chapter as the Lead Librarian at the North Las Vegas campus library this summer. She has been a Reference and Instruction Librarian at CSN since 2017 but has been working in libraries since 2005!
To learn more about Rebecca’s experience as a librarian and what she is looking forward to do as a Lead Librarian, we asked her a few questions:
What do you like most about your job as a librarian?
My favorite aspect of librarianship, for certain, is the idea of assisting people in finding information about a topic, subject, interest, or question they have. I love the notion of having a career that is centered on helping others search for answers and explore information. No day as a librarian feels the same to me because we are constantly working with different people who have different information needs, so I feel like part of my job is accepting the challenge of helping students uncover information and find sources at a moment's notice—which I believe enriches my life in that I get to learn something new AND have the opportunity to have a conversation with someone new every day.
What is one accomplishment during your time at the West Charleston campus that you’d like to share?
This isn't a particularly exciting accomplishment, but I think it's an important aspect of my job: At the WCH campus, it is my responsibility to purchase books under the subject of education. I am currently completing my PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and am studying under a program that focuses on cultural studies, international education, and multicultural education. This has contributed to my knowledge about special topics within education that span across PK-12 and through higher education and is very important to me. Therefore, over the past few years, I have worked to build our print collection in education to incorporate multiple aspects of the discipline that include trauma-informed pedagogy, working and teaching in minority-serving institutions (MSIs), critical pedagogy, college readiness, and teacher development. My hope has been that enhancing this part of our collection will serve not only students enrolled in programs related to education, but that our faculty and staff at CSN are also provided access to high quality resources that will support their own learning and professional development.
How will your work at the library be the same and different as a Lead Librarian?
It will be the same in that, as a librarian first and foremost, my priorities lie with helping student and supporting their academic work through either instruction, collection development, or outreach. I don't think that will change regardless of which campus I am based at or what role I am in. I think the major difference in being a Lead librarian at the North Las Vegas campus will be that I will have specific responsibilities related to being the academic faculty point person at this campus and making sure that I am lending my support to the other librarians at the NLV campus library. I'm also very much looking forward to developing closer professional relationships with not only the faculty and staff at the library itself, but with other CSN colleagues at the NLV campus.
What about the North Las Vegas campus interested you in taking on this new role?
Having worked at the West Charleston campus library for the past nine years, I'm mostly looking forward to putting my past managerial and supervisory experience to use at a different campus! For nearly two years I have been working a reference desk shift at the North Las Vegas campus and I have very much come to enjoy spending time at that library. I appreciate the seemingly close knit community culture of this library between the faculty and staff as well as between everyone working at the library and the students. This is not something I believe to be absent at the other campus libraries, however, I feel like my professional goals and demeanor as a librarian are more closely aligned with the community I have experienced at the North Las Vegas campus. In addition, being the spouse of an Air Force Sgt (Ret.), I look forward to being closer to Nellis AFB—where I look forward to developing a closer relationship with our CSN professors based at that location.