Hi everyone!
I am Aaron Berner. I currently live in Santa Rosa, California, and I work as a Circulation Specialist for Sonoma County Library. I started working for the library system in October after teaching high school English for the past four years and working in schools and with city Parks and Recreation youth programs for the three years prior to that. Although I have been in California for seven years now, I grew up in Fairbanks, Alaska. My undergraduate degree is in Broadcast Journalism, so I have been able to experience and engage with many different facets of the information professions. I am halfway done with the MLIS program, and the end seems to be approaching much more rapidly now than it did last semester. I am interested in continuing to work in public libraries in the future, but I am also curious about exploring academic librarianship at a junior college, where I think I would be able to blend skills I am learning now with instructional skills I developed over the last several years. I am excited to take this class because I enjoy learning about technology and thinking about the future of libraries, and I think this class will push me out of my comfort zone a bit. However, I am also taking INFO 285: Historical Research Methods this semester, and for that class I am currently reading The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff, which has me feeling much less optimistic about technology and the state of the world at the moment. In my free time, I enjoy reading, playing basketball and video games, and watching a variety of TV shows. I also have one cat named Nadja, who is named after a character in the FX vampire comedy “What We Do In The Shadows”.
Excited to learn from and work with all of you this semester!
Hello @berner! Nadja is beautiful! I hope you find inspiration in this class for what is possible within the realm of PL service! Welcome to #hyperlib!
Dear Aaron, I live in neighboring Sebastopol. I loved “What We Do In the Shadows.” I also enjoy naming pets. My last cat was named Shirley in homage to Shirley Jackson, one of my favorite authors. When I figured out he was a male, his name became Lord Shirley. Are you located at a specific branch for the Sonoma County Library? Cheers!
Hi @mzrasmuson! Sebastopol is great. I worked as a special education aide and did my student teaching at Analy, so I have spent quite a bit of time there. Lord Shirley is also a great cat name! I have friends who had a similar experience with a cat they named Orion — they found out Orion was female, but they kept the name and still refer to him with masculine pronouns. I am working at the Windsor branch of the library; it’s a small branch, and it has been a really good experience so far! Looking forward to working with you this semester!