Congratulations to Anna Rose Morrow, recipient of BFOL’s 2022-2023 Endowed Scholarship in Library and Information Science

CONGRATULATIONS to Anna Rose Morrow!!! Anna Rose is the recipient of the Bellevue Friends of the Library’s Endowed Scholarship in Library and Information Science for the 2022-2023 academic school year. Each year, Bellevue Friends of the Library awards this scholarship to one promising student in the University of Washington’s Masters of Information and Library Science program. Anna Rose is a very worthy recipient. Please join us in congratulating Anna Rose and wishing her continued success with her studies and career in the information and library sciences.

I am deeply grateful to receive the Bellevue Friends of the Library Endowed Scholarship in Library and Information Science. This generous gift will help me continue as a student in the UW MLIS program and become a librarian.

I chose to attend the Information School at UW primarily because of its strong academic and professional reputation. It seemed like students in the program were becoming not only better librarians but better people. I am happy to say that my own experiences as a student have reflected this reality. My understanding and imaginings of librarianship have expanded exponentially, and I’m consistently amazed by the careful, deliberate, and innovative work taking place in the world of libraries. Although I am still exploring different aspects of the library science field to determine my professional goals, currently, I am working towards becoming a youth librarian in a public library. This past year, I took LIS 564: Multicultural Resources for Youth, LIS 565: Resources for Digital Age Children, and LIS 551: Intellectual Freedom. I plan to take further courses on youth and public librarianship in my remaining quarters. I will also be serving on the council of the UW iSchool’s student chapter of the American Library Assocation (sALA) as the Washington Library Association (WLA) representative this year. I will work to organize events and opportunities for students to engage with both the ALA and WLA.

Beyond the classroom, I have been lucky to gain professional experience in special/governmental librarianship while interning at the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC). PSRC is a government regional planning organization that helps local and state government officials in the Puget Sound region plan for growth and access the data they need to make informed policy decisions. In the Information Center, I work with PSRC’s library manager to handle the PSRC’s archives, databases, website, intranet, and information needs. The library manager is also responsible for answering reference questions from the public, responding to public records requests, and inventorying data from the US Census and American Community Survey as the PSRC is a State Data Center for the central Puget Sound region. My experience as an intern has helped me engage more deeply in my classes at UW, particularly on subjects relating to websites, databases, programming languages, and data management. It has also expanded my understanding of what non-traditional librarianship can look like and the importance of information management to US state and federal government organizations.

Thank you for supporting my studies and other aspiring librarians like me!