Off the Mark

My name is Mark and I live in Champaign, IL where I attend graduate school in Library and Information Science. I started library school in the summer of 2004. I hope to work in an academic library. Universities may be as flawed as other institutions, but they are a wonderful environment for me.

I graduated with my MSLIS in May 2005 and began a 2nd LIS degree (CAS) the very next day. My focus is on classificatory structures, authority control, controlled vocabularies, Terminology Services, relationships, the training and education of catalogers and metadata specialists (metadaters, metalogers, catadaters?), to include formal and informal education, continuing ed, and professional development.

I am on the job market currently as I intend to finish my CAS in May 2008. Cataloging and metadata work is what I am looking for. More information on me and my CV can be found at my website.

I am divorced and have two amazing kids—Jeremy (27) and Sara (24). Jeremy is in the Army and has been to Iraq and back once already. Sara is an Oberlin College grad. She did nanotechnology research for a year and is now and indexer and abstracter for Chemical Abstracts.

After “retiring” from the Army in 1998 I attended Illinois State University in Normal to finish my undergraduate education. I majored in Philosophy, and also completed minors in Cognitive Science and Applied Computer Science. I worked at Milner Library for the 3 years I was a student and upon graduation got a job there in Access Services (Circulation, Reserves, and Interlibrary Loan) where I stayed for 3 more years. I lived for 6 years in Normal—that is the 2nd longest that I have lived anywhere in my life! The longest ended when I was 13.

Organizations a Member of:

American Library Association
Library & Information Technology Association
Association for Library Collections & Technical Services
American Society for Information Science & Technology
Illinois Library Association
International Society for Knowledge Organization-North American chapter
North American Serials Interest Group
International Association for the Integrational Study of Language and Communication
Philosophy of Science Association
Beta Phi Mu, Alpha Chapter
Golden Key National Honor Society

Interests (some):

Roy Harris and Integrationism; language use and theory in LIS; classificatory structures; authority control; controlled vocabularies; standards; cataloging and metadata education and training, technology and its impact on society and the individual; education; XHTML and CSS; life-long learning; librarianship, especially its history and philosophy.