Sarah Borders

Many years ago, a former colleague of mine was up for a promotion in IT support. Part of the interview process included a timed practical assessment where candidates were asked to repair a computer with several functional issues not related to its hardware. After some basic troubleshooting, she decided the only way to complete the task in the allotted time was to re-image the machine. The test was meant to be impossible in the allotted time; it was supposed to show that the candidate could keep calm under pressure and knew how to assess the situation by running though all the possible fixes from the most common to the least common. The proctors had to suspend assessments while the fixed computer was broken again. My colleague got the promotion. She told me this story, and I said, "So you Kobayashi Maru'd the assessment." When she looked at me quizzically, I knew she wasn't a Trekkie, so I explained the story. If you're not a fan of Star Trek or unfamiliar with t

I continued to work in my role as a readers' advisory librarian until January 2012. Having started out managing the library's "For Adults" section of the website, I started taking on more and more responsibility, until I was granted super-admin access, and was managing almost all of the website and training other users on the content management system we were using at the time. Toward the end of 2011, there began some rumblings about making a more concerted effort to focus on the library's online presence and services by establishing a dedicated team. As the person who found herself managing much of the day-to-day work on the website, I was a natural candidate to be a part of this newly formed team. Rather than being a part of Public Services Division of the library, we were now a part of the IT Division, and that was an adjustment. For me, it was like a duck moving from land into water. IT people were my people. That's not to say I know everything there is to

I started library school at the University of North Texas in the fall 2006 semester, excited to go back to school to become a librarian. One of my colleagues at work suggested I take the Web Development courses, a set of two electives offered that would count toward my total credits needed for the General Program of Study I was pursuing, and they sounded interesting to me, so I did. That fall, while I learned all about how information is organized—a foundational concept of librarianship, I discovered I had a real affinity for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, which were the focus for the first Web Development course. I enjoyed working with markup and styling my HTML, but I really enjoyed using JavaScript to manipulate the DOM. In the following spring, I learned about the different types of reference work (primarily handling reference, referral, and directional requests), and important best practices for providing assistance to patrons. I also learned PHP, SQL, MySQL, and how to interact with

Once upon a time, in what now feels like another (and in some ways, an alternate) life, I was a librarian. I'm not ashamed to admit that it's a career I chose by default, but not as alternate-universe Mary Hatch did when there was no George Bailey to marry. I had earned a BA in Classical Studies. The history, mythology, philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and language of the ancient Greek and Roman world all fascinated me greatly, but I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I'd worked my way through college as a bookseller at Barnes & Noble, and once my course load wound down, I began to work full-time and was promoted to lead bookseller. I was still living with my parents, and I had no plans of moving out until, at my father's insistence, I could afford to buy a house (renting was a waste of money). I had no immediate plans for my next move, and was content to continue working at the bookstore until I figured it out, until one day, my mother pointed m