Celebrating Colleagues

Friday, September 16 marked my last day as the Help Desk/Web Support Librarian at Lehigh University Libraries.  I had the pleasure of being a librarian at Lehigh for 5 3/4 years, which means I spent over half of my librarian career life there.   I’ve been very fortunate in my career and have been able to work with some wonderful librarians and library staff over the years.  I really thought I would retire (which is still 20+ years away!) while at Lehigh, but a wonderful opportunity came along and I’ll be the new library director at Muhlenberg College.

My colleagues at LTS (Library and Technology Services at Lehigh) really outdid themselves in throwing me a going away party.  The outpouring of warm wishes and the generosity and thoughtfulness of their gifts truly warmed my heart.  It is not easy leaving a place where I not only enjoyed what I did, but I also worked with some wonderful people.

I wish I could name everyone in LTS and their many wonderful contributions, but I would undoubtedly forget someone or spell a name wrong.  LTS is a large organization within an excellent university and I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many highly competent and motivated people.   I learned a great deal and became a better librarian and a better person because of my time at Lehigh.  I’ve learned more than I had ever expected to about interlibrary loan, cataloging, technical services, account maintenance, wireless networks, computers, networks, networking, customer service, course reserves, course management systems, and so much more.  All of these things can be learned, but to do any of these very well, you need the right people in the right positions.  LTS seemed to have a lot of that combination in place!

I want to thank everyone at LTS for expanding my knowledge of libraries and technology, for continuously providing exceptional services, and for always looking for creative ways of doing more than was expected.  It truly was an honor to work with all the staff at LTS as well as the many faculty, students and staff I had the pleasure of working with at Lehigh.  I will continue to celebrate my colleagues with surprise thank yous, LinkedIn recommendations, or simply by living their example.   I look forward to working with many of them in the future, albeit in a different capacity.  I have been truly blessed with my colleagues at Lehigh.  Not only are they my colleagues, but I am grateful to be able to call them my friends as well.

Thank You for over five years of awesomeness!