Profiles

Judith Warren

Sponsoring Organization: Northern New York Library Network
Attending: Clarion University (Distance Education)

I was born in Texas and lived there with my mother and six other siblings for nineteen years. After graduating from high school, I worked at the Houston Public Library for a year then joined the U.S. Navy. I spent four years in the service and got married, before retiring to Northern New York; I had lived in Japan, Maryland, Iceland, and Puerto Rico.

Between 1980 and 1986, I delivered three sons into the world. After my husband passed away in 1990, I thought I would be a good teacher. I attained my Associates in Science degree from the State University of New York College of Technology at Canton and my Bachelors of Arts and Master of Science in Education degrees from the SUNY at Potsdam. I worked at some substitute teaching positions for a couple of years and at the same time took a part-time position at the Potsdam Public Library. I discovered that I did not enjoy being in a classroom, but did enjoy the activities and people at the library.

When I received a full-time position at the Potsdam Library in 2001, I decided that one of my goals would be to obtain my Masters in Library Science. Fortunately for me, the “Making It REAL!” Scholarship and the Clarion University Master of Library Science cohort became available during the same time frame and were noticed by the Potsdam Library Director, Patricia Musante, who encouraged me to apply for both and pursue my goal of an MLS.

For the past six months I have taken 3 courses through Clarion University toward my MLS degree. The distance education program makes the studies easier to accomplish due to the lack of time and place restrictions. The requirements are still challenging, but meeting people from various places all over the globe with many viewpoints makes the work interesting and fun. This is what makes working in a library fun – the volumes of information from varying viewpoints.