Hello! I’m Kestrel Ward, and I’m very excited for this class. I am one of those Terminally Online People you read about who has a bajillion personal blogs, all the social media, and lives their lives Online just about. In fact, I haven’t had a WordPress blog in several years since I lost my last domain, but this class and the blogging opportunities finally pushed me over the edge to start another personal blog, this time under my own name and focused mostly on my work in libraries. I work for the University of Florida libraries in Gainesville, specifically the Architecture and Fine Arts Library, where I’m in charge of the evening hours and new books processing. I get boxes of books delivered to my office just about every week, and I didn’t even have to pay for them myself! Of course, they’re only sometimes of personal interest to me, but it still feels like Christmas a lot! (●’◡’●)
So, if you click on the link to my personal blog’s introductory post you’ll get a sense of what I’m like probably, but I’m going to repeat the bit near the end where I give a list of things about me:
So here’s the basics: I’m a white, disabled, neurodivergent, queer, cis woman. Wife, mother, student, librarian*.
OneQueerLibrarian blog post
Above is the most recent picture I have of myself and my son (my husband doesn’t let me take pictures of him). My son is 10 years old, and already an avid little gamer. He is the delight of my life, and I’m very proud of him, naturally. He is my only child, but I do have three furbabies as well: two purebred German Shepherds, mother and daughter, named Holly and Bella, and an orange cat who recently adopted us named Aximili, or Ax for short (my son is hugely into Animorphs right now and named the cat, who lives up to his namesake and eats everything.)
I am currently in my next to last semester of FSU’s MSI program (I’m kinda salty they changed it from MLIS, because that’s the degree I thought I was getting when I applied. I don’t want an MSI. I want an MLIS like all the cool kids have!) I hope to graduate at the end of Summer, and only have one last class to take. My focus has been academic libraries for the most part, but a big sub-focus has been on stories. I’ve really enjoyed all the story-driven classes I’ve taken so far, and hope to find ways to incorporate that into my work in academic libraries, which is where I feel like I belong. I am also a writer in my free time (mostly fanfiction these days, but I do write original fantasy and romance as well), and an avid reader so my interest in stories is natural. I’m also deeply interested in topics of social justice, marginalized stories, and studying the history of marginalized peoples. I hope one day to be a Women and Gender Studies librarian, and am already a member of the Women and Gender Studies Section of ACRL.
My undergraduate degree was in Classics, and my first Master’s degree was in Classics and Ancient History from Durham, UK. My husband and I lived in the UK, in the north near Yorkshire and Newcastle, for a year while I studied, and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Some day I’d love to be able to move back there, the pace of life is perfect for me, as is the weather (I die in Florida summers every single year, despite being born here). I’ve always loved living in new and interesting places, partially because until I was 10 my parents traveled and worked the Renaissance Fair circuit. We lived in a school bus and then a travel trailer and traveled all over the country every year to do shows. My father still does that sort of thing, and even after they divorced and my mom got a corporate job we still made time to go and visit people at the local shows or sometimes travel to ones farther away for the weekend. Growing up like that was very formative to the kind of person I am, and when people ask where I’m “from” that’s what I think of. The Rennie community is my Village.
Aside from all that, the other major thing about me is that I’m a huge nerd. Books, games, anime, most nerd stuff I’m into it. I started out as a reading nerd, learning to read very early on in life and devouring every book I could get my hands on as a child. In my teen years I was introduced to anime and manga by friends and I’ve never looked back. Lately I’ve been exploring other East Asian media as well, like Korean dramas and Chinese danmei and the like, but my first love is always for Japanese media. I’ve even spent several years trying to teach myself the language (with middling success) to better understand it. After anime, in my 20’s I met my husband who is a huge gamer, and he introduced me to DnD and World of Warcraft, as well as various console games, and now almost 20 years later we’re introducing our son to both as well! We started new WoW characters this week to play together with him, and later this month we’ll start our first family DnD campaign as a group of intelligent dogs going on a bank heist!
I’m really excited for this class because as I mentioned above, I really love telling stories and digital media. I’m hoping to learn better skills for storytelling and digital production overall, but especially graphic design which I use in my day to day job managing the social media for my library branch. I’m really looking forward to learning more this semester along with all of you, even with the heavy work-load. Good luck to all of us! ╰(*°▽°*)╯
Hi, Kestrel! I thoroughly enjoyed your blog post. You covered a range of topics, both personal and professional, and the openness and honesty of the post gave me a strong sense of who you are. You are so fortunate that your parents introduced you to so many new places and experiences as a child. I did not get to travel that much when I was young, but I share your love of visiting new places and we have tried to take our daughter to as many places as possible. I imagine it was a real treasure to live in the UK for a year. I think the UK is next on my bucket list for international travel.
Your job at the UF Arts and Architecture Library sounds fantastic. It looks like the collections are right up my alley as I’m interested in historic preservation and museum studies. In that regard, I appreciated the post on your personal blog about the divide between librarians and staff. As a paralegal, I have experienced a similar divide between lawyers and staff so I understand where you are coming from. And as I look forward to a career in library science, I am also wary about whether I will be able to secure a librarian position. Fingers crossed!
Thanks again for sharing with us about your experiences. I hope you have a wonderful semester, and I look forward to seeing your digital media creations. Peace.