Where Library Work Leads: Student Stories of Growth, Skills and Career Discovery

Story by:

• Kirsten Aguiluz- [email protected]

Media contact:

• Nikki Kolupailo- [email protected]

Topics covered:

• Library

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Article Content

This National Student Employment Week (April 12-18), we recognize the impact student employees make across campuses nationwide. At UC San Diego Library, student employment offers more than a paycheck - it's a powerful learning experience where students help keep collections moving, maintain welcoming spaces, improve digital experiences, and build transferable skills that shape their future careers. Through daily tasks and mentorship from Library staff, students develop time management, attention to detail, teamwork, communication, leadership, and professional confidence.

The students and recent alumni featured in this article have worked across Geisel Library and WongAvery Library in roles both public-facing and behind the scenes. Their work ensures that materials are findable, users are supported, and library systems run smoothly. Along the way, many discovered unexpected career pathways in library-related fields, explored their professional strengths, and gained confidence in their abilities. These experiences all pointed to a shared theme: as a form of experiential learning, campus employment can open doors and shape students' futures in meaningful, lasting ways.

Alumni Pathways: From Student Employment to Professional Roles

Across circulation, collections and digital experience work, alumni describe how their Library jobs built transferable skills they still rely on today, from managing tasks and sustaining focus to mentoring peers and supporting others. Mentorship from Library supervisors and staff helped them see professional possibilities they hadn't imagined, shaping both their confidence and their career pathways.

Katrina Graziano '25 (she/her)

Over time, Katrina built library-specific skills that translate directly into her current role, including a working knowledge of the Library of Congress call number system, familiarity with an integrated library system (Alma), and fluency with the rhythms of academic library work, such as paging, shelving, searching, check-in/out processes, and procedures that keep people and materials safe.

Just as importantly, she strengthened skills she now uses constantly, including attention to detail in fast-paced workflows, clear communication with coworkers and supervisors, and leadership through training peers and supporting daily workflow.

Katrina's proudest moments often came from direct service. Paging books felt like the most immediate way to help her peers, as she kept items moving from one student to the next. She also loved helping users in the stacks while shelving, especially when she could guide someone with a question to the right section or author. One moment that stayed with her was helping a child and a grandparent find Dr. Seuss books, with both stopping to thank her afterward. This small interaction made "accessible knowledge" feel personal and tangible.

Her work, alongside the rest of the DX Team made up of student employees and career staff, contributed to the team winning the campus's 2024 Inclusive Excellence Award. The award recognized their collaborative efforts in improving accessibility across the Library's digital platforms, resolving over 241,000 accessibility issues on the Library's most visited web pages, and mentoring the next generation of design professionals. This experience highlighted how students and career staff working together can tackle complex challenges from new perspectives, learn from each other, and accomplish meaningful results.

This mentorship was especially formative for Hannah, shaping her design and communication habits and strengthening professional confidence. That learning carried directly into her next chapter.

After graduation, Hannah returned to UC San Diego Library as a full-time career employee, where she currently serves as a Digital Product Strategist focused on usability, consistency and accessibility across digital experiences. Hannah displays a true "full circle" path that shows how student employment can become a direct professional pipeline.

Theo identifies task management as an initial skill developed during their time as a Library student employee. They learned how to break work into steps, identify what's time-sensitive, and make steady progress with the time available. Theo also described a strength that developed over time: the ability to pace work strategically and sustain focus across different kinds of tasks. This progression helped Theo recognize when focus is strongest, when fatigue can lead to shortcuts, and how to protect both accuracy and self-kindness at once.

When asked about the role academic libraries play in student success beyond resources alone, Theo described how they provide access to relevant information, and offer a clean, quiet and safe place to be. They serve as a foundation that supports research and learning in practical, everyday ways. Many of Theo's interactions with users stayed with them, especially those that revealed how different groups engage with an academic library. The most gratifying moments made long-term access tangible, like finding missing books and helping keep collections findable.

That systems perspective connects to Annie's future: they plan to pursue a Master of Science in Informatics at San José State University, with the goal of building a career in UX design. Annie described it as a degree that supports the pathway they want in the long run, designing better experiences and improving how people find and use information.

One of Annie's standout memories was building a Triton Days book display designed to welcome incoming students and families. The assignment felt meaningful because it reflected something that can be easily overlooked: student employees don't just support the Library, they help shape how new students experience it.

Working behind the scenes shifted how Kasper understands the broad range of services academic libraries provide. He sees firsthand how undergraduate and graduate students rely on library resources, especially when access elsewhere is costly. He takes satisfaction in knowing that behind-the-scenes work matters because it directly supports someone's needs. Even simply putting items away correctly can be the difference between a resource being available and a student losing time searching for it.

He also emphasized how encouraging and helpful Library career employees can be with undergraduates, especially when post-graduation plans still feel uncertain.

Kyle's reflections on why academic libraries matter were values-driven: libraries support equal access to learning and research, and education should not be locked behind paywalls. Even when someone isn't checking out books, the Library still matters as an accessible third space, a place that helps people participate in an informed community.

One of Kyle's most memorable moments is the joy of discovery. Finding a book that fits a niche interest and realizing there are entire fields of study devoted to it serves as a reminder of how much knowledge becomes possible through both physical collections and digital archives.