Meet Your LIT-SIS Past Chair, Will Monroe
In this series, we’re getting to know our LIT-SIS board. In this fourth installment, Will Monroe, LIT-SIS Past Chair, answers a few questions. Read on to get to know more about Will, who is the Assistant Director for Instructional Technology at the LSU Law Library!
1) Tell us about your path to law librarianship.
My path to law librarianship was serendipitous. I do not have a J.D. But an opportunity to work with technology in a law library setting became available at the start of my career. Not long after I started, I began a graduate program that allowed me to bring together my interests in educational technology and educational psychology with a unique approach to helping law students learn interviewing and counseling skills. I loved it! This experience opened the doors to collaborations with other law librarians, faculty, and researchers in other disciplines. Although I am an atypical law librarian, I have really enjoyed my professional home and found it rewarding to find ways to make contributions.
2) Why is involvement in an SIS valuable?
Involvement in an SIS gave me a chance to meet colleagues who share similar interests and professional concerns. More than that, it has also been a way to overcome professional isolation. I have enjoyed great collaboration with colleagues and faculty in my institution. But I have had to look elsewhere if I wanted to find peers with similar sets of responsibilities. Involvement in a AALL Special Interest Section is one way to nurture relationships with colleagues who can provide you with new ideas, encouragement, and perspective.
3) What do you enjoy most about being involved with LIT-SIS?
What I’ve enjoyed most about being involved with LIT-SIS has been getting to know my colleagues. I have been very fortunate to have had a chance to spend time with colleagues who were friendly, intelligent, and generous with their time. When I started getting involved with LIT-SIS, I had so much to learn. I appreciate how patient and helpful everyone was.
4) Recommend one book you’ve read recently.
Can I recommend two? I often seem to find myself reading one book in the evening, usually fiction, and one during the day, usually non-fiction. A recent non-fiction book that I found helpful was Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman. The author has written frequently for The Guardian and now has a newsletter, The Imperfectionist. His advice for time management starts out quite bracing—four thousand weeks is the average human lifespan. But he is a smart, funny, and humble writer. If you have read a lot of time and task management books, you may find this one to be useful. A recent fiction book that I loved was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. A story told through the journals of a person apparently confined to an endless series of rooms full of statuary, birds, sea creatures, and maybe someone else. I loved this one.
