Introducing Dana Gerber, LIS TA

Hi there! My name is Dana Gerber and I'm happy to take J901 class this semester. Though I'm likely not going to be a traditional professor, I value the role of teaching and education in not only our society as a whole but in my career as well.

I'm originally from California; I grew up on the central coast and went to undergrad at UC Berkeley. I studied Russian & Eastern European History there. I taught within a program that allowed Berkeley peers teach to other peers, and that was my first taste of leading discussion and thinking of activities! They were meant to be fun classes though with few credits, so the section went more like: an hour of drawing with an hour of discussion. I co-facilitated Introduction to Children's Literature, Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, and His Dark Materials trilogy. While an undergrad, I worked in the Public Services department of the Bancroft Library.

After undergrad, I worked as a research assistant, a library assistant in Berkeley's Career Counseling Library, and as a workshop facilitator for CollegeTrack, an after-school college prep program in downtown Oakland for low-income and under-resourced students. After a year, I decided to come to Madison to study library science.

I started off wading through different types of libraries, set myself on archives, and then continued to deviate from the path of a processing archivist. My experience as a TA for LIS 201 with Greg was an extremely enriching one, and it got me thinking more and more about teaching. My path is heading towards a career ideally mixed with archives and outreach. I currently work at the Wisconsin Historical Society as both a reference assistant and marketing intern, volunteer at Circus World, TA for LIS 202, and work on my podcast, Sound of the Archives. I also have an "about me" page here.

I hope this suffices, Greg!