![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Frances-Drone-Silvers.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\nHow have you applied your undergraduate degree in mathematics to your career in librarianship?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Indirectly! Having a math and science background landed me a couple of jobs early in my career. My first professional position was as a science reference librarian at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. My second was as a librarian for a KC-based engineering firm. I don\u2019t think I would have been considered for either position without the math degree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What was the most significant change moving from a community college, Parkland College, to a hospital and medical setting, Carle Health?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Moving back into a solo position (I\u2019ve had others). It can be a bit lonely at times not having library peers at work. My library is located far away from the department to which I belong, the Research Institute. That\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019m so grateful for HSLI\u2013it provides a wonderful network beyond my work walls!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I had always wanted to work in a hospital library setting\u2013I took a medical reference course in graduate school, and I was thrilled finally to receive the opportunity late in my career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Working in a hospital setting, what adjustments did you have to make for providing library services during the worst parts of the COVID-19 pandemic?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably far fewer than most people. Nearly all of my requests come in electronically, via e-mail or a link in the EMR. I had started working from home in January of 2020 while recovering from an accident, and I had been slowly transitioning back into the office when the shutdown happened, so I already had an \u201cat-home\u201d workflow. I spent more time doing \u201ccurrent awareness\u201d\u2013scanning the news, finding the papers mentioned, and delivering them to our COVID team and responding to queries from clinical staff and administration. There was a slowdown in other types of requests, so I assisted colleagues in the Research Institute on projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To be honest, the shutdown brought more \u201ctogetherness\u201d in some ways. Early in the shutdown, my manager held daily staff Zoom meetings to keep us updated, along with beginning to do some fun things such as \u201cshow-and-tell\u201d, Mad Libs, and even \u201chappy hour\u201d Zooms (after work hours). I was able to get to know others in my unit far better than I had before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, I was very aware of the heavy stress that our physicians, nurses, and other clinical staff were under\u2013in addition to our Food Service and Environmental Services staff. They were all much more heavily affected than I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How did you think of the idea for the HSLI \u201cCoffee & Conversation\u201d, and what do you value most about holding these informal discussions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably from the pandemic\u2013my book group met on Zoom, and I did FaceTime coffee with friends just for connection (I have standing coffee-and-tea dates with some friends on a regular basis). So, why not take it to the professional world? Sometimes, I just want to hear how others are doing things, but I don\u2019t need a formal presentation. The best part of conferences is often the hallway conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you could make a trip to one library, in the U.S. or worldwide, that you have never visited before, what would that library be?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Only one??!! No fair\u2013there are too many wonderful libraries in the world to pick just one. I had the opportunity to use the Linda Hall Library<\/a> when I worked in Kansas City and saw a book once owned by Sir Isaac Newton. I\u2019ve seen the Book of Kells<\/a> at Trinity College, visited the British Library Treasures Gallery<\/a>, and been to the Boston Public Library\u2019s<\/a> Special Collections (our daughter works there\u2013yeah, we\u2019re a library family; my husband is retired as Library Director at Lake Land College). I would happily visit the Bibliotheque Nationale<\/a>, the Vatican Library<\/a>, and the Bodleian<\/a>, and also time travel to the Library of Alexandria. And, I will probably visit the library in the town where we go on vacation this year (still to be determined). I love seeing the possibilities that libraries offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frances Drone-Silvers is the HSLI Member of the Quarter! Frances is currently Biomedical Information Specialist at Carle Library in Urbana. She is also the Secretary of HSLI. How have you applied your undergraduate degree in mathematics to your career in librarianship? Indirectly! Having a math and science background landed me a couple of jobs early…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-member-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16795"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16950,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16795\/revisions\/16950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hsli.org\/newsletter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}