What President’s Day Means to Your Library Career

Every year, President’s Day comes and goes without too much attention. There are no big balloons or giant hearts or gift giving that goes hand-in-hand with this holiday. The only thing that might make you stop and think about President’s Day is the fact that your bank is closed or your favorite store might be having a sale.

But for people interested in a career in library science, President’s Day not only celebrates our former Presidents, but also their Presidential Libraries.

Presidential Libraries helped show the nation the importance of archiving. Before former President Franklin D. Roosevelt decided to build a Presidential Library in 1939, Presidential papers were lost, destroyed, sold for profit, or ruined. There were no records from the past Presidents for the American people to learn and study from. There was no preservation of documents or artifacts of a President. Our nation’s history wasn’t being fully preserved.

These libraries serve to help every American learn about our nation and our democracy.

So, why is President’s Day and Presidential Libraries important to someone who dreams of having a carrier in library science? Because Presidential Libraries helped pave the way for the importance of archiving. Library archiving is important for the past and, more importantly, for the future.

Here at Southern Miss, we have multiple ways to help you with your library career – 100% online. From an undergraduate degree to get you started to a graduate MLIS to continue growing in your career, we are here to guide you through it!

To quote Franklin Roosevelt at the dedication of his Presidential Library:

“To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things.
It must believe in the past.
It must believe in the future.
It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future.”

If you have dreamed about preserving the past for an educated future, consider Southern Miss to start your path to library science.