Library and information science postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

One member of the savings cooperative where I work appears in our system three times. On her 2009 application form she is Wanjiku Mwangi, on a loan agreement she is Wanjiru Mwangi, and on a dividend slip she is J. W. Mwangi. Each spelling is reasonable, and each was typed by someone in a hurry. For about two years my job has been to scan, index and reconcile files like hers. That work has led me to want formal training in library and information science.

I studied for a Bachelor of Commerce, and my final-year project looked at how traders at an open-air market kept track of credit given to regular customers. I interviewed twenty-two stallholders and photographed, with permission, the exercise books, receipt pads and phone notes they used. My conclusion was modest: the traders who kept the most reliable records were not the most numerate. They were the ones who used the same layout every time and could find an entry quickly. My supervisor described this as an accounting point. I now think it was also a point about how information is organised.

At the cooperative I was hired as a data entry clerk, but much of my time has gone into deciding how things should be described. When I started, scanned files were saved under whatever the scanner produced, and finding a document meant knowing roughly when it had been filed. I proposed a naming convention using membership number, document type and date. I wrote a one-page guide for the two colleagues who share the scanner and we tested it on one branch's files for a month before using it more widely. Retrieval requests that used to take most of a morning can now usually be answered while the member waits at the counter. Duplicate records like Mrs Mwangi's are harder. I keep a spreadsheet of suspected duplicates and resolve them only after checking her national ID number with the branch officer. I later learned that libraries face the same problem with authors' names and handle it through authority control. Reading about it made me realise that the questions I had been working out alone have a long professional history.

Since then I have read more widely, including introductory material on Dublin Core. It helped me see why our files need agreed elements such as creator, date and type, and why free-text notes alone are not enough. I have also read Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science. The law about saving the time of the reader matches what I see at the counter, but I am less sure how the idea of a growing organism applies to a records room that must also destroy files after a set retention period. I would like to study records management and archives alongside library practice to understand where those principles part ways.

Outside work, I help sort donated books for the reading corner at my church. It is a small collection used mainly by primary pupils after school. Last year we stopped shelving by donor and began grouping books by reading level, with coloured spine stickers so that children could choose for themselves. The change was simple, but borrowing became noticeably livelier, and I enjoyed watching children choose books without asking an adult. I also play in a chess club, which has taught me patience with problems that do not resolve in a single move.

I am applying for postgraduate study because my practical experience has run ahead of my theoretical understanding. I can design a sensible filing scheme, but I want to understand classification, metadata standards, information retrieval and digital preservation well enough to make decisions I can justify. I am particularly interested in how institutions such as cooperatives, county offices and community libraries can manage records with limited budgets. I am a careful, steady worker, and I am ready to bring that habit to more demanding study.