Every week The Shield will feature a student who is employed by the university. This week, Holland Davis talked about her experience working at the university library.  

Holland Davis scoured the shelves of the library, looking for a picture book about the first person to explore underwater.

In the midst of shelving books, training new student workers and helping students find literary sources, the junior dental hygiene major’s favorite part of her job is finding books for students who are writing papers.

“You name it and I’ve found a book on it,” Davis said. “I love to see that we have books in the library that I didn’t know we have.”

Early into Davis’ first semester, she went to the career links website, searching through job posting for an interesting position. When she saw the library was hiring, she applied immediately.

“I love the library, didn’t matter which one, I just really wanted to work at one,” Davis said.

Davis said her eagerness to work at the university’s library comes from her love of books.

“I really loved books when I was little,” she said. “My parents would just really enforce reading.  Didn’t matter what we read. As long as we were reading, they were happy. I would go to the library at home a lot just to check out books. It’s just a place I feel comfortable.”

In the summer Davis continues working, finding more time to read many of the different research books and novels in the library.

“I’ll find a book that piques my interest when I’m shelving, and I’ll just bring it down to my cubical downstairs,” Davis said. “I got to read a book about Medieval witches, and to reread Percy Jackson books which was awesome. I loved those when I was little, so it was so much fun getting to reread those.”

Brice Miller said if Davis has any spare time, she always has a book in front of her.

Miller started working at the library around the same time as Davis, and the two quickly became friends.

“We’re both involved in Student Housing Association outside of work, so we just became really good friends,” the junior business administration major said. “She’s super positive and energetic about everything.”

Miller said Davis is a go-getter, always ready to start the work shift making it a fun and positive environment for the other works.

“Every time (Davis) walks into work, she greets everyone,” Miller said. “It makes everyone else realize you can still have fun at work. It doesn’t have to be all serious. You can have conversations and it makes the time fly by.”

Davis said with her major, she feels the library position is a great way to prepare her for her future career.

“If I’m able to start up conversations with people I’ve never met before but am able to help then I feel like that is a skill that will transfer over to the career I want to be in,” Davis said. “The public interaction I have with the 10,000 students at USI is transferable and very easily helps in my career. I will be working will a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different interest. I feel like that just brings a sense of community when you have something in common with people that you may not have known beforehand then it’s easier to relate to those people.”