Get to Know ALASC Executive Committee Secretary/Archivist, Gabrielle Visco!
What inspired you to get into the library field?
My time as a Library Specialist in a rural junior senior high school opened my eyes to the library field world. It’s odd because I have been an avid library patron since I was a kid, yet for some reason I never had an opportunity to work in the library and it never occurred to me that it was a professional career pathway.
Who are your personal heroes?
- Malala Yousafzai
- Rosemary Gladstar
- Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- (So many more! This was hard to choose top 3)
Who are your favorite books/authors?
Oooh, another hard one. How can one only pick five! Hmmm… picking genres won’t help either because there are so many genres.
> Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury (my classic favorite that I like to reread)
>We Should All Be a Feminist, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (I love her work and feel it’s a must read for everyone)
 >The Unquiet Dead, Asuma Zehanat Khan (one of my favorite debut novels, amazing series. My favorite may be A Deadly Divide within the series, hard to say)
>The Fifth Season, N.K. Jemisin (one of my favorite world building authors, this is the first in the trilogy)
>Beyond the war on invasive species: a permaculture approach to ecosystem restoration (One of my favorite “plant-based” books. I’m a plant nerd and read many books about plants and felt that it would be easiest to choose one so I don’t dwell on all the other titles I want to include like the Alchemist or The Bluest Eye, or All the Light We Cannot See, or the Giver). I have snuck in a lot of titles. If you ask me tomorrow I may choose different categories that would change my top five!
Where is your favorite spot to vacation?
Home….this may be because I haven’t been able to take a vacation in 4 years or so and home is the easiest spot for me. Anywhere with a hot tub, ocean, and woods is a destination spot for me.
What do you do to unwind?
It depends on the type of stress I’m dealing with and how compounding it has been. I like to escape into a book if I am overwhelmed and need a break from reality. I also like to dance and go for hikes if I need to clear my headspace and recharge my batteries.
What do you hope to accomplish with your MLIS?
The most asked question that I struggle to answer. I hope I get to create a dream job within the right environment that allows me to have some creativity and varied tasks. Cataloguing, creating programs, and curation have caught my attention. As someone who is taking a generalist approach and someone with a varied background, I hope to keep my options open to gain as much experience across the field to land the not yet visualized dream job. With my background in education and specialized education, I am also interested in the information and intermediation pathway.
Thanks Gabrielle!Â
