Lift as You Climb

After Shannon Jones landed a library job at Eastern Virginia Medical School, her interest in medical librarianship was ignited when she watched the librarians interact with physician teams to help with patient care and clinical work. She had not even known such a position existed, and she saw the power of the work to help both medical professionals and patients.

Throughout her extensive library career, now as director of libraries and professor at the Medical University of South Carolina, Jones has been “constantly working toward…cultivating inclusive spaces for people regardless of the identities they hold,” she says. She’s tried to bring that goal to all of her professional associations, especially in her work with the African American Medical Librarians Alliance Caucus (AAMLA). “I’m proud of what role I’ve played in mentoring librarians of color and helping [them] to find their footing in the profession,” she explains. Having benefited from mentors in her own career, Jones says, “I believe in lifting as I climb.”

Tamara Nelson, senior research and learning services librarian/associate professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, says, “Through Shannon’s mentorship, she has encouraged library students to pursue medical librarianship as a career path, guided librarians into transitioning from nonacademic to academic librarianship, and worked with librarians into pursuing service leadership roles at the local, regional, and national level.”

Jones helped launch MLA Reads, a nationwide virtual book club of the Medical Library Association, focusing on issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. The club recently completed its third book, with 165 participants, and is planning the next. MLA Reads allows readers to tackle difficult topics in small groups in safe spaces, explains Jones. They figure out how the books relate to their lives and their librarianship work. “When we talk about how we want inclusive spaces in libraries, we can’t do that unless we as individuals are inclusive people,” she says. Three hundred fifty librarians from all over the country have participated in MLA Reads to date. Nelson notes that Jones obtained funding to purchase books for participants as well as securing MLA continuing education credits.

Jones aspires to have a positive impact on all the spaces she interacts with, whether it’s her own library system or the associations she works with. Calling herself a defensive lineman, she’s passionate about getting people the resources they need and connecting people to one another to help them become the best version of themselves.