{"id":7159,"date":"2025-01-07T16:18:14","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T22:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/?p=7159"},"modified":"2025-03-07T16:54:03","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T22:54:03","slug":"chris-childs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/2025\/01\/07\/chris-childs\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the UI Libraries with Chris Childs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Inside the University of Iowa Libraries<\/strong> is your look behind-the-scenes to meet the people and discover the stories making our organization unique and valuable. From cutting-edge databases to rare books, join us to explore a world of research, preservation, and discovery that fosters student success through countless touchpoints.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Headshot<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Chris Childs\u2019 journey in librarianship began when he was seeking a meaningful career. Looking for something beyond \u201cjust a job,\u201d Chris\u2019s first step into the world of libraries was as a volunteer. Eventually, he landed at Hardin Library for Health Sciences<\/a> where he now works as a clinical education librarian. He started out as a liaison to the College of Public Health during his first 10 years at Hardin Library. For the past six years, he has worked as liaison to the College of Pharmacy and College of Dentistry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris works with students, faculty, and staff in one-on-one consultations. Depending on their needs, he trains them to use important resources such as PubMed or EndNote, databases which organize citations and create bibliographies. He also provides support by identifying relevant subject terms or articles for their research projects, and occasionally is a mentor to those who are interested in publishing systematic reviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to his career as a librarian, Chris also finds personal fulfillment in traveling and it is obvious as soon as you step inside his office. The space is decorated with posters and artwork from destinations he has traveled on his yearly hiking trips. Hear about his travel goals and how a friend inspired his career in Chris\u2019s own words below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What inspired you to become a librarian?<\/strong>
A<\/strong>: When I was living in Richmond, Virginia, I met a good friend of mine who was working at the State Library of Virginia. At the time, I was working for a medical billing company, which was just a job for me. I wanted a career and soon realized that I wanted to do what my friend did. I volunteered at the Richmond Public Library for a couple of months and after that, left Virginia to get a Master in Library Information Science at the University of North Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: In your opinion, is there an underutilized but valuable resource at the Libraries?<\/strong>
A<\/strong>: Interlibrary loan<\/a>. Every time I\u2019m introducing the Hardin Library\u2019s services and resources to a class, I always spend a couple of minutes on this. This is such a fantastic resource and I think it\u2019s a shame that not everyone affiliated with the University of Iowa knows about it.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Chris<\/a>
Chris showcases a poster from his recent trip to Devil\u2019s Tower National Monument in his office, along with other travel mementos.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Q: What activities do you enjoy outside of work?<\/strong>
A: <\/strong>One of my favorite enjoyments in life is to travel. I take an annual hiking trip every year. My goal is to visit all the national parks or at least all of them in the continental United States. So far, I\u2019ve visited 43 national parks out of 63. It\u2019s difficult to pinpoint a favorite trip as I\u2019ve enjoyed them all. So, I\u2019ll mention my most recent one where one of my stops was at Devil\u2019s Tower National Monument, which I\u2019ve wanted to see since I watched \u201cClose Encounters of the Third Kind\u201d as a kid. It did not disappoint, and I was in awe of it the entire time I was there. My recommendation for anyone traveling to a national park would be to book your lodging in advance, whether you plan to tent camp, stay in a cabin, or a hotel if the park has one. Depending on the park, you might have to do this six months in advance or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Do you have a book recommendation?<\/strong>
A<\/strong>: I\u2019m currently reading The Angels Game<\/em>, which is the second book in the Cemetery of Forgotten Book series by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The first book, Shadow of the Wind<\/em>, is a book about a book set in gothic Barcelona in the 1940s. It was one of the best books I\u2019d read in a long time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inside the University of Iowa Libraries is your look behind-the-scenes to meet the people and discover the stories making our organization unique and valuable. From cutting-edge databases to rare books, join us to explore a world of research, preservation, and discovery that fosters student success through countless touchpoints. Chris Childs\u2019 journey in librarianship began whenContinue reading “Inside the UI Libraries with Chris Childs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":369,"featured_media":7160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[98,101],"syndication":[46,49,33,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/369"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7159"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7270,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7159\/revisions\/7270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7159"},{"taxonomy":"syndication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/syndication?post=7159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}