From student library employee to faculty librarian

Sabine Dantus is a 2005 alumna who has held a faculty librarian position at FIU since 2022. In this first-person essay, she recounts the experiences that led her to pursue her current profession.

The library is often one of the first places students go when trying to find their academic footing. It’s where I found mine more than two decades ago — and I have the scissors to prove it. 

Not long ago, I was searching for a pair of scissors in the drawers of the information desk in the Glenn Hubert Library at the Biscayne Bay Campus for a pair of scissors. When I finally found them, I noticed an old label on the handle. It read, “serials only.”

The handwriting looked familiar. It was mine. 

For a moment, I stood there remembering a different version of myself, one from 2004, when I worked as a student employee in the serials department and learned from the inside how libraries work. Serials, by the way, included such things as magazines, academic journals, newspapers, yearbooks, newsletters and other publications that are issued regularly, be it annually, weekly, monthly or even daily.

The small scissors I finally found had been sitting quietly in a drawer for years, and they carried the weight of a long journey. Returning to FIU as a faculty librarian is more than a career milestone. It’s a full-circle moment rooted in the place where my academic confidence began to grow. 

Finding my academic footing 

Like many FIU students, I was the first in my family to navigate higher education. I transferred from community college and commuted across Miami-Dade County by bus, often taking two to reach the Modesto Maidique Campus or catch the shuttle to Biscayne Bay Campus. 

The first semester presented a challenging learning curve. First-generation students often struggle to understand how to go about academic research. 

How do I search for what I need? What does my professor mean by “credible” sources? Where do I find peer-reviewed journal articles? 

For me, the library became the place where things started to make sense as I watched librarians teach undergraduate how to approach research questions. I watched them collaborate with faculty and help students move past confusion by guiding them through research methods and connecting them with the right resources. 

Working as a student assistant gave me a behind-the-scenes view of how academic support really worked. But the moment that changed everything happened in a classroom. 

The “applause moment” 

In one of my communication courses, our professor returned an assignment and asked me to stand up. I hesitated before doing so. The room was filled with more than 50 students. 

He told the class I was the only student who had completed the assignment correctly. Then he asked them to recognize me. The room erupted in applause. 

I remember feeling proud and slightly embarrassed at the same time. But what stayed with me was the realization that I had done something right. I had approached the assignment the way I had learned in the library: research carefully, prioritize credible sources and cite references properly. 

In that moment, I realized I belonged in that classroom. 

An unexpected path

Working in the library initially had practical motivation: It shortened my commute. The serials department at BBC gave me a campus job close to my classes. 

At the time, I wasn’t planning to become a librarian. I was a television management major with my sights set on a career in production. After graduating, I pursued the television industry, eventually working as a traffic coordinator and later as a broadcast operations content specialist at a local PBS station. 

The work was technical, fast-paced and connected to media production. But over time, I realized something important: I missed working directly with people. 

I thought back to my time in the library and the librarians I had watched, the way they treated every student’s question seriously and helped them navigate complex information. 

That’s when it clicked for me: Librarians teach, too. 

Returning to the stacks 

Years later, after completing graduate degrees in journalism, library and information science and instructional technology — and working at public libraries and a private university — I returned to FIU Libraries, this time in the role of faculty librarian. 

Faculty Librarians are academic professionals who hold faculty status. They are responsible for supporting the university's research and instructional missions through specialized librarianship, teaching courses in information literacy and their own scholarship.  

Today, I serve as an outreach and reference librarian at Biscayne Bay Campus and as a First Gen Forward Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellow. 

Much of my work focuses on helping students develop the research skills they need to navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. 

Whether I’m teaching a workshop or meeting with students one-on-one, my goal is simple: to make research feel less intimidating and more empowering. 

Student feedback often reflects that shift. Follwing one recent session, a student wrote, “After Sabine Dantus’ presentation, I now know how to do research on a more advanced level.” 

Another shared, “Narrowing down topics will allow me to find credible sources that align best with my thesis.”

Others describe discovering tools they didn’t realize were available, such as FIU Libraries’ databases and keyword search strategies. They also appreciate learning that research topics can evolve as new information appears. 

When students begin to see research as something they can navigate with confidence, real learning begins. 

Mentorship in the Library 

One of the most meaningful parts of my work is mentoring student employees, those who today play the same role I once did. Not too long ago, I mentored a student worker who has since gone on to a master of library science degree (from a different institution, as FIU does not offer it) and a position as a as a library circulation supervisor in North Carolina.

“I decided to pursue librarianship after having the opportunity to work with librarians who were truly dedicated to student success,” Matthieu Castillo said. “I quickly fell in love with assisting students and faculty in finding the resources they needed, and I knew I wanted to do this forever. There is something uniquely special about working with students and helping them grow into independent, creative researchers.” 

Seeing that professional path unfold for someone who once worked at the same desk I did is a powerful reminder of what student employment in libraries can do. It offers students not just experience but a vision of what their futures can look like. 

Coming Full Circle 

Sometimes the moments that shape our lives look ordinary at first. They might look like a library shift, a well-cited assignment or a professor asking a student to stand up in class. And sometimes they look like a pair of scissors with a label you wrote two decades ago, sitting quietly in a desk drawer until the day you return and recognize your handwriting. 

For many students, the library is one of the first places they go to find their academic footing. It was for me. 

Now I help students find their own “applause moment.”