Tamara Geldart: Do what you love

By Michelle Betbadal

Tamara's hometown: London, Ontario

All Tamara wants to do is make people laugh. “It might sound selfish, but I get so much joy out of it.”

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For 12-year-old Tamara, fun meant transcribing every Beatles song there is in a little notebook with her best friend during sleepovers. Not much has changed in the 23-year-old's life...Beatles songs are now archives and fiction books, and instead of at sleepovers, it’s now at work and in class. Her passion for words has blossomed into a lifestyle. Her downtime consists of reading fiction and listening to her favourite music – Stevie Nicks is quite easily Tamara’s idol. The rest of her time is spent as so: working as a reference librarian at Huron University, mastering the art of information science at Western and spreading her love for books with friends and classmates.

She refers to the co-op feature as the “cherry on top" of the Master of Library and Information Science program. Now in her last term, she is really looking forward to making connections and having hands-on experience during her upcoming co-op placement. For Tamara, the most important part of the MLIS program is making connections with professors and classmates for the purposes of further research and working with them in the future. The one-year feature of the program is what she calls a “bonus”.

“It feels really good to be able to give people something that I love… and that something is books.”
Tamara says she truly didn’t know what she was getting herself into when she accepted her offer into the MLIS program. But now, she is confident in saying, “there’s a lot more to this profession than I imagined, and I'm excited to apply what I’ve learned in real-life situations.”

Fun Fact

Tamara and her best friend impulsively got “Rock and Roll” matching tattoos on their arms right after listening to the Stevie Nicks cover together in her car.

Nearing the end of her undergrad, Tamara spent a lot of her time in the library getting to know the archivists and librarians. This is where she realized that her undergrad degree in English can continue as a hobby, and her enthusiasm for information can be turned into her life’s work.

After graduating from the MLIS program, Tamara plans to work either in archives, as an academic librarian or in health science information. Her favourite class so far is Academic Libraries. “There are so many avenues I can take,” she says.

“People have no idea what I'm doing when I say I’m in my MLIS,” she says. “It’s really interesting to be able to tell them that what they’re studying has a lot to do with what I do.”

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Profiles in the Meet Our Students section are written by students in the Master of Media in Journalism & Communication program, who are enrolled in MMJC 9604 - Professional Writing.