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Isobel Flindall: A full-circle journey on the library floor
Winter 2026
By Mitchell Fox
Isobel's hometown: Brighton, Ontario
Diving into the MLIS co-op program has given Isobel Flindall a glimpse of their future in librarianship.
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Though they didn’t know it at the time, growing up next to a library had an immense impact on Isobel Flindall’s future pursuits.
In the village of Codrington, Ont., Isobel grew up down the road from the local public library. They loved going to library programs and reading, though as a young child those visits were perhaps, for better or worse, a lively experience for the staff.
“I would apparently sit on the floor and just take all the books off of the bottom shelves. Which I'm told was charming, but I don't know if it was actually charming or if it was kind of annoying,” they said.
In high school, Isobel continued to be an avid library-user and began working as a student library assistant at the Brighton Public Library. They then moved on to university, completing a double major in Communication Studies and Gender and Social Justice at the University of Waterloo.
While studying at Waterloo, Isobel considered their next path. They sought real-world applications of what they were learning in their undergraduate education. They were also interested in continuing to make libraries a central part of life.
Fun Fact
Isobel grew up on a farm, where they kept animals including goats. Their first job as a kid involved washing eggs for a neighbour.
A path forward presented itself in the form of the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program at Western University in London, Ontario. Could training as a librarian allow Isobel to merge interests?
“Libraries came to mind as a place that's quite community-oriented and related to knowledge," they said. “As a librarian, I saw potential for embedding what I had learned already in a way that could do good.”
Isobel made the move to Western in time for the Fall 2024 start. When the Winter term rolled around in January, they secured a position as a Library Assistant for the faculty-supported FIMS Graduate Library. This role allowed Isobel to pick up new skills while helping to run the day-to-day operations of the library.
Working at the Grad Library also provided an avenue to focus more closely on areas of personal interest. In June 2025 Isobel gave a public talk on behalf of the library titled “Challenging Library ‘Neutrality’ through Reflexivity and Citation,” which broke down the problematic notion of neutrality in librarianship and explored critical reflexivity and citation practices as avenues for disrupting that notion.
After nearly three semesters of coursework, Isobel landed a professional co-op placement at Brock University Library, helping to manage the collections for the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Social Sciences
Their interest in collections was first sparked by a class in Collection Management, taught by Professor Roger Chabot. Isobel found it fascinating to see how the resources available to educators and students influenced their understanding of knowledge. They especially enjoyed an assignment that required students to evaluate and make their own suggestions for an existing collection.
The co-op position at Brock University Library has allowed Isobel to engage in similar work but in a professional capacity and surrounded by experienced colleagues.
“I'm working with people who have been working in academic librarianship for a long time and aren't doing something for a grade specifically but for the benefit of the library,” they said, adding they’ve also enjoyed observing library council and having a mentor.
Their eight-month co-op position has gone so well that Isobel was offered a contract position at Brock for the summer term, meaning they will have collected nearly a year of professional experience by the end of their time at Brock. Isobel will still need to take one final course over the summer to complete the MLIS degree.
No matter where their library journey takes them next, they anticipate drawing upon the collaborative experience and library values they’ve gathered at FIMS.
“You don't have to come from a specific undergrad background to participate in the MLIS cohort and I think that made for a really rich experience," they said. “We came up with ideas that none of us would have been able to get at alone.”
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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 - Corporate Communications.
