My name is Sarah Clark and I have the good fortune to be the Research Librarian at Windward School in the Mar Vista section of Los Angeles. Windward is an independent school that serves 475 students in grades seven through twelve. When I began working here in Fall of 2009, Windward had just completed a brand new library, and, in many ways, I was starting from scratch. Fortunately, I work with energetic, smart people, and together we have been shaping the culture of this new space.

In the first year I benefited from a professional network of independent school librarians, got to know students through collaborating with teachers on research projects, found many dedicated readers, and began imagining ways the library and its collections could become truly community oriented.

Before coming to Windward, I worked at the Wildwood Middle and Upper School Library, completed a children's services internship at Santa Monica Public Library, and worked at the Bunche Center Library for African American Studies at UCLA. Before attending library school at UCLA, I was a lost and wandering soul with a degree in Italian Language and Literature and a masters in Gastronomic Sciences from the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Italy with pipe dreams of becoming a professional baker.

Outside of Windward, I dance, bake bread, seek out doughnuts, try to learn how to keep plants alive, and have started an underground Trashy Book Club with a few school colleagues. Oddly, I do not own cats, but I do wear glasses and have a thing for silk scarves.

During the Eureka! Institute, I hope to extend my professional network, learn from the work of the other librarians, and get energized to complete my own project centered on information literacy.