When I was six years old, I developed a serious illness that confined me to bed for several weeks. To pass the time, I took to reading my older sister’s books. I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Little House on the Prairie; The Secret Garden; and endless articles from children’s magazines. Reading became not just a refuge from my frightening illness, but also, like Lucy Pevensie’s wardrobe, a passageway into other worlds. I escaped with Lucy into Narnia and found wisdom with Pooh in the Hundred Acre Wood. I roamed the prairies with Laura Ingalls and explored the windy moor with Mary Lennox.

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I learned things as I read. I learned about pioneer life and about muscles, edible plants, and Turkish delight. I learned to see things through other people’s eyes. Mary Lennox’s forbidden garden showed me hope; her cousin Colin’s words, “I shall live forever and ever and ever,” pulled at my heart in a way that I had never felt before. It was as if these books had awoken me from a cocoon and showed me the richness and vibrancy of the world around and within me.

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As information awakened me as a child, so does it have the power to awaken all of us: to the world around us, to ourselves, and to each other. By exposing us to new ideas and perspectives, information sharing fosters human understanding, promotes health and safety, and liberates us from the tyranny of untruths and misconceptions.

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I believe that everyone, regardless of economic or social situation, has a right to access the liberating power of information. I believe that this right is crucial to the building of a compassionate, healthy, responsible citizenry. The American Library Association’s Core Values of Librarianship supports this ideal of a more vibrant citizenry through an emphasis on social responsibility and the public good. Every information professional has a responsibility to our society to protect and uphold the great public good that is information access.

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I hope to do my part for our world in my own work in digital libraries and information organization. I believe that a well-organized digital collection has the potential to reach more people and open more minds than has ever been possible before. As a child reading Winnie the Pooh so many years ago, I could never have imagined such an awesome technology. My books were my world then; now, that magical world is digital.