Sometime in the year 2017, a slightly younger me came to join the Wake Forest community for the first time. In true Work Forest fashion, much of my time was spent at the ZSR. The library gave me a place to meet and bond with my first friends as freshmen, and sometimes we would get some work done. Outside of these social gatherings of slurping Starbucks drinks with open textbooks and laptops in a small room we rented for refuge, ZSR was there for me when school became more demanding. A natural night owl and acutely aware of the tininess of my own living quarters, I came to the library at night to breathe, sprawl out my books, and get to writing. I distinctly remember times I’d spend there until three, perhaps six in the morning (I do not recommend that). It was probably during these late-night rendezvous or perhaps my scouring of stacks for a book for this research project or that, that I found an ad about applying to be a ZSR Ambassador. Of course, I applied.

What’s great about the ZSR Ambassador program is that it is not an academic discipline or social group that binds up, just a genuine interest in making the library a special place. It is through the connections in this program that I was able to get a job with ZSR Special Collections & Archives, which changed my life. Thanks to the ZSR Ambassadors and SCA, I found my passion for librarianship and archives, and the encouragement to pursue it.

After my time at Wake Forest University, I will be pursuing a postgraduate degree in information management at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. I am so excited to start this new chapter in my life, and I know it’s because of ZSR Ambassadors.

-Kendall John