 I'm Ellie Abyss. I live in Southern Oregon in Josephine County. I want to say thank you to the Student Awards and Scholarships Committee for selecting me for the Director's Scholarship for Excellence and also to the School of Information for providing this opportunity and this financial support. I think libraries are great. I love books, I love learning and I think libraries are an amazing institution that helps connect people to information that they need and provides all sorts of other services that are often unrecognized like just being a community meeting place, a place that people can hang out and as well as a source of information and classes and learning and all sorts of things. I've been working in a public library for a couple of years now and it's the job that I've had that's aligned the most with my personal values of social justice and lifelong learning. I love that there's open access to everyone and intellectual freedom and I'm excited to learn more about how to be a librarian. I'm excited to have found a program at San Jose State that is flexible enough that I can continue to work full-time and also support my family and not have to move because there aren't any library schools in Oregon. Thank you for this opportunity I'm really excited to start my MLIS at San Jose State.