First Semester
Posted October 16, 2025 by Lucy Oster
It’s my first semester of graduate school, and everything’s been pretty solid so far. However, it is still early days, and I know that the Roadrunner-style crash could be just around the corner! But, hey, that’s what keeps me running. I relish being busy when that busyness is all about what I’m interested in, which is to say: LAM (libraries, archives and museums.) I also like lambs! I’m taking three courses this semester: the introductory LIS 407 and LIS 415 online, and LIS 439 Preservation Management in-person. I’m doing the archives management concentration here at Simmons, and Preservation Management is the first course I’m taking for that. The course is pretty interesting, and I’ve learned that a lot about preservation management ultimately comes down to, guess what, management and resources. Every type of physical and digital resource has its own special little requirements to live for as long as an archivist wants it to. This is, to quote my professor, “until the sun explodes.” The most interesting aspect of LIS 439 for me so far…
Learning From Interviews
Posted October 15, 2025 by Michaela O'Gara-Pratt
I have been doing a lot of job interviews recently. As a second-year student at SLIS, applying for jobs this year feels a lot different than it did last fall when I first started the program. I have new skills to highlight on my resume, and I have the knowledge I have gained from internships and coursework. Despite this, I am still new to applying to jobs in the field and I have discovered that interviews are a great place to learn more about what these jobs really look like, even if you are not offered a position after the interview. Historically, I have always been a big fan of informational interviews. I enjoy conversation and I feel like I learn a lot about my options by talking to people who have been in similar situations. Before I pivoted to Library Science, I worked at an in-patient psychiatric care unit. At the time, I thought I wanted to work full-time as a mental healthcare professional, so I spoke to everyone I could. I scheduled meetings…
Reflecting on my First Year: Archives Management and Required Courses, Semester 2
Posted October 14, 2025 by Laura Kiely
In my last post I told you about the courses I took during my first semester here at Simmons SLIS. In this post I’ll discuss my second semester courses! After getting required courses out of the way, there’s a lot more wiggle room for which classes you want to take. I’m working on the Archives Management concentration, which has a more prescribed series of courses. My second semester I went from taking more general library courses to archives courses! I rounded out my central three required courses with LIS-488, the course on technology. Now, I have mixed feelings about this class. It’s a phenomenal course for people who come in with very little computer science knowledge or background, so I figured that having only taken a couple of courses in undergrad meant I fit into this category. The good news is that I know more about computer basics than I thought! The bad news is, I did have several days in that class dedicated to information I already knew. That’s not the end of the…
Into a Rythm
Posted October 13, 2025 by Will Romey
I biked to the Northampton Forbes Library yesterday morning, and was struck by the autumnal colors –yellow maples, bright red poison ivy, and sumac all whizzed past me on the rail trail. I’m enjoying these signs of fall as the nights get colder. Four weeks of classes have rushed by, and I’m starting to get into the academic rhythm. Saturday feels like the start of my academic week – I have two classes back-to-back at SLIS West. I get an early start with my usual chemex of coffee (No. 6 Depot Coffee Roasters, usually) and a PB&J (homemade buckwheat sourdough, Skippy Super Chunk, Bonne Maman Mixed Berry). Then a scenic drive to Greenfield – last week’s commute was foggy, with a hot air balloon lurking above the highway. I like to listen to a podcast on the way up, as I try to kick my brain into gear – No Such Thing As A Fish has been my go-to lately. I’ve been doing my best to keep Sunday reserved as a day off – taking…
Introducing Lucy!
Posted October 11, 2025 by Lindsey Clarke
We added another blogger to the team! Welcome to Lucy. Lucy’s Bio: My name’s Lucy (they/she). I just started graduate school at Simmons this fall, and so I am one semester into my program, the Master of Library and Information Science: Archives Management Concentration. I’m taking three courses right now, and hope to continue at that pace throughout my time here so I can finish my degree as fast as possible. I love to be fast: as soon as I was legally allowed to work I started a shelving job at the Portland Public Library and it was always a point of pride for me that I was such a speedy shelver. Outside of the public library, I’ve also had professional experience in academic libraries (liberal arts-style), academic libraries (big research university-style), historical societies and sites, government archives, and even some volunteer hours in art museums. In my free time I love to read (theory, contemporary fiction, etc.), see older and/or foreign films, bike around listening to music and play soccer very badly. In my…
Let’s Talk About Homework!
Posted October 10, 2025 by Brooke Thomson
I have two in-person classes that meet once a week on Boston campus. Much of my workload takes place outside traditional lecture hours, but what does that really look like? I’ll tell you! LIS488 Technology for Information Professionals is one of the four core courses all MLIS students are required to take. It provides the conceptual foundation and context of computing, the Internet and related technologies as used in information-intensive professions. I like to call it ‘The Coding Class,’ because I have to do a coding lab every week. The end-goal is to create a website using what we’ve learned about things like HTML, CSS, Python and XML. I chose to create a blog for my website. With each subsequent lab, this blog becomes slightly more sophisticated and recognizable. Of the three classes I’m taking this semester, I would say this one is the hardest because I’m brand new to this subject and easily confused. Coding calls for precision, just like math. Either you did it right and it works, or you didn’t and you…
Pacing and Preparation
Posted October 9, 2025 by June Kramer
I have taught youth of many ages, in a number of formats, for years. This has mostly been in an informal capacity: summer camp, after-school activities, or tutoring. But last week at my first lesson in my first practicum, I truly felt my capability. In the minutes leading up to when the second grade class came into the library, I found myself pacing back and forth, making sure that the brightness on the overhead projector was just right, adjusting the picture books on display in the reading corner. I had prepared extensively for this lesson, which was a read-aloud of the book I’m Sorry You Got Mad, with some prompts for discussion about apologizing. I filled out the standard lesson plan form, and talked with my supervising librarian about strategies for the lesson. But once the students filed in and sat on their mats, I felt like I was operating a mile a minute. One of the things that my supervising librarian and I talked about was contingency plans for if students did not want to participate….
User Instruction From A Former Tutor
Posted October 7, 2025 by Olivia McGovern
One of the classes I’m taking this semester is LIS 408: User Instruction & Information Literacy, and it’s reminding me of how I came to choose a career in librarianship in the first place. Before deciding to become a librarian, I was an English tutor. I started tutoring first generation, low-income students while I was in undergrad through a program called TRIO Upward Bound. Up until that point my Big Plan for my English degree was to write, copy edit, or get some other job at a publishing company and spend all my days surrounded by books. But tutoring opened up a whole world of other possibilities. So, I added a minor in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), continued tutoring with TRIO for three years, and never looked back. What I didn’t expect was that my entire final year of undergrad would be spent on Zoom in my childhood bedroom. Most of my last classes were for my TESL minor, so everything I formally learned about teaching methodologies and pedagogy was from a…
Independent Study_Visual Literacy 101
Posted October 6, 2025 by Aurora Daniel
For my final course this semester I’m working on an independent study on visual literacy instruction in Library and Information Science graduate programs that’s funded by the Simmons Center for Information Literacy (SCIL). When I started at SLIS, I hadn’t realized that there would be research opportunities for those in the MS program and just assumed that those would be reserved for doctoral students. Yet, with the launch of SCIL this past spring, there was a big push to encourage students to apply for fundingto work on group and individual projects. This brought to the forefront individual research projects for SLIS Masters students. After attending the info session in April, l I began to kick around ideas for a research project and settled on visual literacy because I’m interested in arts librarianship and archival practice and was curious what support was in place for emerging professionals to deliver visual literacy instruction. I had to start working on this course over the summer, when I drafted a grant application proposal, project outline, and reached out to…
My Fall 2025 Semester
Posted October 3, 2025 by Emmy Mahoney
Hello, everyone! Having made it through one month of this semester, I thought I would share a little bit about the classes that I am currently taking. As a dual degree student in the archives and history program, I am enrolled in two library classes and one history class. My first library class is LIS 451 Academic Libraries. This class focuses on the skills and responsibilities necessary to be a librarian working at an academic institution. For this class, we are required to complete a semester-long group project, in which we simulate working in committees. I am a member of the marketing committee, who is responsible for creating, planning, and promoting a hypothetical library event for an academic institution. The professor gives us a lot of time to work on the project in class, which I am very appreciative of. My second library class is LIS 506 Government Archives. Some of the main goals of this class include learning how the government functions, as well as understanding the difference between public and private records. I…