Best. March. Ever.
Posted March 19, 2012 by Sarah Barton
During mid- to late-March you can find me parked in front of a television watching college basketball. I can unabashedly say that I have spent at least 24 of the past 96 hours either actively or passively watching college basketball, but that is about to change. Over the next few weeks, I will supplement my basketball watching with an array of library-related talks and panels. This could be the best March ever!
It all starts this afternoon at Simmons with a talk called Developing Diverse Library Leadership in the 21st Century to be given by Molly Raphael, President of the American Libraries Association AND Simmons GSLIS alum. (If that doesnt go to show how far a Simmons GSLIS degree can take you, I dont know what will.)
Then, as James posted a couple weeks ago, Wednesday is a kick-off meeting for the Friends of the Somerville Public Library, and I am definitely going to check that out.
On Friday, I am going to MIT for a Panel Discussion on Libraries and Best Practices in Fair Use. I would explain the concept of fair use except I dont know much about it, thus making this the perfect learning opportunity. I am fascinated by copyright issues (especially with digital materials), so I am really looking forward to this one. And come on, of course I want to start sentences with When I attended that esteemed panel discussion at MIT
The weekend, of course, is reserved for basketball watching.
The following Friday is an event hosted by Simmons GSLIS called The Future of Reference. It is slated to include five guest speakers who will, I presume, discuss the future of reference. I am hoping that this will be a relevant supplement to my Reference and Information Services course.
The powers that be at Simmons GSLIS are very diligent when it comes to alerting students about library-related events and panels, and the Boston area is chock full of them. These are perfect opportunities for me to learn, hone my interests, and network with like-minded library folk.
I would guess that 9.99 of 10 people have zero interest in or excitement about my upcoming schedule. In fact, before I was enrolled in GSLIS I would have probably dismissed these events as library nerd conventions and avoided them accordingly. But now I am shamelessly waving my library nerd flag for everyone to see (or at least read about)
and I kind of like it.
So even if my bracket is a total bust this year, at least Ill have library madness to ease the pain.