March 2016 Archives
Posted March 28, 2016
When you are writing a thesis about food, it is almost inevitable that you are going to encounter some pretty interesting examples of food culture. Thus far in my study of American food culture from the 1950s to the early 1990s, I’ve encountered fan letters to Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer-Becker the mother-daughter duo behind the Joy of Cooking. Their cookbooks promote a vast array of recipes that utilize ingredients that range from diced vegetables to box Jell-o mixed. By far my favorite thing that I’ve had to analyze in the name of academia is food advertisements from magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, and Better Homes & Gardens from the 1950s. These advertisements, which are very much products of their time, offer insight into consumer and food trends from the decade. For my paper, I am analyzing these advertisements as a means of understanding how the food and consumer industry promoted the gendering of the kitchen and the position of the home cook. The following advertisements were found within magazines that are a part of Johnson and Wales Culinary…
Posted March 19, 2016
Last week, while most of Simmons was on spring break, I was on campus every day from 9am until about 3pm. I took the week off of work in order to complete a 5-day, 3-credit course with SLIS legend, Jim Matarazzo. Jim has worked in corporate libraries for decades, and he is the original social networker. I’m pretty sure you could ask about any major company and he will tell you the history of their corporate library and name two contacts there. This class was heavily career focused, extremely practical… and wicked fun! Our assignments for the week included two papers and two (group) presentations. We looked at a set of corporate libraries that had closed and another set that were “successful,” then evaluated how corporate libraries can survive and thrive. We also each summarized a chapter from the textbook (which Jim co-authored). My favorite day of the week was Tuesday, when we did our site visits. We started at the New England School of Law, whose library has an impressive reference staff and a very cozy study space….
Posted March 18, 2016
There will be a panel of librarians who are Hampshire alums who will come back to campus and speak about their career trajectories. The event is on Thursday, March 31 at 5 pm in ASH auditorium on the Hampshire College campus, and it is free and open to the community. Come hear about diverse paths and where these librarians landed and the sort of work that they do! Check out the link below for more information: http://sites.hampshire.edu/theharold/2016/03/16/down-the-rabbit-hole-hampshire-graduates-as-librarians/
Posted March 18, 2016
I’m not saying that I don’t care about the current Nation Presidential Elections. However, I’m an independent registered in Connecticut, which means I don’t get a vote until November 2017. There is one election I can vote in, and it’s the ALA elections, and I recommend that every ALA member (even students!) vote. If voter turnout is low, the elections can get really tight. The ALA website has a lot of great links and information, and I recommend doing your background research on the candidates. Their biographies and positions are all stated clearly on the website, and the three presidential candidates each have websites for people to view. There are three positions to vote for in this election cycle: President, Treasurer, and Councilor-at-Large. You can even do all of your reading when you’re voting on the website. There’s even a few Simmons Alumni running to fill some of the 34 vacant Councilor-at-Large positions! I worked at the Jim Neal table for ALA Midwinter, but I got to learn about and interact with plenty of the…
Posted March 18, 2016
I am a sucker for any holiday that gives me an excuse to dress up! Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Fourth of July…all good outfit inspirations. And this week we have another! St. Patty’s Day is the perfect excuse to break out that green t-shirt or scarf, or you could go bold and try mixing some hues for a head-to-toe, Kermit the Frog-inspired look. But you don’t have to limit the green takeover to your own clothing. Our apartment will certainly be decked out in some four-leaf clovers, courtesy of my roommate’s kindergarten-teacher mom. And I plan on doing all my writing with a green pen that day as well. Moving beyond my own little world, I started thinking about how everyone else might be choosing to celebrate the beloved Irish saint this week. Thanks to the wealth of information that is Google, I was able to find some rather unique ways people out there are celebrating St. Patrick. Perhaps the most popular tradition originated in Chicago, where they die the river green every year for the…
Posted March 13, 2016
As a former New Yorker, I am not unfamiliar with taking rail transport to get to the places that I need to go. With my Archives capstone internship in Providence, I’ve become quite familiar with the MBTA Commuter Rail. Would I say that it’s the best rail transport that I’ve ever taken? No. That title will always be reserved for my beloved Long Island Rail Road (LIRR). I have too many fond childhood memories of the lights flickering off and on while traveling under tunnels to ever consider awarding another train system the top honors. Yet the MBTA Commuter Rail does a perfectly fine job at doing the whole train thing. Most of the time. Listen, no train is perfect; all commuters can hope for is that their train arrives and departs on time. Yet sometimes, things happen, as they tend ton do. Thus far this semester, I have been stuck on a train for almost three and half hour due to Amtrak complications as well as stuck on a train traveling at reduced speeds,…
Posted March 11, 2016
Last week, my grandfather called up my mother, who called up me because I live in Boston. He needed a favor. For years, my grandfather has been trying to hunt down family records to find out where the family immigrated from in Ireland, and he was able to trace them back to Boston sometime in the early 1870’s. Boston has the original records of marriage and ship arrivals in the Massachusetts State Archives, which is on the UMass campus. He was hoping I could find some of the original records concerning the marriage of my great-great-great grandparents, and maybe any records of their arrival. Of course I said yes. He also said the boring grandfatherly stuff you’d expect him to say like “Don’t let it distract you from your schoolwork” but I have no control when it comes to research. I did find an 1871 marriage record, and I do have a copy of it which gave him extra information (and then he pulled me off of it because “you need to focus on your…
Posted March 10, 2016
Who is enjoying their spring break so far? I know I am! As I write this, I am simultaneously finishing up laundry left over from a weekend spent hosting my mom who flew in from Minnesota and packing for a wedding in Tennessee that I leave for tomorrow…no rest for the weary, but I wouldn’t trade these frund times for the world! So, in honor of the fun, bubbly, vacation-y mood I’m in, I”m taking a week off of blogging (or thinking) about anything remotely schoarly. Sorry, but I want to talk about donuts instead. To be more specific, I want to talk about the maple bacon donut that I had a few days ago from the fun, new pop-up shop next door to my grocery store. This donut was perfection! First of all, it was HUGE, and, as we Americans know, bigger is always better when it comes to sweets. J The frosting was rich and maple-y without being too strong, and the bacon was real fried bacon, not those stale smoked bacon bits…
Posted March 5, 2016
Last night, my Legal Information Services class went to Northeastern University’s law library, where both of my professors work. Northeastern’s wifi is really restrictive, so we had no access to the catalog and were totally reliant on print sources. We took a tour of the library (and had to remember where the books were located), then were let loose with a list of questions to answer. Finding information in legal print resources is very time consuming – the index is your best friend – but also satisfying, like a scavenger hunt… a scavenger hunt that I would not enjoy in the context of actual research. After that assignment, (are you ready for the Harry Potter reference?) I’ve realized how totally crazy it is that students at Hogwarts had to do this completely the old-fashioned way. No wonder it took Harry, Ron, and Hermione four months to find a reference to Nicholas Flamel in The Sorcerer’s Stone. WHY didn’t anyone in this magical world create a control-F spell? And my bigger issue – why didn’t JK Rowling create a cooler librarian?? Madame…
Posted March 4, 2016
I am so excited because it is finally March! This means that spring has sprung (kind of), Spring Break is just around the river bend, and my mom is coming to visit from Minnesota!!!!!!! This will be the first time since moving me out here two years ago that my mom has been to Boston, and now that I’m settled I finally get to introduce her to my life on the East Coast. But how does one even begin to narrow down the huge list of possible activities, restaurants, and sites Boston has to offer when their guest is only going to be here for two full days?! Well, it’s taken quite a bit of list making and revising, but I think I’ve finally decided. So, without further ado, here are my Top 5 Things to See in Boston. 1) Faneuil Hall This old state building turned shopping center is a great hub of activity to check out. There are usually street performers in the courtyard outside, and the building has that charming and…
