Spring 2019 Kickoff
Posted February 4, 2019 by Katie Carlson
With the first week of classes coming to a close, I thought I’d give my first impressions of my second SLIS semester so far!
On Tuesday I had my first section of LIS 488: Technology for Information Professionals (my final core class). I was extremely nervous about this class, so it’s not a coincidence that I saved it for last! I am someone who loves technology and is always excited to learn new things, but after a few too many attempts at troubleshooting, I go into meltdown mode. Danielle put my mind at ease when she started class by having us go around the room, share our tech backgrounds, and rate our feelings about technology on a smiley face scale ranging from love to hate (just like this one).
Most of us placed ourselves on the scale at “meh,” with various justifications for why. Some rationales for not providing a more positive score were frustration, privacy concerns, and lack of sociability. Danielle stated that the course would take on all of those subjects! We moved to the COCIS tech lab for the second half of class, where we signed up for our first presentation, and then spent an hour learning some simple coding via a tutorial website. I chose to create my own Google doodle. It isn’t perfect, but I’m pretty proud of it! It ended up looking like this!
On Thursday I had my LIS450: Public Libraries class. I was super excited for this course, as public librarianship is my “jam,” and it did not disappoint! I know about one third of the people in the class, but was excited to make some new friends. This is by far the bubbliest group I’ve encountered.
I was originally placed on the waitlist for LIS 453: Collection Management and Development. The class is only offered online, and is apparently very popular, as I started out 22nd on the waitlist. I was briefly enrolled in LIS 493: Intellectual Freedom – which I was very excited to take with my advisor Laura Saunders – but thought that Collection Development and Management better fit my personal goals of public and reference librarianship. Luckily for me, the registrar’s office looked at the long wait list, and enlisted Michael Leach to teach another section of LIS 453. I’ve only just started exploring the moodle page for our online section, but so far I’m feeling super optimistic. I loved that we had a forum to post introductions (including fun facts and where we’re from!). I was worried about lack of human connection, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a problem! I’m looking forward to the flexibility an online class offers me!