Meeting Connections and Chatting with Friends

Posted April 15, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao

   It’s early April, and you want to hang out with fellow book lovers. The obvious thing is to go to MSLA (Massachusetts School Library Association) on a rainy Sunday. MSLA is a chance for classmates you see in your classes to interact with school library teachers who are your professors, as well as other school librarians in the field. The day started off with an opening keynote on diversity, an issue very big among our community at Simmons and in public schools around the state. Many sessions were offered. I chose the talk on new AASL (American Association of School Librarians) standards, since I am working on creating lessons that align with those standards in my 461 Curriculum and Instructional Strategies class. 

  The instructor of the session on AASL was the former Simmons SLT program manager, from about ten years ago. Half the school librarians in the session were alums of the Simmons SLT program. Throughout the guided exercises at the AASL Standards session, I was able to get good ideas for my future school library, also given the opportunity to network with my fellow librarians.

   During the lunch break, I worked on my interview assignment — to interview a library teacher who works in a suburb of Boston. This was the best time for my subject, and she was able to introduce me to other librarians in her district. I was able to learn that this library teacher presented at MSLA in 2018 on how she recruits library volunteers, making herself a leader in her field. The time I spent at this conference assured me that Simmons is able to connect me with alums who are currently working in the field through the courses and networking with MSLA. Simmons MLIS is developed with graduating with a job in mind, and I know after attending this conference that there are plenty of Simmons alumni in the Boston area who want to help me be a good school librarian.