My Last Semester at Simmons!
Posted September 7, 2021 by Sarah Callanan
Hey everyone! We wrapped up LIS 447: Collection Maintenance a few weeks ago and ended the course with enclosures! In the last few weeks of the course, I made a pamphlet binder, a wrapper for a book, a two-piece lidded box, and mounted paper objects with both photo corners and tissue T-hinges. Honestly, Collection Maintenance was one of my favorite classes at Simmons, which is kind of surprising because I am not really the most crafty person and this was a very hands-on class. Every week I managed to surprise myself with what I was able to accomplish and with how much I had learned and how much I had grown from previous weeks. One of the reasons why I wanted to take LIS 447 is because I want to get the most experience that I can out of my Simmons education and this class was so different than anything else I’ve done before at SLIS. I think that collection maintenance is a fascinating subject and that it is a really useful and practical skill to have so it has been a really valuable experience to have as part of my time at Simmons. While I don’t know if I will ever do this professionally, being able to do book repairs and create enclosures I think is something that may help me personally, and I want to try out some repairs on my own personal collection, and I certainly had fun this summer!
The Fall 2021 semester is beginning this week and it is going to be my last one at Simmons! Can you believe it? Just a few more months and then I’m done! I’ve had quite the time with my Fall 2021 schedule—in a post earlier this year, I mentioned that I selected LIS 416: Descriptive Cataloguing to be my final class at Simmons. I then changed my mind during the summer, and registered for LIS 430: Business Information Sources and Services, because while I work in reference, business really isn’t my forte and I want to build my knowledge and skills in that area. Then, LIS 430 was cancelled due to low enrollment, so I had to find another class. When I went to sign up for another class, I noticed that LIS 532R: Reader’s Advisory and Popular Culture Trends was open and it worked with my schedule, so I signed up for it. When I’ve looked at the course listings before, that class has always looked so interesting and fun! I also don’t know a lot about reader’s advisory, so signing up for this class is a good way to expand my skills—I always feel put on the spot when people ask me for book recommendations. To be honest, this is the type of class that I feel that everyone outside of the LIS world thinks I’ve been taking the entire time I’ve been at Simmons—a lot of people think that in library school, you are coming to school to read and this is the first class where I am getting to read things besides textbooks and articles so I am very excited. If you want to read along with us, or are just looking for something new to read, here’s the genre titles that we are going to be exploring this semester:
- The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
- Pride, Prejudice, and other Flavors by Sonali Dev
- The Stone Wall by Beverly Lewis
- Aunty Lee’s Delights by Ovidia Yu
- The Skies Belong to Us by Brendan I. Koerner
- Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
- Lumberjanes, Vol. 1: Beware the Kitten Holy by Noelle Stevenson
The class starts this week, so I’ll keep you updated on how things are going!
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