Michaela O’Gara-Pratt
Photo of Michaela O’Gara-Pratt
Hi! My name is Michaela O’Gara-Pratt (she/they) and I am a second year student at SLIS with a concentration in Archives Management. I grew up in the Boston area and graduated from Boston University in 2023 with a B.A. in psychology. Post-graduation, I worked for a year in pediatric in-patient psychiatry. After realizing I needed to pivot my career, I reflected on what I am genuinely interested in and the answer is libraries! I will always have a passion for mental health care, but I have found a home working with the collections that shape us. I have a special interest in working with art research collections, and outside of class I have both worked and interned at local art museums. In my free time I like to read spooky forest stories, ride my unicycle, and visit as many Sargent paintings as I can find.
Entries by Michaela O’Gara-Pratt
Did you know that as a Simmons SLIS student you could attend librarian summer camp? Well…not technically summer camp, but you can take LIS 447: Collections Maintenance with Professor Donia Conn. This two week course, taking place during the summer semester at the North Bennet Street School, feels a lot like a very cool, very niche summer camp. I was lucky to take this course over the summer of 2025. When I toured Simmons in 2023, the North Bennet Street School came up in conversation because I knew a few people who had taken courses there. The student ambassador giving the tour quickly shared that Simmons offered a course taught by one of their professors at the North Bennet Street School because they had the studio space and book binding equipment for the course. I was excited to learn about the course and hoped I would be able to squeeze it into my schedule. I am happy to report that the course was everything I hoped it would be. During our two weeks in the…
As a child, I grew up fascinated by the architecture of my local public library. Designed by Henry Hobson Richardson, the decorative wood interior has always sparked my imagination and creativity. The settings of the fantasy novels I grew up reading seemed to come alive inside of the stained-glass windows created by John La Farge. I am glad that in the late 19th century there was a push to make public spaces so beautiful. In many ways, a lot of these old New England libraries are more accessible museums. An individual can visit the murals painted by John Singer Sargent at the Copley Branch of the Boston Public Library without the entry fee associated with the Museum of Fine Arts, which also holds examples of Sargent’s murals. As a budding librarian with an interest in art, I am excited by the intersections of art and public education. Recently, the Boston Public Library received a significant donation to restore the third floor of the historic McKim Building. This project would increase public access to some of…
I have been doing a lot of job interviews recently. As a second-year student at SLIS, applying for jobs this year feels a lot different than it did last fall when I first started the program. I have new skills to highlight on my resume, and I have the knowledge I have gained from internships and coursework. Despite this, I am still new to applying to jobs in the field and I have discovered that interviews are a great place to learn more about what these jobs really look like, even if you are not offered a position after the interview. Historically, I have always been a big fan of informational interviews. I enjoy conversation and I feel like I learn a lot about my options by talking to people who have been in similar situations. Before I pivoted to Library Science, I worked at an in-patient psychiatric care unit. At the time, I thought I wanted to work full-time as a mental healthcare professional, so I spoke to everyone I could. I scheduled meetings…
