William Crouch

That’s A Wrap

I am almost done with my last paper for the year.  I just need to double check that all my citations were done correctly, and then I’ll be all set to turn it in!  I had to choose six books (three nonfiction and three fiction) to include in my library’s collection.  To do this, I read fiction and nonfiction book reviews from the January 2020 issues of Booklist and School Library Journal.  It was a much more daunting task than I had anticipated.  A lot of books were reviewed, especially fiction books, and it was overwhelming.  Luckily, I printed out the reviews so I could write myself some notes.  I highlighted the most important parts of the reviews and noted my overall impressions of whether to book would make a good addition to the collection or not.  Otherwise, all the reviews would have run together.  I was impressed with the variety of books that were reviewed.  There were many genres and books that featured diverse or marginalized voices.  I recognized several of the titles, but there were many more that I didn’t know about.  I added several books to…

Approaching the End

It’s less than a week until I’m going to be finished with my time here at Simmons. Reflecting back on where I was when I first came to Simmons and where I am now, it’s almost like night and day. Obviously, the pandemic changed so much for everyone and has really set up a new world to go out into. When I started, I knew so little about archives and library science. I’ve gained enormous experience with metadata, encoding systems and structures, preservation tools, archival processes, and management styles while here at Simmons. There’s so much depth to the archival world and so much to learn even after 2 and a half years of studies that it is honestly astounding when I think about how little I knew back in May 2019. The learning opportunities and experiences that this program has afforded me and taught me have really changed how I approach pretty much everything going forward. It cannot be stressed enough but the faculty here are incredible and have a true vested interest in…

One Simmons and New York State of Mind

Alright so I’m finally getting around to our ONE Simmons project. You can probably read more about this here but I’d like to discuss a little more about the student experience with having things a little messy on campus currently. Since I came back in September, the major changes to campus have taken some getting used to, but I’ve learned to navigate my way around the campus. Classes are a little more all over the place currently with some LIS classes in Lefavour, some in the Palace Road building, and some in the Management Building. While I won’t get to be here when it is all said and done, I’m expecting that once the library has opened back up in its proper place, then things will settle down a little more. Speaking of, as someone who has needed to heavily rely on the library’s resources this semester because of my thesis, I’ve been impressed with how they have problem solved effectively with such a reduced space. InterLibrary Loan is still active and has been a…

Sports in Boston. Sports in the Thesis.

As I bet most of you reading know, Boston is very much a sports city. With the Red Sox and Celtics both being historic teams in baseball and basketball respectively and the Patriots being the dominant force they have been for 20 years, Boston’s love of sports speaks for itself. One of the really cool things I got the chance to do recently was attend a fairly new sporting event in Boston, the Laver Cup. The Laver Cup is a pretty new tennis tournament that attracts the biggest stars to come play as Team Europe takes on Team World. Some of the biggest names in tennis like Federer, Nadal, Djokovic have all played the Laver Cup before. In 2019, the Laver Cup announced that Boston was to be the host site of the 2020 edition of the Laver Cup. I’m a pretty avid tennis fan myself. I played in undergrad for the Austin College ‘Roos and took the sport back up during the pandemic with my dad. When the opportunity came to get tickets for…

The History Thesis or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Research.

Well after 2 years in the archives and history program, the culmination of all my history work is finally here: The History Thesis. The Master’s Thesis is an original piece of research that is intended to utilize the skills you have developed in both the history and archives programs. You are expected to primarily utilize and build off of archival material in developing your work and contribute to the field that you are doing your research in. Now after getting the formalities out of the way, let’s talk a little more about my topic. While it is expected to develop over the course of the next few months, currently I have been researching Billie Jean King and Arthur Ashe’s roles as social activists and newly professional athletes. With the pandemic leaving many things in a somewhat gray area in regards to accessibility, it has been difficult to determine what archives are allowing visitors and which ones are not. At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a push to digitize many archival holdings to prevent…

The Final Countdown and the Return

Hi everyone. It’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened since then. I’ve begun my final semester in the program and started my final master’s thesis as the culmination of my history degree. After brainstorming and trying to plan on what to write about, I’ve settled on the topic of tennis. Specifically, once tennis turned professional in 1968, how did this change allow activists like Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King to succeed as athletes and even more so as leaders for social change when previous marginalized groups did not have the same degree of success in an inherently elitist sport. But I’ll write more on that later. The other courses I’ll be taking as the finale to my archives degree will be LIS 437 Legal Information and Sources and LIS 442 Establishing Archives and Manuscripts. The Legal Information sources class is going to be really interesting and already pretty timely with how much the law is changing. The need for librarians who understand how to navigate these complex sources is…

The Final Countdown and Fall 2021 Admitted Student Event

Well, my final semester at Simmons is coming up after nearly two and a half years. To say my experience has been atypical is almost an understatement. But before we get into my final semester, let’s talk about a recent event the Admissions office just put on. We recently had an Admitted Students Event for our Fall 2021 upcoming students. It was a lot of fun getting to talk about my experience at Simmons as someone nearly finished with their program with people just starting out on this journey. Prospective students were able to talk with current students like myself, alumni, and faculty during this event which I hoped shed a lot of light about what distinguishes Simmons from other universities. We were also able to share with students our plans for the Fall 2021 semester and that we are planning to have it in person. So I will be back in Boston for the final semester and I hope to get to see many of the faces I saw at the Admitted Student Event. …

Snowpocalypse

The semester has been off to a pretty crazy start for me. I’ve been in Texas for nearly a year now because of the pandemic while Simmons has put its classes online. As most of the world saw, Texas went through a snowstorm the likes of which it had never seen before in February. I thought I might share my experience with how the storm affected my ability to do my classwork and how the Simmons professors were extremely understanding and adaptable to my situation. To start off, the snowstorm began to hit my part of Texas in the late afternoon of February 14th. Luckily, that was the same day that the final project for LIS 439 was due for my class and I was able to finish it before things got crazy. The next day, electricity and internet began to be erratic which made it difficult for me to access Moodle and my other two classes’ readings for that week. Most of Texas did not expect the storm to get as bad as it…

Spring 2021

The new semester is right around the corner and I just finished up my intensive course this January so I thought it would be a good time to write about it. This January, LIS 439, Preservation Management, was offered as a two-week intensive course instead of taking it the entire semester. Over the past two weeks, our class has met 6 days to learn about and discuss the best practices for preservation techniques in historical institutions and libraries. I’ve learned a lot about what I didn’t realize is necessary to protect our records. For example, we learned about how to store different materials like cellulose nitrate film, which when stored improperly can burst into flames! We also learned about disaster preparation in case our institution is hit with a major disaster like an earthquake or fire and how to recover from that. One of my favorite parts of this class was an assignment that had us find 5 different items we owned that were damaged in some way and analyze the damage, what possibly could…

End of the Semester and End of the Year

Hey everyone. It’s been a long time since I last posted a blog. My semester has been pretty crazy as I imagine everyone else’s has been. Trying to keep up with the election, the pandemic, and continuing classes fulltime has been pretty stressful so I began to limit the amount of time I am on social media each week to basically zero which has been pretty helpful I would say. In my Collective Memory course, our final project was a group presentation on a historical event, person, or group that our understanding of has been affected by the idea of collective memory. My group chose to do our project our Crispus Attucks, the first victim of the Boston Massacre, and how his identity as a runaway slave and martyr helped with the abolitionists and even in the Black Lives Matter protests. In Archival Access, our final project is to create a MARC record and Finding Aid for a collection. We’ve been learning about how to create Finding Aids with XML code and MARC records so…

First Weeks

Hey everyone. The current semester is rolling along just fine despite it being an unusual one compared to a typical SLIS semester. As I’ve been taking more archives focused classes, I’m starting to gain a better grasp of the fundamentals of the profession. In my class LIS440 or Archival Access, I’ve learned about many of the key principles of being an archivist. Some of them are ones that are building off of concepts I learned in previous classes about describing metadata and how you describe items within your archives. In addition, I’ve been learning about how to categorize items within an archive by series or collection level which builds off of previous librarian concepts like Work, Expression, Manifestation, or Item levels. It’s going to be a pretty important class for understanding how to use an archive as both an archivist and a user.  In another class, LIS 441, Archival Appraisal, I’ve been learning about how to best conduct appraisal within an archive. Appraisal is such an important part of the profession because it has to…

Fall 2020 and Welcome Week

It’s pretty crazy to think about how different the start to this fall semester is compared to last year. At this time last year, I was moving to Boston and now the whole world is somewhat frozen with the pandemic while Simmons is not having anything on campus this fall. But that hasn’t stopped us from trying to establish a community for our SLIS students as at the beginning of the month we had a series of digital welcome events for our new students. We had students talk with professors about the upcoming year, meeting with our Simmons librarians to help with research, a meeting for students to get to know each other and chat, and we even had a drawing for SLIS clothing at the end of the week. It was a lot of fun and if any incoming students are hesitant about attending these events the next time we have them, hopefully in person next fall, I would highly recommend going to help establish connections with professors and fellow students before your grad…

Summer of Covid

Hey everyone. I thought I might share a little bit of what I have been doing aside from classes during this strange summer. I’ve moved back to Texas to wait out this pandemic which has been insanely different than what Massachusetts has experienced. Obviously, Texas experienced a massive spike in cases around the end of June and throughout July. Thankfully, I’ve been able to isolate myself for the most part to hopefully limit my exposure. One of the benefits from being in Texas this summer is that I’ve been able to start playing tennis again. I played tennis in undergrad for my school, Austin College, but for a number of factors, I wasn’t able to continue playing when I moved to Boston. To try and get some fresh air and exercise, my dad and I have been playing almost every night which has been really beneficial for my mental and physical health. Due to how tennis is played, it’s really easy to maintain social distancing, so if anybody is looking for a way to get…

Summer Classes

Hey everyone, long time since I last posted. Hope everybody has been staying safe during all this craziness. I’ve been keeping busy taking a summer course while history courses are being offered online. This summer, the history seminar being offered is divided into two different parts both focusing on how the United States functioned as an empire in the early 20th century. The first section was taught by Professor Frances Sullivan and focused on labor movements within United States territories like Puerto Rico or Hawaii. It was really interesting reading some of these groups’ thoughts about how they would gain a new government to try and gain more equity but that the governments would often revert back to being more unequal. Reading about these ideas in the midst of similar discourse occurring in the United States with the Black Lives Matter movement has been very enlightening. The second half of the course was taught by Professor Laura Prieto and focused on women’s suffrage movements within United States territories and how the United States womens’ suffrage…

Tips for Remote Work

Like everyone else, both my school work and class work has been severely disrupted by the ongoing pandemic. I just wanted to share a couple of tips that have been helping me work at home. The main one is pretty obvious but it’s incredibly important to set aside a place solely dedicated as a workstation in a place without distractions. For me, this is my living room that does not have a television or anything that could make me lose focus. Working on your bed has been studied to cause sleeping issues so even just getting up and working on the floor can help you prevent this. The next one is one that I have done in the two semesters I have been here already, create a calendar or list of due dates for assignments. This will help you keep in your mind when things are due and prevent accidentally missing a deadline. Finally, the most important one, is to make sure you’re practicing good care of yourself physically and mentally. We all know that…

Admitted Student Session

On Saturday, we had our first admitted student information session. With everything being remote now, the session had to be moved online through Zoom. It was actually a really interesting way of having the session work. Everybody, about 120 admitted students, started in an initial Zoom session that went over the basics of SLIS such as campus, professors, rankings, that was presented by our admissions team. Some faculty members from all the concentrations then introduced themselves to give students a sense of who their future faculty will be. After some questions that came from a chat function, everybody moved into various different Zoom breakout sessions based on their specific interests or concentrations. I was placed in the Archives and History session with Professor Kathy Wisser of SLIS, Professor Sarah Leonard of the History department, and alum Sarah Nafis, to answer questions that these students had about the program. One question that was asked was about the feasibility of working fulltime and taking classes full time. I was able to address that by detailing how Simmons…

Spring Break 2K20

The CoronaVirus has certainly thrown everybody for a whirlwind recently. It’s been difficult to keep track of what is and isn’t closed for the time being. Simmons, thankfully, was on spring break from March 9 to March 13 while most students went on vacation. For me, I had the great opportunity to take a week long intensive class at Simmons called “Moving Image Archives”. It ended up being my favorite class of the semester, so far. As stated in one of my previous blogs, I hope to work for the Walt Disney Archives one day and one of the parts of that archive is moving images. They have rare films like promotional ads from Walt that have helped reveal what his last taped appearance was. So taking this class not only helped me gain skills that will be very helpful in my journey as an archivist, but also made me seriously consider becoming a moving image archivist in the future. The first day was normal and we got to handle old home movies and use…

Working in an Archive

For LIS 438-Intro to Archival Methods, one of the required aspects is a 60-hour internship with an archive. For the class, Simmons helps you find an archive that will work well for your own situation based on your interests, transportation options, and where you live. I was assigned to work in the City of Boston Archives and Records Management Division with SLIS alum, Marta Crilly. For my internship, I was introduced to all of the other archivists within the office and they were all Simmons alumni which was really cool because it made me see just how big the alumni network is for SLIS. The City of Boston Archives has all the governmental records for the various divisions within the government like the fire department, police, and obviously the mayor’s office. My project for this semester will be going through boxes of photos from Mayor Raymond Flynn’s administration from 1984 to 1993 which had previously had been digitized onto a Flickr account. Over the course of the 60 hours I’ll be working there, I’ll be…

Pizza with the Dean

There was a really cool event on campus last, Pizza with the Dean. For those of you unaware, the dean of COCIS is Marie desJardines who I learned comes from a computer science background. She told us about her background in going to Harvard initially then Berkeley for her doctorate, working for a research institute and finally ending up in academia. She then told us how Simmons started to reorganize itself into the different colleges and how each program became a part of the college it is affiliated with. Marie wanted to meet with SLIS students to gain a better understanding of what current students think of the program and how we think it might be able to be improved. Many of us suggested that we focus more on utilizing the information science aspect of the college while still maintaining a strong identity as a library school. We also discussed what makes Simmons stand apart from different library schools in that it helps students utilize the theory taught more and makes sure that students that…

Spring 2020 Classes

I figured it was probably time for me to post about what classes I’m taking next semester considering the fall semester is more or less done. I’ll actually be taking four classes over the Spring semester. One of my weekly classes will LIS 438 Intro to Archives. It will be my first archives course and it includes a 60 hour internship so I’m pretty excited to start it and learn more about what will hopefully be my eventual career. Another weekly class will be LIS 407 Information Services. It’s one of the required courses for the LIS program and sounds similar to LIS 415 which I enjoyed. My last weekly course will be HIST 574 Modern US History. I’m a big US history buff and am mostly interested in modern history so this class will be one that I hope to take the methods that I learned from my current history course and be able to apply them. Finally, my last course is actually not weekly. Instead it will take place entirely over spring break…

Moving Across the Country

In September, I moved to Boston from Texas so I could attend Simmons and try and get a real winter. I’m only 3 months in and it’s already way colder here than it ever gets in Texas. I wanted to go over some of the things that were part of the challenge of moving here and how Simmons helped me with the move. The major thing was finding a place to live which can be difficult wherever you go. Finding a comfortable space that is also affordable is a challenging process. Thankfully, Simmons has a really great listing that students can access that lists available places within the area. It took me a while but I managed to find a little place in West Roxbury that a Simmons alum owns and managed to find a great roommate. The next thing to deal with was how to get to school and figuring out public transportation for the first time. In Texas, there’s no real convenient transportation service because everybody has cars and because Texas is such…