Books
Books about Librarians and Libraries!
Posted March 20, 2024 by Isabella Rodrigues
It’s not surprising that a great way to have a deeper understanding of library science is to read about it! Of course, many SLIS students will have read articles, research papers, and textbooks about information science, but I am going to list some “not-so-academic” fiction and nonfiction titles that will help you learn and also get you learning. Enjoy the odd cases and questions that come to Gina Sheridan’s circulation desk at her public library. These true short stories are a celebration of libraries and patrons as well as the quirks of working as a reference librarian. A deep dive into the more scientific side of libraries. When is it important for children to start reading on their own? What is the difference between reading on screens and reading on paper? How are libraries going to look in the future? Maryanne Wolf contemplates all this and more in her musings in this non-fiction work. Historians Andrew Pettegree and Arthur de Wedewen explore both the whimsical and dark past of libraries and their keepers. This book…
Graduation Celebration Reads!
Posted May 19, 2023 by Lauren Redding
Happy Graduation Day to those who celebrate! I’ve had a week of travel and music and packing since I turned in my last final, and I’ve been celebrating my impending graduation (and the new job for fall in Chelsea School District that I am very excited for) in typical librarian fashion, of course, by reading. Here’s five 50 word recommendations of my celebratory reads, none of which are on the topic of school at all: Mad About You by Mhairi McFarlane McFarlane deals mostly in mid-thirties coming-of-age stories with a romance thrown in there too, and every book I’ve read of hers has been utterly entertaining on every page. Genuinely funny, painfully heartbreaking, and full of well-rounded characters, Mad About You was no exception. Great for fans of dry British humor. When You Get The Chance by Emma Lord Lord writes the type of contemporary YA that sets the standard for the rest. Movie-inspired plot premises become both grounded and heighted in her hands. When You Get The Chance was full of musical theatre references,…
A SLIS Boston Student Goes West
Posted February 7, 2023 by Claire Pask
This January, I began my spring semester in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I completed my Preservation Management requirement over the course of two long weekends. Affectionately dubbed “Library Boot Camp” by Professor Donia Conn, the class consisted of six seven-hour days, during which my classmates and I studied old photographs and manuscripts, pored over different binding techniques, and learned more about pests and mold than I ever hoped to know. We (affectionately) handled old leather book casings, examined sheets of vellum from the eighteenth century, smiled at the rosy, painted-on cheeks of old tintype portraits, and held vintage Kodachrome film up to the light to reveal images of smiling families and pin-up girls—all in the name of understanding the makeup of the materials archives and libraries hold so that we may better preserve them. Our classes were held on the Simmons West campus at Mount Holyoke College, where we had the opportunity to visit and study two nearby libraries: the Williston Memorial Library, the college’s academic library, and the Gaylord Memorial Library, a small public…
Inciting Joy at Boston Bookfest
Posted October 31, 2022 by Claire Pask
This past weekend, I attended the Boston Book Fest, a day of readings, discussions, and more.While I enjoyed walking through Copley Square to visit the booths of various literary journalsand publishers, my favorite experience of the day was a panel session titled “How to Live:Purpose, Joy, and Dash of Philosophy” with authors Ross Gay, Kieran Setiya, and Ellen Warner,held in Old South Church. Though I attended the session to hear Ross Gay speak about his new book Inciting Joy—I’vegifted Gay’s Book of Delights to many a family member or close friend, and have multipleannotated volumes of his poetry on my bookshelf—I was pleasantly surprised by how much Ienjoyed the other speakers’ presentations, as the titles of their books had not originally piquedmy interest: Life is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way and The Second Half: FortyWomen Reveal Life After Fifty. My notes from the session almost read like a prose poem, though not one of Gay’s caliber:“justice is not separate from self-interest — you always must invite guests — speak well ofpeople…
Holiday Reading
Posted January 5, 2022 by Johnna Purchase
At the onset of any break, I create a mound of books that I hope to read. I know that I won’t quite get through all of them, but I make my ambitious pile nonetheless in the hopes that I might be able to squeeze in just one more book before the busyness of term begins again. Below is my booklist for the break. Happy reading! Fiction A Very Irish Christmas: the greatest Irish holiday stories of all time publish by New Vessel Press – This adorable collection of poems, songs, and short stories brought back many delightful memories of a Christmas I spent in Ireland! Fantasy The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang – I know that I am a little late to reading The Poppy War series, but after picking this up at Brookline Booksmith and starting it on the plane home, I am charmed with Rin’s grit and determination. Sistersong by Lucy Holland – I noticed this behind the counter at Barnes & Noble when picking up a Christmas present and then found…
Confessions of a Library Card Holder
Posted October 22, 2021 by Abbey Metzler
Reader, I have a confession. I, a Simmons Library and Information Science master’s student, have lived in Boston for over half a year now without getting my Boston Public Library card. The shock! The horror. I can hear the admonishments now. But maybe you, like me, moved to a new city during this time of great lockdown and weren’t sure how libraries were available to us with their front doors firmly closed and sanitized. That is why I write to tell you of my own journey for the little plastic card and the membership it represents. I decided to remedy my lapse in patronship during one of my library science classes. No, I won’t tell which one. It’s my first semester here and I want to make a good, attentive first impression on Simmons’ venerable professors. In said unnamed class, I pulled up the BPL website and found the page for their eCard registration. The eCard is available for anyone who lives or works in Massachusetts, even if you are only here part of…
Skills learned from SLT
Posted October 21, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
I am so close to being done with my studies at Simmons. When I look back at my courses at Simmons, I feel like all I want to say is thank you. I have one step into the door of working professional and one foot still in the door of graduate student. As I am slowly creeping into the role of a library teacher, I am using the skills that the Simmons School Library Teacher program has equipped me with to be a library assistant in an elementary school library. In my LIS 406 course Management of School Libraries, I learned valuable skills in outreach to the community. When you work in a school library, it is good to partner with local bookshops for book orders, but most importantly the local public library. In the school where I work now, we are working very closely with the public library’s children’s librarian to give children access to information resources. LIS 461 the Curriculum and Instructional Strategies for the SLT (School Library Teacher) gave an overview of…
Books, Books, and More Books
Posted September 23, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
The semester is still young, but I’ve already read five books for my Young Adult Literature class! I definitely panicked when I saw this on the syllabus. The professor had sent out an email a few weeks before the semester began to let us know that we had to read three books for week 2, but since I signed up for the class late, I didn’t get the news until the first week of class. Thankfully, the books were quick reads, and I had more notice for the two books I had to read for week 3. While it requires a lot of reading, this class has been amazing so far. I signed up for it mainly because I love YA literature, but I also signed up because I wanted to read out of my comfort zone. I’m used to reading books of my choosing. I gravitate towards mysteries, fantasies, and other light reads. This isn’t a bad thing, but I think it’s important as a librarian to be familiar with all types of books. I wanted to get familiar with books and…
Book Repairs!
Posted July 7, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I’ve had a busy and fun two weeks of book repairs. My tasks included rebacking (replacing the spine of a book) and recasing (re-attaching the text block to the book cover). Both of these repairs were invasive and required cutting into the book. That definitely scared me at first. Taking a knife to a book seemed like sacrilege. I had to remind myself that cutting into the book would not harm it—in fact, it would save the book. And it did! The end result of my repairs was book that was fully functional again, and ready to get back into circulation. I can see how knowing how to do these minor repairs would be beneficial for librarians, because they could fix a lot of book problems without having to spend money buying a new book. What amazes me is how much book repair is about precision. It takes a lot of practice to make straight, even cuts, align pages, and trim accurately. But once you know how to do this, you can make repairs that…
Let’s Talk About Books!
Posted February 12, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
This week I have one of the most fun projects that I’ve had since starting at Simmons! I get to talk about BOOKS! I know, I know, this is library school, shouldn’t this be a common thing? Actually, no, this is not a usual assignment. I don’t think I’ve actually had an assignment where I’ve gotten to wax poetic about books, genres, publishing, or anything of that nature since we talked about readers advisory waaaaayy back in my first semester when I was taking LIS 407: Information Sources and Services. This week is my Genre/Topic project for LIS 453: Collection Development and Management. For this project, I get to talk about a particular topic or book genre and discuss publishing trends, what’s hot and what’s not, popular books, any books that are going to be released as movies and/or TV shows in my genre, etc. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I’m excited for this project for a variety of reasons. First, as I mentioned earlier, I GET TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS! Like many others who…