Boston
Fathoming the Frankenstorm
Posted October 29, 2012 by Sarah Barton
I tend to not get too hyped up about storm forecasts. I recognize that people need to be alerted about the potential severity of a storm so they can prepare accordingly, but I personally don’t get caught up in the 24-7 Weather Channel or local news coverage. (Confession: in small doses, I do enjoy watching the live reporters who can hardly stand up due to the driving wind and rain. And how do their microphones not pick up any of the wssssh sounds from the wind?) On Sunday morning I picked up some bottled water and non-perishables, tested my flashlight, and collected some candles, so I felt like I was more than prepared for Sandy the Frankenstorm. Sunday evening I was surprised to see that many Massachusetts schools announced Monday closures. Then I received an email from my Monday morning professor that she was cancelling our in-person meeting and putting the lecture notes online. Then Simmons called, texted, and emailed me to say that the campus would be closed on Monday. Are people overreacting to…
Boston Book Festival
Posted October 28, 2012 by lazylibrarian
Two weeks ago I wrote a post about volunteering for conferences and other events around Boston. Well Saturday was one of my favorite events: The Boston Book Festival. The festival is only in its fourth year but it has amazing organization and a huge turnout. Of course being in Boston, and being affiliated with the Boston Public Library allows the festival to bring in some big names. This year Lemony Snicket himself was the keynote speaker for the children. That’s one reason I love the BBF. Its not just for one group, there are children’s programs, teen programs, and adult programs, and except for the keynote speaker, all are free. Last year I volunteered and enjoyed it so much that I did it again this year. Both years I have been assigned to the children’s room helping the costumed characters. Last year I got to meet Moe Williams and helped with Elephant and Piggy as well as Geronimo Stilton. This year I worked with Frog and Toad and Curious George. The kids LOVED Curious George,…
My first rental car and an earthquake…My own series of unfortunate events!
Posted October 17, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I don’t have to work or attend class on Tuesdays so it is normally my day to hunker down and get a lot of homework done. Well, I am writing this Tuesday night and have nothing to show for my day but a beloved smashed car, a shiny red rental car in my garage, and a Facebook posting about our earthquake. To back up, I gave up my homework day this week to attend inter-library loan training by our New Hampshire State Library (as I live and work in NH). The ILL system for New Hampshire uses the NHU-PAC (The New Hampshire Union Public Access Catalog) and the system is a bit dated and not intuitive…but it works! The holdings of over 375 libraries in the state are represented in the NHU-PAC. Our small libraries thrive on our ability to share our resources and provide patrons with materials from partner libraries all over the state, delivered daily our state library van service. Training is offered periodically and today, I attended a day of training being…
The Tale of Two Campuses
Posted September 12, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I started my Simmons GSLIS career on beautiful West campus, at Mount Holyoke College. It was a long, two and a half hour drive, but other than a few dicey snowstorms, the commute through the meandering hills of NH and Massachusetts was a pleasant one. I enjoyed many great books on my MP3 player during the commute, and the faculty and students at GSLIS West were (and still are) a brilliant and supportive bunch. I had two classes that took place on campus and one online…I will blame my online one, with a remarkable Boston professor, for what happened next. Boston? I got it in my head to take advantage of ALL Simmons had to offer a library science student. Was I missing something by being on only one campus? Or is the choice simply one of geography? I decided to find out. So, last Saturday I attended my Database Management class on West campus, taught by a library professional and professor from Harvard (who also teaches the class in Boston), and on Monday, I…
Vacation
Posted May 26, 2012 by dunhame
After I finished up my classes a few weeks ago, I found myself in somewhat of a depressing predicament: I didnt know how to spend my time without having homework to do. I would find myself sitting at home bored after work and on the weekends. It took me longer than I would be comfortable admitting to remember, Wait a second I live in Boston! Thus began the rediscovery of my touristy agenda. I was able to get a lot of sightseeing done last September before classes really got going and even throughout the academic yeara trip to the Museum of Fine Arts makes for a fantastic study break. Before the school year ended Id seen that, the Boston Commons, a good chunk of the Freedom Trail, the Boston Public Library Architectural Tour, Salem, the North End, and the Sam Adams Brewery. The task this month was to determine what was left and see all I could before classes started up again.
How Running a Marathon is (sort of) Like Attending Simmons GSLIS
Posted April 16, 2012 by Sarah Barton
I want to make the Boston Marathon relevant to GSLIS. I really do. Library school is like a marathon. The last two weeks of the semester are the final sprint to complete a marathon. The Boston Marathon is awesome, and so is GSLIS. As much as I enjoy figurative language, those statements just dont quite get it done. I couldnt watch the Boston Marathon last year, but two years ago it was one of the most inspiring things I have ever witnessed. Despite being a certified stoic, at one point I found myself holding back tears. The combination of beautiful weather, everyones positive energy, and the camaraderie among the runners and spectators created an experience that I will not soon forget. There is something overpowering about watching 27,000 people meander 26.2 miles from Framingham to Downtown Boston. A marathon is hardly about winning in the traditional sense. Everyone out there, whether on the course or alongside it, wants every single marathoner to succeed. In a marathon, to succeed is to finish and to finish is…
The Suburbs
Posted March 17, 2012 by Danielle Geller
One of the benefits of going to school in a city like Boston is that, aside from everything youll be doing in school, the city itself has plenty to offer. I completed my undergraduate school at a tiny university in central PennsylvaniaShippensburg University, to be exact. And even though I loved the school, the faculty, and my experience there, the best thing the town had to offer were fields of corn and cows. Sure, my friends and I frequently made trips to D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia to see shows, etc., but that usually meant at least a 1 1/2 to 2 hour commute one way. Boston is much more expensive than middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania (my roommates and I shared an apartment and only paid $125 a month each in PA), but its justifiable in the end. In a few weeks, PAX (a huge video game convention) will be coming to Boston. Ive already registered and am totally looking forward to it! Sometimes I do find myself missing green things and a little bit of nature, but…
Spring is here…sort of
Posted March 16, 2012 by Maya Bery
Forgive the tangent from more scholarly, library-centric posts, but I would be remiss in my duties as a blogger for the Admissions Office if I did not comment upon the weather in Boston. You see, before I moved to Boston, I knew that it got a lot of snow. This seemed self-evident – we are, after all, living in New England. What I didn’t know is that Boston is very much a “four seasons in a day” kind of place, though usually the changes are spread over the course of one day to the next. Take this past week, for example. Last weekend brought with it the time change, clocks going forward an hour, giving us extra daylight at the day’s end. This is a welcome change even if it does result in lost sleep because it means instead of getting dark at 5:30 (now – in the depths of winter, it’s pitch black by 5:00), it’s now dusk until somewhere around 6:30. The beginning of the week brought the most extraordinarily gorgeous weather, the…
The Big Move (Part 2)
Posted March 6, 2012 by dunhame
To continue my account of my move to Boston, Im here this week with the second installment of The Big Move. I left off last week setting myself up for quite a task, which is to tell my stories and offer some tips regarding finding a place to live in Boston and using public transportation. In the interest of not overwhelming you with a term-paper length piece, Im going to back off from that and stick to discussing housing only and saving the wondrous MBTA for another week. One of the most intimidating elements of my planning phase leading up to moving to Boston was trying to find a place to live. I was living in Missouri at this time, and I didnt have the means or the time to schedule a trip to Boston to look at apartments in person. In fact, I didnt travel to Boston at all until it was time to move. This means I was 100% reliant upon this good ol Web of ours in my apartment hunt. I began,…
The Big Move (Part 1)
Posted February 28, 2012 by dunhame
I want to take some time this week to tell the story of my move to Boston and hopefully offer some advice to anyone who is thinking about attending Simmons College but is a little worried about arranging to come here from somewhere outside of the New England area. There are definitely special difficulties associated with a situation like this and many questions come up for people who want to move here but dont know a lot about Boston. Hopefully this post will address some of your concerns! I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and went to undergrad in the same state, and up until this year, I had never had any big move kind of experience. After I decided to attend Simmons, I was faced with a great deal of uncertainty. When should I move? How should I move? Where should I live? How will I find housing? How should I get around when I get there? Im going to structure the rest of this post by quickly explaining how I addressed these…