Classes
Thinking Like an Archivist
Posted November 6, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
We are more than halfway through the semester and with a few days off for holidays this month, I think I can safely say we are in the home stretch. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Woo! With my archives internship wrapping up, I thought I’d share some of my observations. First of all, this internship required some serious time management. It is built right into the Intro to Archives course (LIS 438) on top of a typical load of coursework, and it’s a lot. I actually advised a classmate the other day not to take it, unless she was serious about archives. Because unless you’ve got all kinds of free time and not many daytime commitments, it will require some major sacrifices beyond the typical course. That being said, I have loved all the course material (not so much the online format) and the work I’ve been doing for my internship. I have finally gotten some hands-on experience in an archive. It really is essential. I’ve heard several times now…
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
Posted October 31, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
Enrollment has rolled around for Spring 2018, and I’m completely torn apart. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m definitely struggling. Every semester there seems to be at least six classes I want to take, even though I’m limited to four, and self-limited to three due to money. It feels like I can see infinitely branching paths in front of me depending on what I decide. Young adult collections? Collection development? Information services for diverse users? Everything sounds so great! Let’s say there are six classes I’m interested in, none of which create scheduling conflicts (totally hypothetical, definitely NOT enrolled in three classes and on three waitlists right now…). We can determine the amount of possible course combinations by using a non-ordered combination formula. This results in a whopping…twenty combinations. Okay, so not quite a staggering number, but maybe an almost-tripped-but-caught-myself number? Anyway, each of these twenty paths could lead me to a totally different future, depending on my classmates, my professors, my assignments, and of course, the content. One of these combinations would…
Fun Facts From My Publishing Class
Posted October 25, 2017 by Josie Snow
My publishing class is very interesting, my professor has been in the world of publishing for a very long time, and knows all sorts of things about books, and the people behind them. She was a friend of the authors of Curious George, and according to her, the Reys were Jews in German-occupied France, and when they left, they grabbed some of their work to take with them. They were stopped at the border, but when the soldier detaining them heard that they were writing books for children he asked to see their work. He thought his children would like the story, so he let them through. Also, did you know that new evidence suggests that Laura Ingalls Wilder had help from her daughter Rose Wilder when writing her books? Laura wrote down her memories, and then Rose, who was a ghostwriter by profession, turned the books into the works of fiction we know today. (For more information see the links below). https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/01/10/books-laura-ingalls-wilder-autobiography http://mentalfloss.com/article/24513/quick-10-curious-george-gets-flossy
Living the Dream
Posted October 2, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
WHOA it’s been a crazy week! So crazy, in fact, I’m going to have to break it down with a numbered list. Here are the important announcements/news items from this week: 1. I started my internship at the Fairfield University archives! This internship is a big deal for me. I haven’t worked since I had my son almost five years ago, so I need all the professional experience I can get. Also, I’ve never done any actual archives work before. I have some library experience and some museum experience, and here I am in grad school claiming I want to be an archivist with only a foggy idea of what that actually means. So YAY FOR INTERNSHIPS! Can you tell I’m excited? I’m super excited. This internship is perfect for me. It’s not too far from my home and it’s a small university archives, which frankly is exactly the kind of institution I see myself in some day. 2. I visited an archives for my field study. This would be only the second…
Put People First
Posted September 25, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I was sitting in church this past Sunday listening to a woman tell a story about a piece of advice her older sister had given her which had become a guiding principle in her life. The piece of advice was, “put people first.” This axiom could apply to all areas of life and for me, I’ve been thinking about it in relation to library work. We’ve begun learning about the reference interview in LIS 407 and on Saturday we watched videos of a “bad” reference interaction and a “good” interaction and discussed the behavioral performance guidelines set out by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). RUSA’s guidelines read a lot like the basics of being a kind, considerate, caring person with a few library-specific points thrown in. Stuff like: make eye contact, acknowledge patrons with a friendly greeting, focus complete attention on the patron’s need, and communicate in a “receptive, cordial, and supportive manner.” One of my classmates said that most of the guidelines were common sense, and another said that they were basically…
On Being Ambassadors
Posted September 18, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I think I can safely say now that this will be one tough semester, characterized with lots of work outside the home. My first semester I had to drive to class every Saturday but all of the work and the assignments could be completed at home, on my own time. Not so this semester. This week I will go interview a reference librarian. Next week I will be visiting an archival repository as a researcher. And any day now my archives internship will start up, requiring 60 hours of work over the course of the semester. As an avowed introvert and homebody, I do not relish the thought of all the running around I’ll be doing. But I also feel confident that once the stress of setting up appointments and making arrangements is over, I am going to love getting out into the field, talking to archivists and librarians, and getting the hands-on experience. The museum internship I had so many years ago right out of college was such a formative experience for me and…
First Day Jitters
Posted September 11, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I remember the first few days of each new semester in college being really overwhelming. I’d go to each new class, go over all the syllabi, find out about all the readings, assignments and expectations, and trudge home wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into and how on Earth was I going to get it all done and why oh why did I register for so many credits?? But then things would get going and I’d work out a routine and a rhythm and everything would settle in just fine. Well that overwhelming feeling is kind of what I’m experiencing right now after the first week of my new fall classes. I have my very first completely online class and a Saturday morning class at SLIS West and both my professors were like, “this class is going to be very demanding and lots of work and you cannot slack off one little bit.” Not in those exact words, but that’s definitely the impression I got. And when you’ve had a few weeks off and…
Final Thoughts on LIS 453 (Collections Development and Management)
Posted August 11, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I know it’s been a little while since I last posted and I’m so grateful the Simmons folks have been patient with my erratic summer blogging. Our final class for LIS 453, collection development, was on Saturday and I’ve been gathering all my thoughts about the class, the format, and the things I’ve learned. First of all, I’m really glad I took a summer class and I’m glad I only took one, as opposed to two like I originally planned. This summer has been so enjoyable, with just the perfect balance of relaxation and work, traveling and sitting at home, homework and pleasure reading. I almost wish it could last forever, but fall is just around the corner and with it, a busy new semester at SLIS West! This class was the first time I had ever taken something with an online component, and I thought the blended format worked really well, especially for summer. To me it seems like the “happy medium” between in-person and online classes. It gave me flexibility to vacation with…
More On Why I Came To Library School
Posted July 12, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
So apparently, sitting around and talking about books is something librarians actually do, because that’s exactly what we’ve been doing in collection development class! On Saturday half of us presented our genre/topic discussions, in which we gave a brief overview of a book genre and talked about what’s hot/what’s not. Except in my case, it wasn’t a book genre. It was board games (a rising trend, wouldn’t you know it)! Someone brought cupcakes to celebrate her birthday, so the whole thing was basically a librarian party. It was pretty clear that everyone there loved discussing and learning about books, many of us becoming nostalgic or sentimental as we talked about our favorites. Which brings a nagging question to my mind that I’ve had since I began library school: is love of reading and books a necessary ingredient in the makeup of a good librarian? Now I think, in most cases, that librarianship is particularly attractive to those of us who do love books, and the two just naturally go together. I’m sure there are a…
On Catching Up, Belonging, and Library Stats
Posted June 29, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
As I wrote my last post it seemed as if summer was just beginning, and now I am watching the longest day of the year fade away over the endless, undulating lines of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am in Virginia right now, and I can’t get over how awesome it is that I can be on vacation in the middle of my summer class at Simmons. I love this blended format. The days are sliding by just as summer days should, and I find my time agreeably divided between homework, leisure reading, and hiking. I’ve made several visits to my old library, the one I’m using for my assignments, and it has been so fun to chat with the librarians again now that I’m in library school. Suddenly I find myself interested in and caring about topics that had never crossed my mind back when I was the library assistant: things such as acquisition policies, weeding strategy, and the future of information literacy education at the university. The director and I had a…