Classes
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…
Hellooo Summer!!
Posted June 7, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
June – the first real month of summer – has arrived and my summer class at SLIS West is almost two weeks underway. In the time since I last wrote, I have enjoyed about a month of no classes, took a family vacation to my beautiful hometown in southwestern Virginia, celebrated my 29th birthday, hosted my parents and little brother for Memorial Day weekend, and read two books in rapid succession (should’ve read more). It was a pretty glorious break. Just look at this picture I snapped from the Blue Ridge Parkway overlook down into my valley: Getting out of Connecticut every so often is good for my soul. I like a lot of things about where I live, but I’m a small-town, mountain-loving girl at heart, and Fairfield County, CT is just a little too urban, a little too crowded, and a little too rushed for my tastes. But I love the opportunities I have here, especially the opportunity to attend Simmons! Let me tell you about my summer class, LIS 453 Collection Development….
One Rather Late Semester Wrap-up
Posted May 5, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
So… it’s been a few weeks. My first semester of grad school ended five days ago and since then I’ve been processing, and recovering, and “making it up” to my family. Those last two weeks of class were kind of a whirlwind. And even though I had jotted down ample notes for a blog post, I just couldn’t take the time to sit down and type one out. I poured all the time I could into my final projects and trimmed everything “non-essential,” or at least able to be put off for two weeks. I scrambled around doing the bare minimum to take care of the kids and the house and let me tell you: bare minimum is not pretty. The kids (aged 4 and 2) were super great considering my parenting could be described as something resembling benign neglect. Or in other words, “Have some goldfish for dinner and watch all the TV you want and sleep in your clothes tonight.” I still shudder now to think of it and it was all I…
Do You Have Time?
Posted April 6, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
Last week, I began a study in the name of science (and academic success)! You see, while counseling with my advisor recently, I was given this handy little factoid that you should expect to spend 10 hours on your coursework for each class, per week (in addition to class time). I had never heard this before! In the following weeks I began to wonder how many hours I was actually spending on my homework. So I decided to pay more attention to my time usage and record hours spent on schoolwork. These are the questions I hoped to answer: How much time do I spend on schoolwork in a week outside of class? How difficult is it to achieve the optimal 20 hours? Are those 20 hours sufficient for completing my assignments? How is my workflow? How efficiently do I work? For the purposes of this study, I have not included activities such as reading/responding to school-related email or writing blog posts as part of “homework time.” This study is in its early stages and…
I Am No Charles Schulz
Posted March 27, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
I’m kind of out of words lately. ACRL last week was super fun and awesome, and I highly recommend taking advantage of conferences as much as you can. It’s great way to know what other folks are doing across the library land and to get motivation and practical advice for your own role and community. But, I am kind of not functioning at high octane levels right now mind-wise. ACRL and the travel to and from while trying to keep up with my 2 classes (which are awesome but the most work intensive courses I’ve had my whole grad school time) and settle into my new position at work has left me a little out of articulation energy and wherewithal. So, here’s a bad comic I made today to illustrate my current feelings about dealing with Dublin Core- a specific metadata schema- for my digital libraries project with class. PS: don’t mistake this post for me grumbling about being stressed/overwhelmed or even about me not loving Dublin Core. I am a bit overwhelmed with school…
Hands-On Archival Experience
Posted February 10, 2017 by Elizabeth James
As an online student, I almost felt a twinge of jealousy when I saw that school would be cancelled in Boston on Thursday due to the imminent snow storm. But then I remembered that means I don’t have to deal with the snow. Or the ice. Especially the ice–with an armful of books, I’m a walking disaster, and it’s a rare moment that I am without an armful of books. Instead, I decided to gear up for internship season–with deadlines looming, I feel as though I am constantly sending emails to professors arranging for references when I’m not reading course material. Now that my Introduction to Archives course has begun, I have also been spending a significant amount of time at my internship location. I currently work at a non-archives job while attending school, so it has felt unbelievably amazing to get my hands on archival materials again. These materials belong to a public library whose archive contains a significant amount of local history materials. I am currently processing the personal papers of one local…
FRBR is dead, long live FRBR!
Posted January 27, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
Okay, this post won’t really be about IFLA LRM, the model that will be replacing FRBR LRM/FRBR/FRAD/FRSAD, but I couldn’t resist putting a little nod to it as the title of this week’s blog post. Those who heard news from ALA Midwinter regarding FRBR and the conceptual model IFLA LRM might think it’s funny, and so that title was for you, kids. Though it’s not going to be called FRBR anymore, and it certainly is not FRBR- there’s a lot of similarities with FRBR in the IFLA LRM- so never fear, peasants. There is still a lord in the land of understanding the bibliographic universe. Okay, so for you non-cataloging enthusiasts out there, hello! and back to reality and “normal” English we go… We’re in our second week of classes for the semester. I have one (descriptive cataloging, hence the above little intro) on Wednesdays, and one on Saturdays. Both are on topics that I’m super excited about and that are really applicable to my current job as a metadata intern, so I’m pretty stoked…
“SLIS Wester”
Posted January 17, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
PS (presript in this case rather than post): I like the term SLIS Wester. SLIS Westerner would of course be more technically appropriate if you’re uptight about prescriptive language. I’m not sure if anyone else uses either of these terms- so if you decide to start going around being like “hey, SLIS Westers, let’s go party!” and get only blank stares, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Welp, the winter break is coming to a close. I’ve started my pre-class reading for the course that required it, but mostly this weekend has been about lounging around and working on fun little projects- taking advantage of my last weekend without class or homework for a while. Recently, I had someone ask me about being a SLIS West student compared to being a Simmons Boston student, and I figured- hey! why not make this explanation a blog post too. Now, of course the problem with trying to answer “what is it like to be a SLIS West student?” is that it’s like asking someone “what’s is it…
Preparing For Next Semester
Posted December 16, 2016 by Elizabeth James
It feels incredibly strange to not have any classes for the rest of the year–even though I took a year off between undergraduate and graduate school, I still feel a bit lost when I’m not doing some sort of course reading or conducting research. In preparation for next semester, I decided to take a close look at the syllabi for the courses I am taking in the spring. Because I’m in the Archives Management concentration, and I’ve decided to try and focus on the digital aspect of archives, I enrolled in Introduction to Archival Methods and Services, Digital Stewardship, and Metadata. Since the first course includes a sixty hour internship, this means I’ll have a pretty intense semester, to say the least! However, I am excited to work with some of the special collections in my area (Wheeling, WV) which are frequently under utilized and would benefit immensely from a student intern. I’m also exploring some potential projects that I can complete over the summer term–there are excellent local history resources that are rife with…
A Day in the Life
Posted December 2, 2016 by Elizabeth James
9:30 AM: Drive to the public library archives to look at some materials for my LIS 415 final project. Discuss with the librarian how they organize their online archives, and whether the initial proposals my group has suggested are acceptable. Talk about my progress on my LIS 407 final project, and discuss with her the audience and whether my analysis of local history sources is of an appropriate breadth and depth based on her experience with the user population. 10:45 AM: Acquire coffee and French pastries! 11:00 AM: Go into my actual job. A chocolate croissant gets me through the first hour. The remaining eight are survived through a combination of coffee and tea to fend off the cold office air. 3:00 PM: Lunch. Go back to the library because I forgot to grab my book that has been on hold since Monday. ??:?? PM: Sporadically edit and compile the group parts of the LIS 415 final project. Start creating slides for our presentation. 8:00 PM: Leave work to walk home, relish the fact that…