Classes
A Great Group Project
Posted April 23, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I completed my group project for Metadata and honestly it was one of the most enlightening group projects that I’ve done. Each group was assigned a different metadata schema. This is usually how it goes for a group project, but what was different here was that the schemas were for unusual items like Tweets (Tweet Object Records), music (Music Encoding Initiative), cultural heritage objects (MIDAS Heritage), biological records (Darwin Core) and even math (MathML)! I watched all the presentations and learned a ton about how metadata is used. I did not know that you could create metadata for a math formula or that metadata for a simple Tweet contains huge amount of information, including the number of followers the person had at that time, the number of likes the tweet got, and how many times it was re-tweeted. It was so interesting to learn how each schema described its resources. My group was assigned PBCore, which is used to create metadata for audio and visual resources, like tv episodes or radio shows. I enjoyed…
Almost to the Finish Line!
Posted April 17, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
We are in Week 13 everyone! It’s the second-to-last week of the semester! We’re almost across the finish line! Usually at this point in the semester, I’m working on some sort of big final project to turn in at the end of the class, but oddly, this semester that’s not the case. I suppose you could call the Social Media Assignment my big project, as it was supposed to last until the end of the semester, but I actually met all the requirements for the project itself a while ago. Since my last post, I’ve completed my other two assignments, so all that stands between me and the end of the semester is some forum posts, readings, and lectures. This has been the strangest semester–and I didn’t even have to deal with too much disruption or transition as I was in an online class anyways. Even though the pandemic has been going on, and we’ve been surrounded by change, chaos, and uncertainty, LIS 453: Collection Development and Management has been one of my favorite classes…
It’s That Time Again
Posted April 9, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
Fall registration is this week. I always love registration time but this year I’m a little stressed out because the Fall semester is my last one at Simmons! I only have three classes remaining–one summer class and two fall classes–but I’m interested in a lot of classes. I’m trying to narrow it down and I am not succeeding. For the summer semester, I’m taking LIS 447, Collections Maintenance. It was supposed to be an intensive two week in-person class, but it, along with all the other summer courses, was moved online due to coronavirus. It’s going to be interesting to do it online because it’s traditionally a hands-on class where you work directly with the books. However, the professor emailed all of us who registered and said that she’s made some changes and is confident it will work online. I was considering taking LIS 484, Theories of Information Science, to get the Information Science and Technology concentration, but I’ve decided not to do that. I think I’ve taken a great mix of technology centered classes…
Still in Boston
Posted April 6, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
It’s been over two weeks now since everything changed, starting with St. Patrick’s Day being cancelled. A lot of my friends went back home to their families during this hard time, but I am still in Boston. My parents keep asking when I will go visit them, but considering I am from Upstate NY, where there are a lot of cases, it is a bit scary to travel there. The hardest part is knowing that there are COVID-19 cases in my hometown in the Albany area. This is real, and so close to home now. I am not completely bored in Boston, as we are in the home stretch of the semester. When I get all of my work done for student teaching, I hope I can find a way to see my family. Today, I had a video call with my online technology class. It was my first time connecting with these classmates over Zoom – so nice to see their faces! The video call was a tutorial on how to prepare for doing…
Time Flies. And Stands Still.
Posted March 30, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
It’s been another weird week, but I think I’m getting used to this new normal. Some days have seemed endless, but others have flown by. I’ve established a pretty good new routine and set a schedule for my job and my schoolwork. I don’t usually schedule out my days, but it’s been the most effective way for me to remember everything that I need to do. Otherwise, it’s too easy to get caught up in all the negatives and uncertainty and get nothing done as a result. What I didn’t realize in the frenzy of the past three weeks is that there’s less than a month left in the semester! I have two big projects to finish before then. The first project that I have to finish is my group project for metadata. It’s due next week, and we have already gotten a good start on it. That’s the last big thing for that class, other than a few small assignments which I consider “easier” only because I get to do them myself and don’t…
Libraries, Twitter, and Me!
Posted March 25, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
It’s week two of life during coronavirus, and I’m still struggling to focus on my schoolwork. I’ve been using my phone calendar to set reminders for things I need to do, because I keep getting distracted. I’m stuck in an endless cycle of hand washing, freaking out about the news, going to work, doing schoolwork, and stress eating ice cream. That being said, I haven’t needed any reminders for one particular project for my collections development class: our Twitter assignment. The initial assignment called for us to tweet pictures of interesting things at the library, like themed displays, or links to events at the library. Sadly, I had only been tweeting for three days before all the libraries started cancelling events and eventually closed entirely. But there has still been a lot to tweet about! Because so many people are stuck at home and need things to do, they are turning to their libraries for help. Libraries in turn are doing everything they can to help, and this is where Twitter comes in. Libraries can…
Spring Break 2K20
Posted March 10, 2020 by William Crouch
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…
Super Statistics
Posted March 3, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
Did you know that the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners keeps detailed statistics on every single public library in the state? Or that the MBLC collects and analyzes all of these statistics and makes them available online in spreadsheet format? I found this out while I was completing an assignment for Collections Development. The assignment was to evaluate our library’s collection using standard evaluation methods, like list checking, peer comparison, user surveys, and statistics analysis. I chose to do a peer evaluation of my library and used the MBLC statistics to compare it to two neighboring libraries. It was really interesting to see how each library spends money and how their collection makeup differed. But it was also overwhelming because there are so many statistics. It bears repeating: there are so many statistics. Want to know how many study rooms a library has? Or the most recent year your library was renovated? Check out the Main Facilities spreadsheet. How about total materials expenditures and per capita rate of spending? Check out the Financial Data spreadsheet. …
Adventures on Twitter
Posted February 26, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
Every so often at SLIS we have an assignment that I’m ambivalent about, and that has happened this week with LIS 453: Collection Development and Management’s Social Media Assignment. In all fairness, I knew this assignment was coming before I even signed up for this class, as bloggers who have taken this class have written about it. This week the Social Media Assignment was introduced–it is an assignment that will last the rest of the semester. We have to create a Twitter account and use it to tweet about promotional events, publicity materials, collection displays, and other library-related things. Lots of libraries and librarians use Twitter as well as publishers and other vendors, so this assignment is a great way to learn more about how they handle promotions and publicity. However, I’ve never been really keen on the idea of having a personal Twitter account. Professionally I’ve created publicity materials and items for social media accounts, and academically I’ve done a lot of analysis on social media, but I’ve never had my own personal Twitter…
Making Plans!
Posted February 25, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
The summer course list was posted last week. I’ve been waiting for it because I’m trying to plan my final three classes. I can’t believe I only have three classes left! It’s exciting and kind of terrifying at the same time. Last summer I made the mistake of taking two classes and it was an insane amount of work. I am limiting myself to one class this summer, and it’s just a matter of deciding which class to take. I am intrigued by LIS 447, Collections Maintenance. The format is different for this class because it is face to face, and meets all day, three days a week, for two weeks. This means I can get the class over with and have a nice break before the fall semester. I am very interested in the subject matter, too. It’s about repairing and binding books, and other physical or administrative tasks related to collections maintenance. It would provide valuable hands-on experience and I think I would learn a lot. The downside is that it is all…