Dual Degree Programs
First Weeks
Posted October 14, 2020 by William Crouch
Hey everyone. The current semester is rolling along just fine despite it being an unusual one compared to a typical SLIS semester. As I’ve been taking more archives focused classes, I’m starting to gain a better grasp of the fundamentals of the profession. In my class LIS440 or Archival Access, I’ve learned about many of the key principles of being an archivist. Some of them are ones that are building off of concepts I learned in previous classes about describing metadata and how you describe items within your archives. In addition, I’ve been learning about how to categorize items within an archive by series or collection level which builds off of previous librarian concepts like Work, Expression, Manifestation, or Item levels. It’s going to be a pretty important class for understanding how to use an archive as both an archivist and a user. In another class, LIS 441, Archival Appraisal, I’ve been learning about how to best conduct appraisal within an archive. Appraisal is such an important part of the profession because it has to…
Fall 2020 and Welcome Week
Posted September 23, 2020 by William Crouch
It’s pretty crazy to think about how different the start to this fall semester is compared to last year. At this time last year, I was moving to Boston and now the whole world is somewhat frozen with the pandemic while Simmons is not having anything on campus this fall. But that hasn’t stopped us from trying to establish a community for our SLIS students as at the beginning of the month we had a series of digital welcome events for our new students. We had students talk with professors about the upcoming year, meeting with our Simmons librarians to help with research, a meeting for students to get to know each other and chat, and we even had a drawing for SLIS clothing at the end of the week. It was a lot of fun and if any incoming students are hesitant about attending these events the next time we have them, hopefully in person next fall, I would highly recommend going to help establish connections with professors and fellow students before your grad…
Summer of Covid
Posted September 9, 2020 by William Crouch
Hey everyone. I thought I might share a little bit of what I have been doing aside from classes during this strange summer. I’ve moved back to Texas to wait out this pandemic which has been insanely different than what Massachusetts has experienced. Obviously, Texas experienced a massive spike in cases around the end of June and throughout July. Thankfully, I’ve been able to isolate myself for the most part to hopefully limit my exposure. One of the benefits from being in Texas this summer is that I’ve been able to start playing tennis again. I played tennis in undergrad for my school, Austin College, but for a number of factors, I wasn’t able to continue playing when I moved to Boston. To try and get some fresh air and exercise, my dad and I have been playing almost every night which has been really beneficial for my mental and physical health. Due to how tennis is played, it’s really easy to maintain social distancing, so if anybody is looking for a way to get…
Welcome to William!
Posted November 11, 2019 by Lindsey Clarke
We have added William to our blogging team. A little about William from his bio: “Hi everybody, I’m William Crouch. I am from Denton, Texas and moved up to Boston in September 2019 so that I could experience a real winter. I am part of the History and Archives Management Dual Degree program. I chose to attend Simmons because of the opportunity to get a strong education in both History and Library Science at the same time. I completed my undergrad in 2019 at Austin College (Go Roos!), a small school in Sherman, Texas, where I spent most of my time playing for the Roos Tennis Team. In 2018, I had the opportunity to work at Walt Disney World through the Disney College Program and found that I wanted to further my career with Disney. I wanted to use my love for history at Disney and found the Disney Archives which led me to a Library Science program. In my free time, you can find me watching tennis, playing video games, or exploring the many…
Life After Graduation
Posted May 24, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
This past Friday something incredible happened: I graduated from Simmons with a Masters in Library and Information Science. Three years, seven semesters (including one summer session), and two internships later, I have emerged from the other side with my shiny degree in hand ready to take on the professional world. Huzzah! And yet, here I am, still blogging for SLIS. Just when I thought my time with SLIS had reached its end, I was asked if I wanted to continue blogging for the program over the course of the summer. Having done so for the past two summers, I was happy to take on the challenge. Submitting posts for the SLIS student experience blog has been apart of my Boston life since moving here in the Fall of 2013. It’s really fun to go back and read old posts and see how far I’ve come since then. But enough reminisces, let’s talk about what I have in store for this summer. This summer I have two major projects to tackle. The first will be completing…
Going Dual Degree
Posted December 5, 2013 by Jill Silverberg
What many people don’t know is that back when I was in the middle of applying to Simmons for graduate school, I was originally planning on submitting an application for Simmons’s dual degree in archives and history. As someone deeply interested in working within a museum, I figured that having a degree in both history and archives would open to me to more opportunities in the future. Unfortunately, due to some minor miscommunication between a professor and myself, I ended up submitting my application to GSLIS with a concentration in archives. After talking to both my parents and a representative from GSLIS, I decided that I would try GSLIS for a semester and if I felt that it was necessary, I could always apply to the history degree for the following semester. Well, about two or three weeks after starting at Simmons, I knew that something was missing. While I do enjoy being a member of the archives program, I realized rather quickly that the program wasn’t giving me everything that I wanted out of…
Ladies and Gentlemen…the lovely and talented Nicole Giroux
Posted March 14, 2013 by Maggie Davidov
I have come across many fascinating people during my time in the GSLIS program. The majority of these awesome people turn out to be from the dual degree program. So I can’t help but want to get inside their brains. Seriously, what’s in the water in the Children’s Literature department? Is there an awesome ratio they require upon acceptance? They are sharp, creative and fiercely brilliant. Seriously, don’t cross a dual degree student. And with that, I present Miss Nicole Giroux from the dual degree Children’s Literature program. Q: If you could be a character in any book who would you be? A: Oh, sure, start with an easy question! This is so torturous to have to choose. I’ve gotta go with Hermione Granger (do I even need to say what she’s from?!). I could certainly use her time turner and magical skills. Besides, she’s named after a Shakespearean character and is an intelligent and strong female. What’s not to love? Though, I must admit, I totally identify as a Ravenclaw instead of a Gryffindor. Q:…
Digital Preservation Course
Posted March 10, 2013 by lazylibrarian
This semester I am taking a class called Digital Preservation. I haven’t had much previous experience with coding and such so this class has really taken me out of my comfort zone yet I can see just how useful it can be in not only the current archives field but in libraries as well. I see more and more advertisements for technology librarians; we no longer live in a print-based world in America. Having mused over these things I began to wonder about the set-up of Simmons’ Archives Program. As a dual degree student I am studying both archives, under the broader Library Science program and History as a separate entity. Some schools, like U.T. Austin also place their archives programs under Library Science or in the case of Drexel, under Information Science. However, some institutions place their archives programs under their History programs, like UMass. I have never been a part of the UMass program but as I delve deeper into these tech classes I can’t help but wonder how you obtain those technical skills…
A Blend of History and Archives
Posted February 3, 2013 by lazylibrarian
As a dual degree student in Archives and History, I have one foot in the LIS (Library and Information Science) world and one in the CAS (College of Arts and Sciences) at Simmons. At times it can be a little frustrating since I’m dealing with two different departments but a lot of the time there is more overlap then I would have imagined. Currently, I am taking a Public History course. I have never taken one before and I love it. I almost wonder why I never thought of Public History as a career choice before. I have a Bachelor’s in both English and History and saw Archives as the wonderful combination of the two, but as I continue through this dual degree program, Public History seems the perfect combination of Library Science and History to me. We are currently reading Museums, Monuments and National Parks by Denise D. Meringolo about the evolution of Public History in America. One of the key points of the book, pointed out from the very beginning in the prologue,…
Ladies and Gentlemen, Hannah Gomez
Posted November 3, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
I met Hannah while dissecting the motherboard of a PC in LIS 488. I think we had the most fun of anyone in the class because we made up names for the parts we didn’t know. She is a dual degree Children’s Literature/Library Science student here at Simmons, so she’s a superhero in my mind. Enjoy meeting Hannah Gomez, with these incredibly serious interview questions that really get to the heart of who GSLIS students really are. 1) If you could be assume a role in a book who would you be? As I kid I was always jealous of Dinnie in Sharon Creech’s Bloomability because she got to go to international school, which seemed so much more exotic and intellectual and independent than plain old school. Now that K-12 school is behind me and that’s not an option, I can’t think of anyone in a book I really love whose life I’m not already living (hence my liking them). 2) What’s been the most exciting part about being in the dual degree program so…