Dual Degree Programs
Dorm Living as a Grad Student
Posted October 7, 2012 by lazylibrarian
Many undergrads cannot wait to get out of the dorms and get their own place, so it almost seems a little backwards to go into the dorms as a grad student…and to stay there for a second year. As all my friends moved into apartments after their first year in GSLIS, I stayed. Not actually by choice, it’s a complicated story but there are some definite good sides. Take for instance, yesterday. I’m a dual degree GSLIS and History student. I am taking a history class this semester that requires watching one film per week. Lucky for me though I never have to hunt them down, the library has them all on reserve. So I’ve gotten into the routine of making Saturday my “movie-watching day”(And when some of the films are 9 and half hours long it really is an all-day affair). I grabbed a coffee and a snack from the café on the academic campus and went to go take out the movie. When the movie is on VHS there is a very nice…
Archivists in Library School
Posted September 16, 2012 by Danielle Geller
Last week, I briefly mentioned that I decided I no longer wanted to pursue my Masters in History (at this time!), and I will be focusing solely on my Archives Management concentration. I made this decision due to a number of factors, including cost and time constraints, but also a desire to just get out there and work. The reason that the decision wasn’t easy for me to make is because I truly believe that history as a discipline has a lot to contribute to the way that archivists think about archives. There are a number of articles out there that talk about the intersection of history and LIS departments and the subsequent evolution of archival education in the US. (Joseph M. Turrini published an article titled “From History to Library and Information Science: A Case Study of Archival Education at Wayne State University” in Information & Culture: A Journal of History this summer, which is available through ProjectMUSE. For our archivists in training, you can find an abbreviated version of his discussion here). Due to…
Archiving Hate
Posted June 2, 2012 by Katie Olivo
Just a word of warning – this post is not going to be very cheery. As I wrote a few weeks ago, my current History class is on Race & Media. We’ve talked a lot about the subject of lynching and there is some important information that I’d like to pass on. First of all, I learned that lynching was not just an activity that occurred to slaves before the Civil War. Actually, it proliferated after the Emancipation Proclamation. When African Americans were slaves, sadly enough, because they were someone’s property, they were protected more than after they received their so-called freedom. When they belonged to a white farmer, other whites could not harm them without suffering penalties. But, of course, once they were considered freedmen under the law, white mobs could accuse a black male of any number of crimes and subsequently lynch them. Thus, lynching was most frequent in the early 1900s, especially during Jim Crow laws. If that isn’t disturbing enough for you, here’s the kicker: people sent postcards of lynchings. It…
Program Change
Posted April 3, 2012 by dunhame
For the second week in a row, Danielles post has provided a great springboard for mine. She discussed how many of her friends/colleagues in the program have been questioning their concentrations in GSLIS. I began my career at Simmons GSLIS as a dual-degree History/Archives student. For a better part of this semester, I had been questioning whether I wanted to continue to pursue my MA in history. After much debate (as outlined below), Ive concluded that, while I will continue to maintain an archives concentration in the MLS program, I will no longer be pursuing an MA. There are three main considerations that guided my decision pursue the dual degree: An MA would make me a more competitive applicant than the MLS alone would. Archivists make collections available to and work with historians, so being a historian myself would help me be better at my job. Academia is fun! I like thinking hard and writing and exploring new avenues of thought. Especially over the past semester, as Ive learned more about myself and the field…