Events
First Week at GSLIS!
Posted January 18, 2013 by Emily Boyd
Hi! My name is Emily and I am a new addition to the blogging team for the January 2013 semester. This is my first semester as a GSLIS student and I am looking forward to sharing my experiences with all our readers. Many admissions departments hope to attract a diverse group of students by the use of cliches such as ‘every student’s experience is unique’ and ‘there is no such thing as a typical student.’ Simmons GSLIS is no exception, however, if my experience thus far is anything like the average student, these statements are not simple cliches, they are the reality. Right from the get go, I have been encouraged to make the most of my experience regardless of any ‘normal’ progression. True to form, I decided to take a nontraditional route when starting classes. My first experience with a GSLIS class was a weeklong intensive course in Corporate Librarianship (LIS 414) with Professor Jim Matarazzo. It has been incredibly fascinating to jump right into things with a class consisting primarily of students nearing…
Occupational Preoccupation
Posted January 14, 2013 by Sarah Barton
I went to work at the library on Saturday dressed as a librarian. Hair pulled back, cardigan, sensible shoes, blah blah blah. (Fortunately, my vision is still ok, so I didn’t top it off with a pair of glasses perched on my nose.) I was a stereotypical librarian. I hate the stereotype. It drives me nuts. Librarian is one of the only occupations I can think of that has such a preoccupation with its image. I chose Saturday’s outfit because I wanted to wear my new cardigan, not because I was feeling particularly librarian-y that day. I actually felt self-conscious before I left my apartment because I thought I looked too much like a librarian. Isn’t this generation of librarians supposed to defy the stereotype? To rid this and the next generation of librarians of this burden forever? A few months ago, in an attempt to abate my distaste for the librarian stereotype, I read a book about it. Turns out, that only made it worse. There were all kinds of examples of librarians who…
Time to Face the Music
Posted January 3, 2013 by Sarah Barton
The holidays are over, which means there’s only one thing left: New Year’s resolutions. It seems like a lot of people are resolute about not making resolutions, while some think of January 1st as a yearly opportunity to set new goals. I generally tend to fall among the resolute “non-resolutioners,” but right now I’d say that my 2013 resolution is to listen to more country music. Yesterday I spent forty dollars worth of iTunes gift cards (thanks, Santa!) solely on country tunes, so it seems I’m well on my way. I was pretty proud of my aspiration to unearth my inner honky-tonk until I realized what my real resolution for 2013 should (and will) be: getting a job. This is arguably more of a necessary life activity and culmination of two years at GSLIS than a new year’s resolution, but I am pretty darn resolute about gaining employment. Suddenly the “Simmons GSLIS anticipated December 2013” line on my résumé seems slightly more imminent. I mean, December is a solid eleven months from now, but it…
Visiting Libraries Over the Holidays
Posted December 23, 2012 by lazylibrarian
I am spending my holiday down at the southern tip of Texas. Harlingen, Texas, to be exact, which is about thirty minutes north of the Mexican border. The culture down here is very agricultural/technical based and was a culture shock for a family moving down from academic based New Jersey, as my family did 5 years ago. It was also a shock to go from a place where we had access to not only the school library, but the town library and county library which were both large in addition to multiple Barnes and Nobles, Borders and Walden Books within driving distance. Quite the opposite exists down here. For a while we had a small Walden bookstore in the town’s mall but now that has closed down and the closest bookstore is 45 minutes away. For an avid reader that is definitely a sad thing. The library here is small and to meet the needs of its public must fill its small shelf space with a large amount of Spanish language books as well as…
What’s under your tree?
Posted December 12, 2012 by Julie Steenson
With all this technology related gift-giving at holiday time, I did something really radical for my family this year…I bought them all books for Christmas. (And if you haven’t seen Katie’s blog last week with the YouTube video, “Books for Christmas,” it is a must-see!) Yes, books….no computers, no fancy telephones, no tablets, no video games. I picked out some of my favorite picture books for the youngest crowd, graphic novels for the middle schoolers, and the latest YA fiction for the teens. I am not against technology and I love my Kindle Fire (and after successfully completing Database Management (LIS 458), I long to take a programming class). The reason for giving books is just that it is so much fun to get a book you didn’t pick out, to discover a new unexpected world. It stays with you forever. In the age of gift cards, the giving and receiving of books is a lost art. The Bloomsbury Review posted the following picture on their Facebook page and I think it explains it best:…
Breaking Down My Winter Break
Posted December 10, 2012 by Sarah Barton
My classes ended today, so I am officially 66% of a librarian. I need only twelve more credits (four more courses) to hit 100%. Yowzer. Next semester will entail two classes, a new internship, and continuing with my part-time public library job. My schedule will be similar to last semester’s, except for the welcome change of having two classes instead of three. Speaking of change, last week I found myself twiddling my thumbs after submitting all of my final assignments. Over the course of the semester, I would come home from class and do a few hours of homework before heading to work. Last week, I came home and just sat there. I wasn’t lamenting my lack of homework, but it was strange to have a midweek chunk of free time. Am I going to go nuts during the twelve days before my Christmas celebrations start? (“On the seventh day of break, My boredom gave to me, Seven hours of reality tv.”) As much as I am looking forward to a reprieve from classes and…
End of Semester Party
Posted December 9, 2012 by lazylibrarian
The semester is finished! At least for GSLIS, I still have a 25 page history paper to do but that didn’t stop me from celebrating with my fellow library students on Friday night. GSLIS put on a very cool end of the year party. It was great to be with all my friends outside of the context of a class. But we are librarians so we couldn’t pass up the chance to be educational and learn new information. Members of the faculty offered 5 minute presentations on any topic they wished. We learned about an amazing accordion book that unfolds to show the Amazon River, about using Social Media to connect with colleagues, some of the great photos in Harvard’s collections and other great topics. One that really made me think was Prof. Joel Blanco-Rivera’s talk on Archivists Without Borders. Archivists without Borders was started in Spain and is currently in the process of setting up a US Chapter. Archivists without Borders is dedicated to “cooperation in the sphere of archives work in countries whose…
“And Time Goes Quicker…”
Posted December 6, 2012 by Katie Olivo
The title of this post is a line from one of my favorite Florence & the Machine songs, “What the Water Gave Me.” I thought it was a fitting line for the end of this semester, as I am extremely dumbfounded that I only have 3 semesters left (Spring, Summer, Fall). Now that normally seems like a long time, but I sincerely remember moving to Boston just yesterday and freaking out about starting life in a new city. Yet, here I am similarly having a meltdown about what I still have to accomplish: landing an internship for next summer, choosing a thesis topic and possibly traveling to research for it, passing all of my other classes in between, and somehow working full-time while trying to land volunteering gigs that will look awesome on my resume and expand my archival knowledge/experiences. How is this all possible you ask? I’m not sure, but listening to Florence & the Machine helps. I also recently bought some new records, so I plan to crack open my record player and…
For a Snowy Day…
Posted December 2, 2012 by lazylibrarian
Well it’s starting to look a lot like winter. A blanket of snow, though very thin, was coating Simmons Campus yesterday. It was a day to stay inside and cuddle up with a coffee. Good thing I had a 25 page history paper to write or I might not have known what to do! But if you are ever in the same position and need some librarian things to read here are some of my favorite librarian blogs/tumblrs/twitter feeds! 1. The Art of Google Books Regardless of where you stand on Google Books and their scanning project (and their horrible metadata), this tumblr is fun to look at. It includes pictures of some of the interesting things the employees come across in their scanning. Odd books, odd pictures, little written notes inside old books, stuff a library-history dual degree student drools over! 2. Better Book Titles Ever judged a book by its cover? Or by its title? This website posts book covers with new humorous titles that better explain the book. One of my favorite submissions is…
Rejection
Posted November 29, 2012 by cdelnero
About two weeks ago, I got notification of the *perfect* job. It was a full-time information-literacy librarian position at a small, private college close to home. In my mind, I fit all of the qualifications. The pay wasn’t great, but as someone without much library experience, I thought it would be the best opportunity to get my foot in the door. As soon as I saw the posting, I got to work on updating my resume and writing a cover letter. I applied and heard back very quickly. I was initiated into the first round of the interview process and you would have thought I was a 13-year-old with Bieber fever, I was that excited. The first step was to write a proposal about how I would spearhead an initiative to integrate information literacy across all levels of the curriculum. I was super-confident. I wrote up my proposal and had it proof-read by my peers, my boss, by anyone who would read it. They all gave me great tips and told me it was excellent….