Events
My first rental car and an earthquake…My own series of unfortunate events!
Posted October 17, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I don’t have to work or attend class on Tuesdays so it is normally my day to hunker down and get a lot of homework done. Well, I am writing this Tuesday night and have nothing to show for my day but a beloved smashed car, a shiny red rental car in my garage, and a Facebook posting about our earthquake. To back up, I gave up my homework day this week to attend inter-library loan training by our New Hampshire State Library (as I live and work in NH). The ILL system for New Hampshire uses the NHU-PAC (The New Hampshire Union Public Access Catalog) and the system is a bit dated and not intuitive…but it works! The holdings of over 375 libraries in the state are represented in the NHU-PAC. Our small libraries thrive on our ability to share our resources and provide patrons with materials from partner libraries all over the state, delivered daily our state library van service. Training is offered periodically and today, I attended a day of training being…
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Posted October 8, 2012 by Sarah Barton
I’ve been spending so much time lately writing about the work I’ve been doing for my classes and the random things that have nothing to do with my classes that I have neglected to talk about, well, my classes. And aren’t classes the reason that I’m here? And why you’re considering coming here? So, without further ado, let me tell you about my classes! Mondays, 9am-noon – LIS 404; Principles of Management A core class, one that everyone must take. The idea behind the class is that people who obtain an LIS degree may very well end up in a management position within a library, so the course is about different management approaches and how those approaches might be applicable for different people in different library settings. Going into GSLIS, I never considered myself as a potential manager (frankly, I am much better at being told what to do rather than delegating), but this course has opened my eyes to the fact that someday I may be bossing people around. And I mean that in…
Extreme Makeover: Walmart Edition
Posted September 24, 2012 by Sarah Barton
I would say that inside of nearly everyone’s mind lives an image of what a library looks like. You may picture your local library, a library that you have visited, or a completely imagined state-of-the-art facility that you designed in your brain. If I didn’t know any better, I would assume that this Texas library would fall into the completely imagined category. Turns out it’s real. I don’t foresee myself in McAllen, Texas anytime soon, but dang do I wish I could set foot in that library. It looks awesome. A library with too much space? Unheard of, until now. I’ve heard of people getting lost in the stacks, but at this place it might be possible to get lost in the children’s room. And the coolest thing is that the new library building has attracted more than two times the number of patrons that the old one did. It’s amazing how redoing a library space can have such an impact on a community. It looks so bright and palatial and welcoming, like someplace where…
“Hello!”
Posted September 22, 2012 by dunhame
As we at GSLIS welcome autumn and enjoy our first “official” pumpkin spiced lattes and cinnamon-rimmed adult beverages of the season, we also find ourselves already in the thick of Fall Semester 2012. For many of us, including myself, this September we have noticed our 1-year anniversary of moving to Boston to embark upon the journey that is library school pass us by. Realizing this has inspired me to step back and think about how far we’ve all come together since those first days at GSLIS. The year-ago version of myself looked about the same as I do right now: sitting at her cluttered desk in Allston, typing out something or other on her laptop that could pass as a candidate for a donation to a computer history museum. There’s something quite different about this year’s version of me, however. This year’s version went to campus this morning and said “Hello!” to, give or take, 10 familiar faces. Perhaps, for you that seems like a small number, but for me, saying “Hello!” to a handful…
Stylish Librarians
Posted September 20, 2012 by cdelnero
A fellow student complimented my shoe choice last week. She noted that many of the GSLIS West students were stylish. I thought about it and realized that she was not only right about GSLIS West students, but librarians in general. The times, they are a-changin’ and so are libraries and the image of librarians. Gone are the days of the “shush”ing librarian. Gone also, is her pencil skirt and tightly pulled-back hair. As libraries across the country morph into modern hubs for technology, learning and socializing, librarians are keeping up with hip wardrobes. Of course, within dress-code allowances. I decided to look into this further and found that there are actually entire blogs just about library fashion. One called, “Librarian Wardrobe,” comes with the tag line, “Not always buns and sensible shoes.” The blog features men and women who work in libraries and aren’t afraid to show a little flair now and then. Forget typical work-wear, these folks are wearing bright colors, fun accessories and anything from flats to five-inch heels. I think librarians (even…
GSLIS West Book Swap
Posted September 13, 2012 by cdelnero
Even to those of us not swimming in student loans, money is often on our minds at the start of a new semester. With the cost of tuition, school supplies and transportation, the cost of books added to that can take a toll on our wallets! Most of us here at GSLIS West feel defeated by the outrageous cost of course materials. We buy over-priced, crummy copies of used books on Amazon.com or attempt to rent copies (which honestly doesn’t save us that much money). I’ve known students who go without required texts because of the cost. This fall, students are solving this problem with the first GSLIS West Book Sale/Swap. The idea is for all of us to come together and trade or sell our used books. Like many students, the text books of past courses are sitting like grave stones on my bookshelf, collecting dust. So today I lugged them to the GSLIS West office and sold two of them to students in need. I made a couple extra bucks, and the other…
A New Semester: Reference
Posted August 25, 2012 by Maya Bery
To those of you about to start your Simmons GSLIS careers in two short weeks, welcome! It’s going to be a great experience, I promise. Now, if you’ve been a diligent student and read the handbook, you’ll know that Reference is one of the required core courses that everyone at GSLIS must take. I really enjoyed reference, in part because my professor gave us a series of assignments with puzzling questions that we then had to find the answer to. Let me tell you, I knew I had found my calling as a librarian when, after six hours of intense search strategies and different keyword combinations, as well as an extensive perusal of the Simmons’ databases (since all the answers were to be found therein), I made the internet yield the correct answers. It was a moment of pure and sweet triumph, and made me think for the first time “hey, maybe I really can be good at this whole librarian thing!” So, to get you into the spirit of the new semester and sharpen up your…
Equal Access: Technology and the Olympic Games
Posted August 9, 2012 by Katie Olivo
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve spent the last week and a half completely immersed in Olympic sports. I love to watch the live coverage during the day (when I can), and I’ve loved catching random events like track cycling and water polo. After all, it’ll be another four years until some of these will be on television again. However, I have to admit that I’ve been less than pleased with NBC’s coverage, as well as their technological decisions. It seems the Olympic Games are not open and available for everyone.
Shooting for Par, Pigeons, and Career Preparation
Posted August 7, 2012 by Sarah Barton
Last week I tried two things that I had never done before: golfing and shooting a gun. In both activities, my shots were pretty poor. Frankly, some of them were downright awful. Having never done a sport that focuses exclusively on minutia, golfing and skeet shooting served as total wake up calls. A golf swing has to be one of the most finicky skills in all of sports, and I still can’t figure out why those clay targets are called pigeons – their size more closely likens them to hummingbirds. Alas, despite the particularity of golfing and shooting and the fact that I was certainly not a natural at either one, I enjoyed them both. If I have a future in either activity (golf is the front-runner at this point), I will need to put in many, many hours of practice. Boy is it frustrating to try something new and enjoy it, only to realize that obtaining any sort of skill in it would require taking it up as a part-time job. (Finally, here comes…
AALL Annual Meeting & Conference, 2012
Posted August 2, 2012 by dunhame
You know what makes the end of a summer semester even more insane and difficult to manage? Attending a professional conference! Even though I knew it was a decision that would perhaps cause friends of mine to question my sanity, I went for it anyway and attended the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Annual meeting a week and a half ago. This was not my first professional conference since joining the wonderful world of professional librarianship, but this was my first national conference and mildly nerve-wracking in a number of new ways. At the New England Archivists meeting I attended in the spring, I felt very much at home because, well, I was with archivists. I could more or less assume that the majority of the people at the conference with me had receive/were receiving similar training, viewed the world of information in similar ways, and cared about many of the same issues that I do. Among law librarians, I was not so comfortable.