Fun
Influencer for a Day?
Posted November 8, 2019 by Katie Carlson
On Monday, October 28th, I was thrown into the world of large scale social media, as I was put in charge of Simmons University’s Instagram story! EEEK! While longtime readers know that I was a blogging queen back in the day, I only have 710 followers on insta, and had NEVER posted an original story — only shared content I was tagged in. I logged into the Simmons instagram, and suddenly had 6,000+ semi-captive listeners. Let me tell you, it was exhausting. While my takeover was largely authentic — yes, I do sometimes go to the Gardner on my lunch break, but NO I don’t always have on a full face of makeup at 8 a.m. — it took some planning and creativity to brainstorm just how to share my experiences with Simmons’ insta-sphere. I will admit that I definitely had a storyboard for my day, mapped out with what I thought would be good video opportunities. I was pretty proud of my “What’s in the bag????” section, where I went through what I have…
Referencing Spook
Posted October 21, 2019 by Katie Carlson
I recently moved from circulation up to reference at the Watertown Free Public Library where I work! It was interning at the reference desk at my local public library in college that sparked my desire to be a librarian in the first place, so it felt a bit like coming home! It’s already been fun to help people that I recognize from working in circ with some of their more in depth questions. My first shift on desk (after my training) was Wednesday night, and I was able to help patrons with flyer making, provided information on literacy classes, completed some reader’s advisory, and updated some bib records. But my favorite thing by far was getting to design a book display! Whenever I do displays, I make sure to showcase the voices of authors of color and of various gender alignments. Displays are a chance to recommend books — even to people who don’t engage with you at the reference desk — and a fun challenge! I wanted to create something spooky, but not overtly…
Touring the Library of My Dreams
Posted October 18, 2019 by Maria Reilova
A few weeks ago, the Panoptican and Special Libraries Association student groups, put on a joint field trip to tour the Museum of Fine Arts’s library that is located not too far from campus! As a new officer of Panoptican and especially as an aspiring art librarian, I was very excited to attend but also to meet and chat with other Simmons students with similar interests and goals in the library profession. Getting back into the swing of things at the start of a new semester can be overwhelming but I knew this was an event I did not want to miss! While the actual MFA is basically diagonal to campus, the MFA’s library is offsite on Mass Ave by the Symphony T stop. While the main purpose of the library is to be a resource for the museum staff, they are also open to the public Monday through Friday from 1-5 pm. However, the stacks are closed and anyone interested will need call slips in order to view any materials, which I thought was…
A Break for Some Fun!
Posted September 12, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
This week, I tried to have some fun. I was assigned three books to read this week for my YA Library Collections class I spent most of my week studying and reading! The books are: Judy Blume’s Forever; Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly; and Looking for Alaska by John Green. I gave myself a goal on Monday. If I could finish all of the readings for my Writing For Children class, and get halfway done with Looking For Alaska, then I would do something fun on Tuesday night. Howdy, cowgirl! Out I went to a country bar. Walking from Simmons to Fenway, I had never realized how “hopping” the area is. Before heading to Fenway on a Tuesday night, I checked to make sure there was no Red Sox game. The crowds out in Fenway Park can get crazy on game night. With no game, I was good to go line dancing. Growing up listening to country music, I was really excited to learn that there is a country bar in Boston. With…
Tidbits of the Week/end
Posted September 5, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
This has been quite the busy week! I started off my week with grocery shopping, and will finish the week with my LIS-483 “Library Collections and Materials for Young Adults” class. Grocery shopping may seem a very mundane chore, but I love finding new ethnic food shops around Boston. Boston is a city that welcomes people from all different cultures. In Allston, there are Asian food shops and even a market with a few different Asian restaurants called Food Connection. I am not your typical Asian, and most definitely not your typical American. My father is from India, and I was excited to find a huge Indian grocery store in Somerville, a suburb of Boston, so I did another round of grocery shopping Monday evening. Friday evening, I went to Kiki’s Market in Brighton. Kiki’s Market has specialty Irish foods, such as Irish brands of cookies and chocolates. After visiting Ireland only a few months ago, it was nice to see name brands I recognize, and my favorite Irish tea at a discounted price. Most…
It’s LIT!
Posted August 6, 2019 by Katie Carlson
The truth is, sometimes I think of myself as a ‘bad librarian’ for how few books I’ve read in the past year! It may even be less that I’m not living up to the librarian stereotypes, and more because I feel like I’m missing a piece of myself! In middle and high school (especially over the summer), I would read two or three books a week. College kind of killed my reading bug. I’d find it almost impossible to read for pleasure after 200-some pages of theory, so Netflix it was! I had high hopes that the ease of reading would fly back to me post-graduation, but that was not the case! One book. I read one book! ALL SUMMER! After Karin Slaughter’s thrilling but terrifying Pretty Girls (highly recommend), I was overcome with moving to Boston, making my first apartment home, and finding a tribe. Kicking off grad school meant more prescribed reading, three jobs, and more exhaustion. But even though summer is almost over, I decided I’d had enough. I work at a…
End of Summer Term, Plus Beach Reads!
Posted July 30, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
It’s the last week of summer term! Yay! I am almost done with all my work. I submitted my final project for my Info Sources class, but I am still finishing my final paper for my Management class. It’s a grant proposal and I’m struggling with it. Grant writing is very different from academic writing. It needs to be very concise and to the point. I love to write and play around with words and sentence structure and having to pare down my language has been tough. I’m focusing on brevity but I’m also worried that I’m not explaining myself enough. I’m sure there’s a sweet spot between too little explanation and too much explanation, but I haven’t found it yet and I’m frustrated. It feels very sparse and cold somehow. Thankfully I have a solid base written out and I just need to make sure that I’m being addressing all the necessary points. But grant writing is something that I am probably going to be encountering in my library career, so it’s good to…
How a Hungry Floridian Feeds Herself without Publix
Posted July 23, 2019 by Maria Reilova
Now as someone born and raised in Florida, I have very strong opinions on which supermarket is the best. Publix is the greatest gift that Florida has given to the Southeast and I will always make whoever picks me up from the airport come with a chicken tender pub sub in one hand, and a Publix arnold palmer in the other. So as nearly a cult member to the religion that is Publix, moving up to New England and not having access to my pub subs and near endless BOGO deals was honestly quite worrisome. But don’t fret fellow Floridians, or any folks who care to read my crazed musings about grocery shopping, I have taken it upon myself to visit the nearest grocery stores to me and let y’all in on all my crazy thoughts and opinions. I’ll not go to in depth since this is one of those weird topics that I could talk about for hours, but honestly I feel like this is helpful information for fellow foodies moving to the Boston area from…
Baby’s First ALA
Posted July 15, 2019 by Katie Carlson
A few weeks ago I took part in a librarian rite of passage, and made my way down to Washington D.C. for the ALA Annual Conference and Exhibition. As a grad student on a tight budget (especially a full time grad student living in Boston), attending conferences can be expensive. That is why I was extra thankful that LISSA offers Professional Development Reimbursement at Simmons! More information on PDR funds can be found here, but essentially LISSA will reimburse students for up to $250 incurred by engaging in LIS-related professional development activities. My $250 went directly towards my ALA experience, including covering a good chunk of the gas I purchased making the 879 mile journey from Boston to Washington, D.C. and back. This ALA trip truly was brought to you by a giant cooler filled with sandwiches, a 15 hour long playlist, PDR funds, and lots of iced coffee! As you probably know by now, one of my jobs is working as a SLIS Admission Student Ambassador. This meant I also manned the Simmons booth…
To All the Bookstores I Ever Loved
Posted July 8, 2019 by Maria Reilova
Now that summer has officially started, I am finding myself with something I almost never have, extra free time! I am interning full-time this summer so I am still busy throughout the day but it is so nice to be able to leave my work at the office and come home and not have to worry about catching up on my assignments or readings for class. So obviously, my conclusion for how to occupy all this new free time is that I can finally start catching up on all my leisure reading. This also means I have to make a trip to my favorite bookstore because you can never have too many books. I live pretty close to Brookline, and Coolidge Corner has always been one of my favorite areas to take a stroll and hang out when the weather is nice. The Trader Joe’s is there, a great tea shop, a yoga studio (I keep saying I will take a class at one of these weekends), and best of all Brookline Booksmith, (a used…