Learning
Summer Wrap Up and First Week of Classes
Posted September 11, 2024 by Aurora Daniel
It’s so nice to be back at Simmons after a jam-packed summer! I was a fellow for Warrior-Scholar Project, which is a nonprofit that helps veterans and active duty service members transition to college through one to two week bootcamps focused on building core study and writing skills as well as providing information about how to apply to schools. Over the course of the summer I worked at Yale University, the University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, and the The California Institute of Technology. I was a participant way back in 2018 and wouldn’t be in grad school now without it so it was wonderful to be able to give back. Additionally, being a fellow ensured getting some teaching experience under my belt, which was one of my goals for grad school. I led morning study groups and evening college success sessions, helped grade problem sets, and tutored students on their writing and physics. On top of getting to travel and building my professional skills I also made friends and had a lot of fun…
Course Registration Is Upon Us!
Posted April 9, 2024 by Aurora Daniel
In the midst of the last few weeks of the semester is another crucial time: course registration for summer and fall. I’ve decided to take one summer course this year, LIS 488, in order to wrap up the general degree requirements so I can take an elective course in the fall. Since it’s my second semester I have to take LIS 438: Intro to Archival Theory & Practice as well as HIST 597: Historical Methods in order to complete general requirements for my Archives Concentration and my MA degree. That leaves me with one course I can choose to register with what I want. Right now I haven’t decided if I’ll take LIS 446: Art Documentation or LIS 532Q: Museum Studies. That’s always the hard part: what do you choose when there are so many options? While taking a summer course may seem like an easy decision so I could knock out requirements I did not make it lightly. I’ll be working full time this summer and want to avoid getting burned out. The summer…
The Simmons Zine Collection
Posted April 4, 2024 by Olivia McGovern
About a month ago, I started a new job working in Beatley Library on campus. I got my very own cubicle, equipped with a computer, a scanner and a label printer, but one corner is dominated by two boxes of uncataloged zines. I came to learn that Simmons houses a sizable collection of zines that have been curated for years, and it was the job of my predecessor to catalog and process them. Unfamiliar with zines? Here’s the rundown: “zines are a noncommercial, nonprofessional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish, and distribute themselves” (Duncombe). There is usually a DIY crafting component in the creation of a zine, followed by photocopying, folding, and stapling into pamphlets. Zines are inexpensive and easy to make, which has led them to play an important role in activism. The Simmons librarian, Dawn Stahura, who really kicked off the zine collection wrote (in a zine): “Zines are not only creative they are unique primary sources, a gateway into the lives of the marginalized, the silenced, the overlooked.” A unique cataloging…
SLIS West: A Few of My Favorite Things
Posted April 3, 2024 by Amy Argo
I love the feeling of being part of the smaller cohort out on the SLIS West campus! Since we’re smaller in numbers, classes feel like weekly gatherings to talk with friends about important issues surrounding librarianship. It’s been really cool to get to connect with like-minded peers and hear about their experiences from a variety of educational backgrounds, institutional settings, and life experiences. These connections build week after week and semester after semester. It is also an incredibly supportive and welcoming environment – on my first day in January 2023, I was worried about finding lunch companions between classes. While I was in line at Tailgate Picnic, the deli in the Village Commons, one of the people from my class invited me to eat lunch with them and their friends in the office. Little did I know how consequential that would prove to be, as it got me involved with LISSA West, our branch of the student organization out on the West Campus – fast forward a year, and I am the President of LISSA West! I…
Half-Way There Check-In
Posted March 26, 2024 by Aurora Daniel
It’s difficult to believe that the semester is halfway over! I started at Simmons this semester and the time has flown by. As a dual LIS – Archives concentration and History degree student I have enjoyed the balance I’ve had between learning Information Science procedures and continuing my studies in History. My favorite part so far has been the discussions in LIS 407 and HIST 568 regarding ethics, engaging with the public/users, and what role collections care and stewardship plays in both. In HIST 568 we had a site visit at The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum where we met with an archivist and discussed how some of these issues emerged in her day to day work. Part of why I chose the dual degree program was for opportunities like this— to connect what I’m doing in both degree programs as well as to think about how this will factor into my future career. I tend to be a bit critical of museums (blame my BA in Art History), but it’s a good…
Summer Session Summary
Posted August 11, 2023 by Magenta Jasinski
As the Summer II session begins to wrap up, an urge to write non-academically has been pushing at me. Writing for this blog in particular has been a source of joy, so I figured I should get back into it! In this post, I’ll take some time to detail both of the summer classes I took during Simmons’ two summer terms, as well as how I experienced academic burnout. I took one class for each summer session this year, which totaled out to five credits. The first class was CHL 424C (Series Fiction – Middle Grade) and it took place from May 22nd to June 28th. This was a rigorous two credit course where we explored five genres of books that make up the foundation of the middle grade category. Not to be confused with middle school, middle grade books are written for a third to sixth grade audience. I enjoyed the depth that our discussion went into each week, but finding time to read an entire series in seven days was a challenge. When…
MSLA Conference Happenings
Posted April 5, 2023 by Magenta Jasinski
I recently attended the MSLA (Massachusetts School Library Association) conference at UMass Amherst, one of my favorite college campuses in the state. This event was MUCH smaller than the last conference I wrote about, the Young Adult Library Services (YALSA) conference. It was held on a Sunday and Monday with an optional social on Saturday night. Between the two days, I think there were about 300 people who attended. I had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of participants over wings and beer at the Saturday social at Hangar Pub which made me feel much more comfortable over the next two days of the conference. We had a tight group of Boston librarians that sat with each other at breakfasts and conference sessions. I loved having such a supportive group, and I aspire to be many of them; I am currently a library assistant and MLIS student, and all of them were full-time school librarians. Making those connections was so valuable, and connecting with librarians from Western Massachusetts (WeMA, as one of my friends calls…
Summer Dreamin’ to Bust the Mid-Term Monotony
Posted March 10, 2023 by Rebecca Devereaux
I have reached the monotonous section of the semester. School is chugging away, meaning there are papers to write, books to read, lib guides to build, and I am looking for the time needed to cook something more nutritious than top ramen or a quesadilla. If anybody told you the life of a graduate student is glamourous, they were seriously delusional. The graduate students I know tend to drink more coffee than is good for them, they struggle with anxiety, and all of them can’t wait to be doing the work that this degree will allow them to do. In library school many of the assignments serve as models. While it is necessary for a professor to have a standardized assignment to give out, it can personally be frustrating knowing that my work, as of yet, will not make a direct impact on a library or archive. The work I do is stuck in theoretical land. I am looking forward to truly doing the work, directly shaping collections and helping patrons. To expedite the process…
Libraries in Germany
Posted February 10, 2023 by Rebecca Devereaux
It’s good to be back after a really nice winter break. Happy new year to everyone! I had a few grand adventures which I wanted to update you all on. After going home to Washington for Christmas and New Years, I went on a trip to Europe! This trip really revealed my library nerdiness. Almost every place we went I forced my friends to go on a mini exploration of the local libraries. In between rounds of museums, long walks on cobblestone streets and breaks of kaffee und kuchen here is where we went! Prague: Municipal Library of Prague—This is where the Instagram famous infinity books photos are taken. There was a huge line for the photo station, which I walked right by to go snoop in their library. Prague: Strahov Monastery Libraries—One is focused on theological texts and the other is on philosophical texts. They are all lusciously old. Made my archivist heart happy. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—This library is so impressive. It is free to access and has some very cool collections. Berlin:…
A SLIS Boston Student Goes West
Posted February 7, 2023 by Claire Pask
This January, I began my spring semester in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I completed my Preservation Management requirement over the course of two long weekends. Affectionately dubbed “Library Boot Camp” by Professor Donia Conn, the class consisted of six seven-hour days, during which my classmates and I studied old photographs and manuscripts, pored over different binding techniques, and learned more about pests and mold than I ever hoped to know. We (affectionately) handled old leather book casings, examined sheets of vellum from the eighteenth century, smiled at the rosy, painted-on cheeks of old tintype portraits, and held vintage Kodachrome film up to the light to reveal images of smiling families and pin-up girls—all in the name of understanding the makeup of the materials archives and libraries hold so that we may better preserve them. Our classes were held on the Simmons West campus at Mount Holyoke College, where we had the opportunity to visit and study two nearby libraries: the Williston Memorial Library, the college’s academic library, and the Gaylord Memorial Library, a small public…