Libraries
On Being Ambassadors
Posted September 18, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I think I can safely say now that this will be one tough semester, characterized with lots of work outside the home. My first semester I had to drive to class every Saturday but all of the work and the assignments could be completed at home, on my own time. Not so this semester. This week I will go interview a reference librarian. Next week I will be visiting an archival repository as a researcher. And any day now my archives internship will start up, requiring 60 hours of work over the course of the semester. As an avowed introvert and homebody, I do not relish the thought of all the running around I’ll be doing. But I also feel confident that once the stress of setting up appointments and making arrangements is over, I am going to love getting out into the field, talking to archivists and librarians, and getting the hands-on experience. The museum internship I had so many years ago right out of college was such a formative experience for me and…
Final Thoughts on LIS 453 (Collections Development and Management)
Posted August 11, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I know it’s been a little while since I last posted and I’m so grateful the Simmons folks have been patient with my erratic summer blogging. Our final class for LIS 453, collection development, was on Saturday and I’ve been gathering all my thoughts about the class, the format, and the things I’ve learned. First of all, I’m really glad I took a summer class and I’m glad I only took one, as opposed to two like I originally planned. This summer has been so enjoyable, with just the perfect balance of relaxation and work, traveling and sitting at home, homework and pleasure reading. I almost wish it could last forever, but fall is just around the corner and with it, a busy new semester at SLIS West! This class was the first time I had ever taken something with an online component, and I thought the blended format worked really well, especially for summer. To me it seems like the “happy medium” between in-person and online classes. It gave me flexibility to vacation with…
On Catching Up, Belonging, and Library Stats
Posted June 29, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
As I wrote my last post it seemed as if summer was just beginning, and now I am watching the longest day of the year fade away over the endless, undulating lines of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am in Virginia right now, and I can’t get over how awesome it is that I can be on vacation in the middle of my summer class at Simmons. I love this blended format. The days are sliding by just as summer days should, and I find my time agreeably divided between homework, leisure reading, and hiking. I’ve made several visits to my old library, the one I’m using for my assignments, and it has been so fun to chat with the librarians again now that I’m in library school. Suddenly I find myself interested in and caring about topics that had never crossed my mind back when I was the library assistant: things such as acquisition policies, weeding strategy, and the future of information literacy education at the university. The director and I had a…
Less is more: Small scale librarianship
Posted March 30, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
One of the great things that I love about attending SLIS West is the lunchtime events. Many of my blog posts will probably contain thoughts and reflections from the latest SLIS West speaker or presentation, especially since I plan to attend ALL OF THEM. Part of my motivation for this is the free lunch provided. Listen: I think I’ve had to bring my own lunch only twice this entire semester. This is a great, great thing. The food that they get for these events is excellent. Also, I am like an eager little sponge that just wants to soak up all the library stuff, and this is an easy and convenient way to do it! So, last Saturday we heard from Andrea Bernard, Library Director at the Tyler Memorial Library in Charlemont, MA and one of 10 I Love My Librarian Award winners in 2016. I just have to quote this section from the story about Andrea’s award: “Andrea Bernard will go out of her way to serve her library patrons. Just ask Stephen Ferguson,…
A Day in the Life
Posted December 2, 2016 by Elizabeth James
9:30 AM: Drive to the public library archives to look at some materials for my LIS 415 final project. Discuss with the librarian how they organize their online archives, and whether the initial proposals my group has suggested are acceptable. Talk about my progress on my LIS 407 final project, and discuss with her the audience and whether my analysis of local history sources is of an appropriate breadth and depth based on her experience with the user population. 10:45 AM: Acquire coffee and French pastries! 11:00 AM: Go into my actual job. A chocolate croissant gets me through the first hour. The remaining eight are survived through a combination of coffee and tea to fend off the cold office air. 3:00 PM: Lunch. Go back to the library because I forgot to grab my book that has been on hold since Monday. ??:?? PM: Sporadically edit and compile the group parts of the LIS 415 final project. Start creating slides for our presentation. 8:00 PM: Leave work to walk home, relish the fact that…
Out with the Old, in with the New
Posted November 14, 2016 by Amanda Pizzollo
In January I left my last nursing job so that I could better pursue a position in the wonderful world of librarianship. When I did so, my partner and I sat down and talked about how to make that decision work economically. He’s in grad school getting his doctorate in science, so he gets paid through that. It’s a pretty fixed amount, and not something that would keep us easily afloat for long without me working as well. Especially since I went to Nurse Practitioner grad school for a year, and I’m still paying off those loans, plus now I’m gathering more debt from LIS school, and we bought a house last year. We’ve both spent years saving up for all of this, but still. So, we sat down and thought of the lowest priorities for spending and how and where to cut corners. We ate a lot of rice and beans until I starting get more jobs, and we cut our cell phone plans. Now- we still had cell phones because we’d paid those…
Introducing — Amanda Pizzollo — A New Blogger for Simmons SLIS
Posted October 24, 2016 by Amanda Pizzollo
So, I’m coming up on my 10 year nurse-a-versary. Yup, it’s almost been 10 years since I took my boards and got my first job as a nurse. What? Oh, this is a blog about librarianing you say? I know, I know. I’m getting there. I’ve been getting, there, in fact, since I started training to be a nurse. Well, getting here that is, and by here I mean the library world. I loved nursing, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t what I would have chosen in college if it weren’t for outside pressures and a certain measure of indecisiveness. Don’t worry, I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not. I don’t think. Well, maybeeee… No really. I’m very sure about this whole library thing. But being a nurse is still a big part of my life, and a big part of who I am. As much as I try not to, I somehow end up telling people in library school that I’m also a nurse within about 2 minutes of conversation. It’s just…
I went to Harry Potter world
Posted February 18, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Okay, I didn’t really. I went to Harry Potter’s World at Beatley Library. A little bit closer to home and a lot less expensive. Libraries are a great place for free events. What is Harry Potter’s World at Beatley Library, you might be asking? Well, Harry Potter’s World is a travelling event put on at libraries across the nation by the National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine. It combines elements of the world of Harry Potter, from Fantastic Beasts to Herbology, with a real world perspective of the history of science concerning those elements. It compares Harry’s experience with something like Immortality with the historical search and medical science behind the same topic. Yesterday the exhibit opened with an event involving the Sorting Hat, Wand Making, S.P.E.W (Society for Promotion of Elfish Welfare) and, of course, Dumbledore. I was sorted, thankfully, into Hufflepuff, and collected free items from the event, including a Hufflepuff pin, a Hogwarts pin, a S.P.E.W pin, and a fake tattoo of the spell ‘Riddikulus!’ The wand making station followed…
Librarianship as Emotional Labor
Posted November 21, 2015 by Amy Wilson
This post is a little different from my previous ones – basically, I want to gather my thoughts on a topic that I recently read about. Rose Hackman wrote an article earlier this month for The Guardian, arguing that emotional labor is the next frontier of feminism. Emotional labor refers to the type of work that count on “service with a smile,” and historically there has been a “positive bias” toward women in these roles. Hackman also argues that it is work that is not accounted for in wages. “The way I think of emotional labor goes as follows: there are certain jobs where it’s a requirement, where there is no training provided, and where there’s a positive bias towards certain people – women – doing it. It’s also the kind of work that is denigrated by society at large.” The article does not mention librarianship, but I immediately thought of this profession, especially as it evolves away from the “shushing librarian” image and more toward positive user service interactions. Librarianship is an industry of knowledge,…
Inventorying the Boston Public Library’s Print Collection
Posted November 20, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Since the beginning of October 2015, I have been part of a team that is currently working on inventorying the Boston Public Library’s print collection. The print collection, housed in the heart of the BPL, is massive and although considerable progress was made on inventorying the collection over the course of the summer, there is still a long way to go. Currently, my duties are split in two. On Mondays, I spend my shift rifling through index cards (remember those?) and looking for duplicates. Sometimes there aren’t any (YAY!); but usually there are a lot of them. For example, I am currently weaning out duplicates from a stack associated to the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Without the duplicates, the collection of cards is about two-hundred and fifty. Multiply that number by 2. Talk about a lot of cards!!! As much fun as removing duplicate cards sound, Wednesdays are my personal favorite day of the week. That’s because on Wednesdays, I get to actually dig into the collection, open up boxes, see what’s hiding inside. Basically…