People
Librarian Stereotypes
Posted October 21, 2012 by lazylibrarian
So everyone knows the “Marian the Librarian” stereotypes. The big glasses, the bun, the pencil skirt, and the finger always ready to shush you. (If you haven’t seen the Music Man, watch this!) Hopefully, those stereotypes are on the out. In fact there is a great Tumblr called This is What a Librarian Looks Like that shows that librarians are anything but that. One stereotype that seems to persist though at Simmons is that librarians love cats. It has a basis in fact I guess since everyone around me seems obsessed. There are multiple GSLIS professors who use Lol Cats in their powerpoint presentations, my friends spend dinner oohing and aahing over cute animal pictures and even the “Be a Sweetie, Wipe the Seatie” sign in my hall’s bathroom is a kitten…I don’t know, perhaps I have no heart but that is one professional stereotype I do not represent. Cute children? Yes. Puppies? A lot of the time. Cats? Uh, no. Sorry cats. However, I have noticed something interesting about all the librarian friends I’ve…
What Does a Library Lesson Look Like?
Posted October 19, 2012 by Maya Bery
It’s a question I get asked over and over again, by strangers and by those closest to me. My friends and family know that I love what I’m doing, some of them know I get to do cool tech things like play with Glogster, or Prezi, or VoiceThread, and iPads, but they don’t really know what happens during a library lesson. The short answer is, of course, not very helpful: many things. Our core goals as school librarians are to foster a love of reading (naturally), but in today’s “information overload” age, our job is also to teach students key information literacy skills while meeting state curricular standards. “What does that mean?” I hear you asking. Well, to give you an example, the past two weeks I’ve worked with several high school classes in my practicum to help them with different research projects. Part of this process has involved teaching a refresher on how to use the OPAC to find books relating to their topics. Part of it has been website evaluation – a recap…
Yoga – You Won’t Regret It
Posted October 18, 2012 by cdelnero
For those of us who, like me, are buried in the depths of this program we can truly understand the need to keep our mental and physical health at the forefront. I do feel strongly that we deserve to reward ourselves for all of our hard work. But sometimes we reward ourselves in the wrong way. For example, I tend to treat myself with spending money and eating delicious food, which is a bad choice for my wallet and my waistline. I should be making better choices; after all, I’m paying for a gym membership that I never use and I have a bike collecting dust in the closet. This week however, I discovered what has been missing from my life all this time: Yoga. My first ever yoga class was on Monday and I am completely hooked! Not only did it feel so good to stretch, but I could feel my muscles working and I could feel my breathing becoming even. At the end of the class, we spent about 15 minutes doing guided…
Conferences, Conferences, Conferences!
Posted October 14, 2012 by lazylibrarian
I just hit submit on my registration for the NEA (New England Archivist) Fall Meeting that is going to take place at Simmons! Ok, call me a nerd but I love conferences. What’s even better is getting to go to them for free by volunteering. A lot of conferences are looking for student volunteers to help run things like the registration desk and in exchange you get to go to the sessions after your shift is over. And since its Boston, a lot of conferences in a lot of topic areas come here. If it’s free, I’ll sit on just about anything. The more information, the better! This summer I volunteered on the registration desk for the AALL (American Association of Law Librarians) conference. I had a two hour shift and the best part was my friend signed up for the same time and we were late in the day so it wasn’t very busy. In exchange for telling several women (I’m not joking, this came up at least three times) where they could buy…
Instant Gratification
Posted October 13, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
Yes, we live in that kind of culture. Yes, our society demands satisfaction from us RIGHT NOW. I have never been more aware of this need for speed now that I assist 13-year-olds with their research every day of the week. What is it about waiting for answers that makes us so itchy? Has Google gotten THAT good? Have we gotten that lazy? I ask myself these questions as I sit at this reference desk after I’ve had three different students ask me in a matter of 15 minutes what the difference is between reference and reserves, and why in the world they can’t take these books out of the library. I suppose the library does seem antiquated with it’s rules about not being able to take certain books out and only being able to take out only so many books/dvds/cds to a generation of young people who get whatever they want whenever they want it on the world wide web. This younger generation doesn’t want to be limited. They want access…to EVERYTHING. In my…
Destination: Library School
Posted October 12, 2012 by Maya Bery
Inspired by some of my fellow bloggers entries last week, I thought I would share with all of you how I came to library sciences. One of the things I love about library school is that the students come from a whole variety of backgrounds. Some have worked in libraries for years, others, like myself, had never done any kind of formal work in a library before entering. There’s no course pre-requisites, no track you have to have been on since age 8. You just have to tell us why you want to be here, and chances are, that passion will be enough to get your foot in the door. And once you’re in school, you can focus on racking up all that valuable internship and volunteer experience that will help you land a job afterwards. So let me start by being honest. Before I applied to the school library program here at Simmons, I had no idea that such a thing existed. Yes, you read that right: I had no idea my future profession was…
Family Questions
Posted October 11, 2012 by cdelnero
This weekend I am attending a fancy family gathering to celebrate my grandfather’s 75th birthday. So in addition to worrying about what I am going to wear, I am also trying to prepare myself to be inundated with questions about what I am doing with my life. And like any other LIS student, I need to find the perfect answer which can be very difficult. First of all, most people don’t know what “Library and Information Science” means, so I sort of water it down to “Library School.” Here come the looks of concern and confusion, followed by the commentary: “You need a master’s degree to be a librarian?” “But libraries are being replaced by the internet!” “How will you find a job?” I have my head in my hands just anticipating it. I don’t know what’s worse, these questions, or being asked why I am not married, when I plan to get married, and when I’m going to have children. What I try to do is assure my family that no, I am not…
A Wonderfully Incurable Disease
Posted October 9, 2012 by Julie Steenson
If you haven’t heard of Roy Tennant yet, you will. (No, to my knowledge, he is no relation to David Tennant of Doctor Who fame, although one can’t help but think of how library databases are like the Tardis – bigger on the inside! Sounds like a future post.) Roy Tennant is often quoted for his 2001 statement: “…after all, isn’t it true that only librarians like to search? Everyone else likes to find.” (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA170458.html) When I first encountered this reading, it made me laugh knowingly before I delved into the meat of the article about cross-database searching. (A great article if you have the time, and he writes a lot of interesting stuff.) You will hear arguments on both sides about how Tenannt’s statement is true or untrue, and in the world of librarian blogging, it has formed a life of its own. I can only speak for myself. I love to search and I love to find, but my desire to search is like an addiction, an incurable reference librarian disease. When anyone…
Happiness, already rampant at a library near you!
Posted October 6, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
Does anybody else feel incredibly lucky? Seriously, does anybody out there feel like they’ve hit the profession jackpot? I do. I mean, it’s been quite a year for me in general. I finished 3 years of serving in the Peace Corps, married the love of my life who I met in the Peace Corps (yeah, those statistics are real), started a new job at a school library, and began my first two classes at GSLIS. I really don’t know how next year could compare by any small stretch of the imagination unless I sprout wings and fly to Neverland. However, I don’t think it’s only me that feels this way. I’ve spent the last three weeks getting to know my first year peers in my core courses and they couldn’t more jazzed about what they do. I remember all of our introductions on the first day of class and everyone’s talking about how they came to love libraries. You know what I’m talking about. Everyone has a story about how they came to the library….
Friends
Posted October 4, 2012 by cdelnero
I never thought I’d go to library school. I wasn’t even sure I’d get a master’s degree at all. So you can imagine how amazed I am at the fact that not only am I here, but I am here with one of my oldest and best friends, Michelle Fredette. Shelly and I met on the bus to kindergarten. She had chubby cheeks and a love of The Beatles. Even then I could tell she was smart. This was only confirmed through elementary, middle and high school. Shelly took honors classes, played sports, was in the band and was eventually accepted to the English program at UMASS Amherst. I on the other hand was sort of a slacker. I was an average student, and was also in the band, but other than that I had little ambition. When I finished high school I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to college. I ended up enrolling at local community college, taking only pre-requisites. Eventually I found my niche which was English, just like Michelle. I…