skills
Overcoming Growing Pains
Posted April 12, 2022 by Elizabeth Poland
I am very surprised to say I am nearing the end of my first semester here at Simmons! It feels like a whirlwind, to be honest – I applied and got accepted in October, moved to Boston in December, and started school in January. I am very grateful for the people who have supported me in this big life transition from my parents to my boyfriend to the friends that I’ve made so far in my classes. I definitely believe I made a smart choice moving to the city a full month before the semester started, but nothing could have prepared me for the transition into grad school life. It might have been because I accidentally signed up for 4 courses instead of the recommended 3 or fewer, so I quickly started to drown in responsibility. About a month into the semester I had one of those existential crises where nothing I was doing made sense — why was I going to grad school anyway? Why don’t I just escape civilization? What am I doing…
Assignments and Resumes
Posted April 5, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Now is the time in the semester where everything is busy and lots of assignments are due. These past few weeks since coming back from spring break I have had at least one major assignment due each week. It has been a little stressful and certainly busy. But even so, the amount of pride and excitement I get when I finish these assignments is great. I always feel so much more accomplished than I did going into them and often, I am much more confident of my own skills on whatever the topic may have been, from metadata to programming to book reviews. It is a wonderful sense to become more confident and surer in my abilities. This is also the case with me polishing up my career materials as I creep closer to graduation. One of the ways I did this was by attending the Resume Revamp hosted by SLA this week. I was a great event hosted by the Special Library Association Student Chapter at Simmons where they connected students who submitted resumes…
End of the Semester and End of the Year
Posted December 17, 2020 by William Crouch
Hey everyone. It’s been a long time since I last posted a blog. My semester has been pretty crazy as I imagine everyone else’s has been. Trying to keep up with the election, the pandemic, and continuing classes fulltime has been pretty stressful so I began to limit the amount of time I am on social media each week to basically zero which has been pretty helpful I would say. In my Collective Memory course, our final project was a group presentation on a historical event, person, or group that our understanding of has been affected by the idea of collective memory. My group chose to do our project our Crispus Attucks, the first victim of the Boston Massacre, and how his identity as a runaway slave and martyr helped with the abolitionists and even in the Black Lives Matter protests. In Archival Access, our final project is to create a MARC record and Finding Aid for a collection. We’ve been learning about how to create Finding Aids with XML code and MARC records so…
The End is Near
Posted December 14, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
Can you believe it’s almost the end of the semester? The end of the semester is always such a crazy time, with due dates and projects. Since my last post, I’ve had two assignments due, and my big semester-long project is due next week. It is definitely crunch time! As I discussed in an earlier post, my semester-long project is the Electronic Resources in Libraries Case Study Project where we do a thorough investigation of an academic library’s electronic resources offering with a partner. My team is investigating the resources of MCPHS University, as that is where both of us work. It’s a huge project—we’ve had to interview the electronic resources librarian, thoroughly investigate the databases, the research guides, the different ways to search the library’s resources, and more. My team has been working really diligently throughout the semester and having regular virtual meetings to check in and go over our project, so we’re doing pretty well progress-wise. I’m not too worried about our actual written report, the thing that I am nervous about is our presentation. I’ve done plenty of presentations at Simmons;…
Almost There!
Posted December 2, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I’m on to my third (and last!) paper of the semester. It’s not due until December 15 but I want to complete it early so I can get it done and enjoy the holidays. Plus, the assignment has several parts and is better done one step at a time. The assignment incorporates much of what we’ve learned in class throughout the semester, and deals with collections development, which I love. In the first part of the assignment, we choose a library and examine its collections development policy. Each library has a unique collections development policy that explains how it will build its collection. The policy is heavily geared towards the library’s community. For example, a school library will tailor its collections development policy towards its students, and a public library will tailor its policy towards its community. If a community has a large Spanish speaking population, the library might focus on buying Spanish language materials, whereas a community that does not have a large Spanish speaking population would not focus on this area. This is where the community statistics from the census come…
Skills learned from SLT
Posted October 21, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
I am so close to being done with my studies at Simmons. When I look back at my courses at Simmons, I feel like all I want to say is thank you. I have one step into the door of working professional and one foot still in the door of graduate student. As I am slowly creeping into the role of a library teacher, I am using the skills that the Simmons School Library Teacher program has equipped me with to be a library assistant in an elementary school library. In my LIS 406 course Management of School Libraries, I learned valuable skills in outreach to the community. When you work in a school library, it is good to partner with local bookshops for book orders, but most importantly the local public library. In the school where I work now, we are working very closely with the public library’s children’s librarian to give children access to information resources. LIS 461 the Curriculum and Instructional Strategies for the SLT (School Library Teacher) gave an overview of…
Winding Down
Posted July 28, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
There are only two weeks left in the summer semester and I can’t believe it. It’s gone by fast. This is the first time I’ve taken only one class, and it’s been very nice. It’s also been a bit weird, since I’m used to juggling two or three classes and having more work to do. But I’m not complaining! We’ve finished the last of the hands-on activities and will have lecture classes and a discussion with a conservator the rest of the semester. Two weeks ago, we had our most difficult assignment: making boxes out of heavy paper and corrugated cardboard. Boxes are created for items that cannot be put directly on the shelves because they are too delicate or because they are damaged. Creating a custom box for these items gives them physical support and allows them to be handled by the public (with a little bit of caution, of course). Otherwise, these items would be unavailable. The boxes have to fit the item perfectly to make sure the item will not move around…
Book Repairs!
Posted July 7, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I’ve had a busy and fun two weeks of book repairs. My tasks included rebacking (replacing the spine of a book) and recasing (re-attaching the text block to the book cover). Both of these repairs were invasive and required cutting into the book. That definitely scared me at first. Taking a knife to a book seemed like sacrilege. I had to remind myself that cutting into the book would not harm it—in fact, it would save the book. And it did! The end result of my repairs was book that was fully functional again, and ready to get back into circulation. I can see how knowing how to do these minor repairs would be beneficial for librarians, because they could fix a lot of book problems without having to spend money buying a new book. What amazes me is how much book repair is about precision. It takes a lot of practice to make straight, even cuts, align pages, and trim accurately. But once you know how to do this, you can make repairs that…
All About Paper
Posted June 22, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
This summer, I’m taking LIS 447, Collections Maintenance, and I absolutely love it so far. There are two parts to the class: the lectures, which explore the topic of the week and show how to do the repairs, and the hands-on part, where we get to do the repairs ourselves. All of us were mailed a big box with the weekly materials before the class started, which included damaged books, different types of papers, newspapers, magazine ads, archival quality tape, and tissue paper. We also bought a tool kit from the school bookstore, which included a cutting mat, ruler, retractable knife, paint brush, and other necessities. I created a designated workspace for myself and laid all the tools and folders on a little table. It’s been working out great, because it keeps all the tools and materials in one place and I don’t have to constantly pack and unpack all the materials. I would probably lose something that way! The first week, we repaired small paper tears with tape and glue, and last week we…
Virtual Interviewing 101
Posted April 27, 2020 by Adaliz Cruz
When I was asked to write a blog post about interviewing, I scratched my head for about a week. What should I write about interviewing? I told my roommate, I’m no expert on this topic! However, after thinking about it for a few days I realized I do have some experience to share with all of you. I’ve interviewed for different things my fair share of times. I’ve also attended and sat in on presentations, webinars, and symposiums that covered this topic. Here, I’ve compiled some tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way. I hope they are as useful to you as they have been to me! Go through the job posting before hopping on the call so you’ll be prepared for questions. Always have an answer to the age old question: WHY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN THIS POSITION? Outside noises will be inevitable, but try to find a spot where noises will be minimal. Mind your background (or choose an appropriate Zoom background). Wear something that makes you feel “on”. For me,…