SLIS
Introducing Two New Members To Our Blogging Team!
Posted February 27, 2018 by Katie Olivo
Hello everyone! We’d like to introduce two new student bloggers, Sarah Callanan and ShanTil Yell. Please read a little about them below. You will see their first posts very soon! Welcome Sarah! My name is Sarah Callanan and I recently moved to Massachusetts from Raleigh, North Carolina. I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill with a BA in Communication Studies with a minor in English. I have previously lived in Colorado and Michigan, so snow is not as much of a foreign concept to me as one might think. I started my MLIS degree in January 2018, and am pursuing the Archives Management concentration. My love of research, reading, and the fact that my living area was slowly but surely becoming a library is what prompted me to start my journey to getting this degree. I’m really enjoying getting to know the Boston area and all it has to offer. I’m so excited to be at Simmons and to be on this ride with all of you. Welcome ShanTil! Hi y’all, I’m ShanTil! If you couldn’t tell,…
Bookish Thoughts:
Posted February 13, 2018 by Josie Snow
This semester has introduced me to many books, here are some of the books I have enjoyed or found interesting so far: Books that taught me things I didn’t know before Danza: Amalia Hernandez and the Ballet Folklorico of Mexico by Duncan Tonatiuh The Noisy Paint box: The Colors and sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art by Barb Rosenstock Fascinating: The Life of Leonard Nimoy by Richard Michelson Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerta Taro and the Invention of Modern Photojournalism by Marc Aronson Books that provoked an emotional response: Unleaving by Jill Paton Walsh Push by Sapphire Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros Old favorites that I get to see in a new light: Marcello in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman
Technology Courses: My “Happy Surprise”
Posted February 5, 2018 by Megan Ondricek
In my last post I promised that I’d write more about my technology classes at Simmons. Like many students, I entered LIS 488, the technology core class, with some trepidation. After all, the technology components of library work had scared me away from the LIS degree for some time. I knew I wanted to obtain an education that would help me get a job somewhere in the library/archives/museum field, and I knew I wanted my degree to be flexible, adaptable. Museum studies seemed too specific and limiting, and I was afraid Library & Information Science would involve too much science and technology. That was me before I took LIS 488. Now as someone who has finally gotten her feet wet in the world of IT, I find myself embracing a very different mindset. First of all, technology is just another skill, another subject that can be learned. Learning to code is a lot like learning a new language. You don’t have to possess any particular personality or disposition to understand technology. You don’t even have…
Scholarship Appreciation Time
Posted November 28, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
I’m extremely thankful to have a merit scholarship from SLIS. Every semester (when I take at least 9 units) I receive $6,000 from Simmons; that’s $24,000 over four semesters, which is nothing to scoff at. As a scholarship recipient, I have been tasked to write a short thank you letter; I thought I might post it here. The cost of higher education has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years, and the only reason I have been able to afford Simmons (and with relatively low financial stress) is the SLIS Merit Scholarship. Simmons was one of two schools I applied to that offered me any financial aid, and by the time I received my acceptance letter, had become my top choice. I was thrilled to see that my academic efforts had paid off, literally! I cannot overstate how much I value the unique experience I’m having at Simmons. I’m from California, and I went to UC Berkeley for my Bachelor’s degree, so you can imagine how different it has been living here and attending Simmons. I never…
Don’t Let School Get in the Way of Your Education
Posted November 14, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
One of the greatest benefits of library graduate school that nobody tells you about is the breadth of experiences people come from. Some students are straight out of college, others have been working as librarians for years, and many (like me) are in between. I highly recommend just chatting with the people around you; it can sometimes be more useful than readings and prescribed discussion. Just from chatting with classmates, I’ve learned about the many, many different ways to set up children’s storytime, the radically different administrative structures of rural and big city libraries, the pushback against “controversial” projects from supervisors and the public, and much, much more. I often wish there was a space designated specifically for swapping stories, tips, and resources with classmates and colleagues. We grow so much more as a profession when we share information (I mean, that is kind of our whole deal, right?). Give feedback to your professors related to this. In my experience, they will usually respond graciously. If you find certain assignments unhelpful, tell them. If you have a…
Thinking Like an Archivist
Posted November 6, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
We are more than halfway through the semester and with a few days off for holidays this month, I think I can safely say we are in the home stretch. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Woo! With my archives internship wrapping up, I thought I’d share some of my observations. First of all, this internship required some serious time management. It is built right into the Intro to Archives course (LIS 438) on top of a typical load of coursework, and it’s a lot. I actually advised a classmate the other day not to take it, unless she was serious about archives. Because unless you’ve got all kinds of free time and not many daytime commitments, it will require some major sacrifices beyond the typical course. That being said, I have loved all the course material (not so much the online format) and the work I’ve been doing for my internship. I have finally gotten some hands-on experience in an archive. It really is essential. I’ve heard several times now…
Decisions, decisions, decisions…
Posted October 31, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
Enrollment has rolled around for Spring 2018, and I’m completely torn apart. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m definitely struggling. Every semester there seems to be at least six classes I want to take, even though I’m limited to four, and self-limited to three due to money. It feels like I can see infinitely branching paths in front of me depending on what I decide. Young adult collections? Collection development? Information services for diverse users? Everything sounds so great! Let’s say there are six classes I’m interested in, none of which create scheduling conflicts (totally hypothetical, definitely NOT enrolled in three classes and on three waitlists right now…). We can determine the amount of possible course combinations by using a non-ordered combination formula. This results in a whopping…twenty combinations. Okay, so not quite a staggering number, but maybe an almost-tripped-but-caught-myself number? Anyway, each of these twenty paths could lead me to a totally different future, depending on my classmates, my professors, my assignments, and of course, the content. One of these combinations would…
Mass Effect
Posted October 24, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
Last fall, I moved out of California for the first time in my life. I’d visited Boston once, years before. I had vague memories of quaint brick architecture. But travel ≠ transplantation. When I said I was from California, people warned me about snow. But I’ve been to Minnesota. My culture shock came from other sources. 1. Fall. On the west coast, fall means everything dies and it gets colder. It’s a short transition between summer and not-summer. But here, fall is an event. People go “apple-picking” and “leaf-peeping,” everyone dresses up, cider is consumed. Oh, and IT’S INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL. 2. Darkness. In my hometown, we get 300 sunny days a year. Did you know the sun can set at 4:15? Did you know it can be overcast for a week straight? I didn’t. 3. Sense of distance. Here, I can visit four states in two hours. A trip to Maine can be shorter than a BART ride to SFO. 4. Regionalisms. I’ve mentioned “apple-picking” and “leaf-peeping”; other terms that tripped me up include “turnpike,” “bodega,” and, yes, “wicked”. 5. Drivers. Californians are not good…
Libraries or Archives?
Posted October 16, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
As you may know, Simmons has one of the highest-rated Archives Management programs in the country. This was a major factor in my decision to choose Simmons because the idea of an MLIS with a focus in archives interested me much more than a standard MLIS. I felt like it would give me more options – I would graduate with the qualifications to work in both libraries and archives. And frankly, I wasn’t sure I was 100% on board with libraries. My interest in the MLIS degree came in a roundabout way as I chased my dreams of working in museums/cultural institutions while maintaining a connection to the world of academia. I knew I wanted to work in a museum or an archives, but I also thought that library jobs would be easier to come by and that I might be just as content to work in an academic library. The happy news is, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of my classes at SLIS West so far, and only one out of five has been an…
Living the Dream
Posted October 2, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
WHOA it’s been a crazy week! So crazy, in fact, I’m going to have to break it down with a numbered list. Here are the important announcements/news items from this week: 1. I started my internship at the Fairfield University archives! This internship is a big deal for me. I haven’t worked since I had my son almost five years ago, so I need all the professional experience I can get. Also, I’ve never done any actual archives work before. I have some library experience and some museum experience, and here I am in grad school claiming I want to be an archivist with only a foggy idea of what that actually means. So YAY FOR INTERNSHIPS! Can you tell I’m excited? I’m super excited. This internship is perfect for me. It’s not too far from my home and it’s a small university archives, which frankly is exactly the kind of institution I see myself in some day. 2. I visited an archives for my field study. This would be only the second…