SLIS
Put People First
Posted September 25, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I was sitting in church this past Sunday listening to a woman tell a story about a piece of advice her older sister had given her which had become a guiding principle in her life. The piece of advice was, “put people first.” This axiom could apply to all areas of life and for me, I’ve been thinking about it in relation to library work. We’ve begun learning about the reference interview in LIS 407 and on Saturday we watched videos of a “bad” reference interaction and a “good” interaction and discussed the behavioral performance guidelines set out by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). RUSA’s guidelines read a lot like the basics of being a kind, considerate, caring person with a few library-specific points thrown in. Stuff like: make eye contact, acknowledge patrons with a friendly greeting, focus complete attention on the patron’s need, and communicate in a “receptive, cordial, and supportive manner.” One of my classmates said that most of the guidelines were common sense, and another said that they were basically…
Introducing a New Blogger!
Posted September 14, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Hello everyone! We’d like to introduce one of our new student bloggers, Josie Snow. Please read her bio and first post below: Josie Snow grew up in a small mountain town in Colorado, where she lived until September of 2017. Her love of reading prompted her to become a teacher, and later to pursue her masters in Children’s Literature, which is what brought her to Boston.In her free time, she enjoys exploring the east coast (its all so different than her home!), puzzles, hiking, and stories of all types. New Adventures in Boston I brace my feet and don my special glasses, trying to get a glimpse of the solar eclipse out the train window. I can’t help but think how appropriate it seems for me to be hurtling through the countryside towards exciting, yet unknown territories at the same time that the sun and moon are reminding the world just how much we have to learn; how just as the moon will temporarily replace the sun, so too am I replacing mountains for coastline,…
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…
More On Why I Came To Library School
Posted July 12, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
So apparently, sitting around and talking about books is something librarians actually do, because that’s exactly what we’ve been doing in collection development class! On Saturday half of us presented our genre/topic discussions, in which we gave a brief overview of a book genre and talked about what’s hot/what’s not. Except in my case, it wasn’t a book genre. It was board games (a rising trend, wouldn’t you know it)! Someone brought cupcakes to celebrate her birthday, so the whole thing was basically a librarian party. It was pretty clear that everyone there loved discussing and learning about books, many of us becoming nostalgic or sentimental as we talked about our favorites. Which brings a nagging question to my mind that I’ve had since I began library school: is love of reading and books a necessary ingredient in the makeup of a good librarian? Now I think, in most cases, that librarianship is particularly attractive to those of us who do love books, and the two just naturally go together. I’m sure there are a…
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…
One Rather Late Semester Wrap-up
Posted May 5, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
So… it’s been a few weeks. My first semester of grad school ended five days ago and since then I’ve been processing, and recovering, and “making it up” to my family. Those last two weeks of class were kind of a whirlwind. And even though I had jotted down ample notes for a blog post, I just couldn’t take the time to sit down and type one out. I poured all the time I could into my final projects and trimmed everything “non-essential,” or at least able to be put off for two weeks. I scrambled around doing the bare minimum to take care of the kids and the house and let me tell you: bare minimum is not pretty. The kids (aged 4 and 2) were super great considering my parenting could be described as something resembling benign neglect. Or in other words, “Have some goldfish for dinner and watch all the TV you want and sleep in your clothes tonight.” I still shudder now to think of it and it was all I…
Dig Libs & Graduates
Posted April 18, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
My graduation is approaching and all you devotees to my snippets on this blog (hi Mom!), know that senioritis is really setting in for me. Actually, it has been there all semester pretty much, which is a little crazy since my graduate school experience has only consisted of 5 semesters, counting the summer when I took classes. So 1/5 of my time in grad school has been under the haze of senioritis. Aren’t humans funny little things when it comes to anticipation? Anywho, I thought in this blog post I would use that senioritis focus and combine it with something I love to do- scour digital libraries for interesting ephemara, artificats, letters, pics, etc. So here you are blog followers and compatriots! The wonderful world of graduates as seen through collections in digital libraries around the states. (note: I excluded videos & sounds in collections, but that’s also a fun ride if you enthusiasts want to go exploring. Many of the sites cited below also have such materials available on the interwebs). …
10 things I didn’t expect to learn by becoming a librarian (but I did)
Posted April 11, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
1. How to make memes and animated gifs There’s lots of easy ways to make them. My favorite is using Photoshop. DPLA has a list of resources on how to here https://dp.la/info/get-involved/workshops/#gifs and they run a boss contest every year with some great results like this one: (https://dp.la/info/gif-it-up/) 2. How to make book earrings http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Book-Earrings Library fashion is the best fashion, y’all. It’s so much fun, and it’s not all book related. (Though there is a lot of that). 3. What the semantic web is I don’t know that I’d even heard that term before, and in general, I didn’t really get how much of librarianship is about technology and playing well together in the sandbox with every other information provider in the “digital age.” I’m not gonna explain the semantic web here, but it and RDF and linked data and all the good stuff that comes with are super interesting and worth finding out more about if you don’t know about them yet. Oh, on this note, I don’t think I expected to…
I Am No Charles Schulz
Posted March 27, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
I’m kind of out of words lately. ACRL last week was super fun and awesome, and I highly recommend taking advantage of conferences as much as you can. It’s great way to know what other folks are doing across the library land and to get motivation and practical advice for your own role and community. But, I am kind of not functioning at high octane levels right now mind-wise. ACRL and the travel to and from while trying to keep up with my 2 classes (which are awesome but the most work intensive courses I’ve had my whole grad school time) and settle into my new position at work has left me a little out of articulation energy and wherewithal. So, here’s a bad comic I made today to illustrate my current feelings about dealing with Dublin Core- a specific metadata schema- for my digital libraries project with class. PS: don’t mistake this post for me grumbling about being stressed/overwhelmed or even about me not loving Dublin Core. I am a bit overwhelmed with school…
Introducing a New Blogger!
Posted March 21, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Hello everyone! We’d like to introduce one of our new student bloggers, Megan Ondricek. Please read her bio below: My name is Megan Ondricek and I live in Norwalk, Connecticut with my husband and two children, a four-year old boy and two-year old girl. I’m currently in my first semester of grad school, driving two hours to attend class on Saturdays at SLIS West and so far, I haven’t met anyone else who travels farther! My current profession is stay-at-home mom, and past jobs have included library assistant, administrative assistant, and a Smithsonian museum intern. I’ve lived in Connecticut for about three years now, having lived in southwestern Virginia for the previous fifteen years. I am a small-town girl, outdoor enthusiast, cat-lover, Francophile, art admirer who at one point wanted nothing more than to become a park ranger. Fun fact: I met my husband on the library shuttle eight years ago, and so I guess libraries were always destined to make bold brushstrokes on the canvas of my life. I love school always and forever…