SLIS
Food Advertisements
Posted March 28, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
When you are writing a thesis about food, it is almost inevitable that you are going to encounter some pretty interesting examples of food culture. Thus far in my study of American food culture from the 1950s to the early 1990s, I’ve encountered fan letters to Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer-Becker the mother-daughter duo behind the Joy of Cooking. Their cookbooks promote a vast array of recipes that utilize ingredients that range from diced vegetables to box Jell-o mixed. By far my favorite thing that I’ve had to analyze in the name of academia is food advertisements from magazines such as Good Housekeeping, Family Circle, and Better Homes & Gardens from the 1950s. These advertisements, which are very much products of their time, offer insight into consumer and food trends from the decade. For my paper, I am analyzing these advertisements as a means of understanding how the food and consumer industry promoted the gendering of the kitchen and the position of the home cook. The following advertisements were found within magazines that are a part of Johnson and Wales Culinary…
Very Special Libraries
Posted March 19, 2016 by Amy Wilson
Last week, while most of Simmons was on spring break, I was on campus every day from 9am until about 3pm. I took the week off of work in order to complete a 5-day, 3-credit course with SLIS legend, Jim Matarazzo. Jim has worked in corporate libraries for decades, and he is the original social networker. I’m pretty sure you could ask about any major company and he will tell you the history of their corporate library and name two contacts there. This class was heavily career focused, extremely practical… and wicked fun! Our assignments for the week included two papers and two (group) presentations. We looked at a set of corporate libraries that had closed and another set that were “successful,” then evaluated how corporate libraries can survive and thrive. We also each summarized a chapter from the textbook (which Jim co-authored). My favorite day of the week was Tuesday, when we did our site visits. We started at the New England School of Law, whose library has an impressive reference staff and a very cozy study space….
It Begins!: My Final Semester
Posted January 24, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
All throughout the Fall semester, I’ve been mentally preparing myself for this moment. However, now that the time has come, now that my final semester is about to begin, I’ve come to the realization that nothing truly could prepare me for this. That’s the funny thing about reaching the last stretch of a race or the final level of a video game; you’ve known all along that this would happen and yet you still can’t believe that you’ve finally made it. The finish line is in sight, the final boss is right behind that door. In other words, stuff is about to get very real! Last semester, I wrote a blog post about my semi-frustration with people asking me about my future. What were my post-grad school plans? Was I going to stay in Boston or contemplate moving away? Was there a PhD program waiting for me just past the horizon? Essentially, this was my life all throughout my Thanksgiving break: Ironically this scene also happens to occur during a Thanksgiving meal I didn’t know the…
New Year, New Conference
Posted January 8, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Happy 2016! I hope everyone had a good break and is ready to face the New Year! I spent my break back home for a couple weeks, chilling with my family and my puppy, catching up on netflix shows, and generally destressing after my first semester as a grad student. My friend and I went to a local art museum/historic house, and I ended up antiquing with my father and sister, both of which were interesting and fun. My family and I also went to see Star Wars together. I didn’t do much beyond, well, relax. With the close of 2015 being rounded out with a game of Heads Up and a Taylor Swift music video (and wine), the start of 2016 is pretty packed. I picked up a friend from the airport, met her cat, cleaned my apartment, and started to round up scholarships to apply for. Boston itself is prepping for the influx of librarians and information professionals for ALA midwinter this weekend, which is beyond exciting. The official conference runs Friday to…
Finished with Flying Colors
Posted December 17, 2015 by Tara Pealer
I officially finished every assignment for this semester on Tuesday, and I’m currently only waiting on one grade to find out my GPA for my first semester in Library Science School, in order to humble brag on Facebook. I’ve returned all my books, organized all my notes, and printed the last thing I’ll print for this semester. And as exciting as that is (Yay! I’m done!) I can’t say that this hasn’t been a whirlwind semester. I’m still getting used to public transit, I keep forgetting to do my laundry, and the world of library science is much larger and cooler than I expected. I can definitely say I’m happy with where I am. With the first semester winding down, some of my friends and I were talking about why we chose Simmons. For most of my friends, who are archives students, the scale was easily weighted in favor of Simmons because it’s the number one school for archives in the nation. Another friend said that she decided to go to Simmons because of the…
Presentations: Or, the overwhelming fear you’re doing it wrong
Posted October 29, 2015 by Tara Pealer
I love to give presentations. Give me a PowerPoint or Prezi, a somewhat captive audience, a chance to pretend to organize my notes, and I’m off. My philosophy for presenting is ‘if you want to make a splash, you’ve got to jump’. For me, that means is that when I start a presentation, I go into it believing that the most important part of a successful presentation is the actual presenting. If I go into a presentation knowing everything, having an exact plan, but get nervous and stumble or get mentally disorganized, I feel like I’ve negated any work I’ve done. My confidence is derailed completely. Other people, I know, feel confident in their presentation if they’ve collected and organized all the knowledge they wanted to get across. They just hate the presenting part. I’m flashy. I’ve got the substance, sure, but flash is where it’s at for me. I did a presentation last week which I kicked off by handing out two jars of m&m’s to the closest guesses of the number of book…
Flexibility
Posted October 27, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
One thing I like about being an older student is that I have some flexibility. I’m not trying to finish SLIS super fast to get a job or move somewhere else — my job and family are already here. I can take my time with the program and get what I want out of it. Since I have two kids in elementary school, that flexibility is pretty important to me. When I entered Simmons, I expected to take three years to finish the program — two classes each semester (instead of the traditional three) and no classes in the summer, since my kids would be out of school. It seemed like a good plan. Then I took a three-credit short course late last spring, which put me ahead of where I expected to be. Suddenly, I had options — should I take another short course and graduate a semester earlier than I’d planned? Should I take only one course some semester, and pick up additional work hours? Which brings me to the upcoming semester. As…
That’s not this week, is it?
Posted October 15, 2015 by Tara Pealer
-A statement said by me about all my assignments so far. A major part of my first semester at Simmons has been deadlines. Beyond the usual multiple assignment due dates carefully written in color coding in my planner, there’s the days I have to meet with group members (group members being new to a highly independent English major, but definitely welcomed), and, finally the important due dates of TOR and the LIS Program Planning Sheet. Both of which are due on the same day, and both of which were a little nerve wracking. The TOR(Technology Orientation Requirement) had been a breeze for me, until I reached the HTML coding section and a tiny monster inside of began to insist that I had no clue what I was doing. Which, notably, is the point of TOR. It exposes students to technology they may have some trouble with. Anyway, I shut down at that point, and haven’t looked at it since. I just need to sit down and allow myself to not understand something, to accept that,…
Orientation Day
Posted September 26, 2015 by Amy Wilson
Taking the train from Lechmere to Simmons A few weeks ago, I took the day off work to go to Simmons’ campus for the SLIS Orientation. It was a really exciting day, and I came away questioning all my choices (in the best way) and wondering how I will ever learn all those acronyms. Luckily, at the end of the day I had an hour bus ride to New Hampshire to mull things over. Orientation Lesson One: I arrived at Orientation early, because (1) it’s what Hermione would do, and (2) I needed to stop by the Registrar. I still have undergraduate loans, so I have been trying to get those all set before I begin paying interest on my un-subsidized graduate loans (un-subsidized means that interest accrues while I am in school). My undergraduate loans are subsidized and Perkins (both Federal), so you’d think it would be simple, but the loan websites are not very clear on how to defer payments – many forms and little instruction. Until Leslie Knope becomes President, this is…
Mixing Introversion and Group Projects
Posted September 24, 2015 by Tara Pealer
I come from a family of extroverts. They’re loud, they’re fun, and they’re friendly. They’ll stop to talk to you on the street. They’ll have a conversation on the train with a stranger. They’ll do their best to make you feel included. I’m an introvert. (Buzzfeed keeps insisting that I’m an ambivert. But it also once sorted me into Ravenclaw when I’m Pottermore sorted as a Hufflepuff, and huffle-proud of it. So I question the legitimacy of their quizzes.) I don’t believe that you should ever talk to someone on the train, unless you know them. I know that the tried and true New Englander way to say hello to someone on the street is to barely make eye contact and keep walking as you say “Hi-How-Are-You-I’m-Good.” Of course, I’m not alone in this in the library profession. A majority of LIS people are introverted as well, though there are a good deal of extroverts who are wonderful to be around. In my 401 Foundations class, we discussed how the Myers-Briggs test can be used…