SLIS
Wellness Week
Posted December 14, 2021 by Johnna Purchase
This past week LISSA – the student library organization here at SLIS – organized a week of activities to help promote wellness in the run-up to finals. Designed to facilitate relaxation, these bite-sized events were thirty minute moments every evening at 7:30 so that students could break seamlessly without needing the added stress of carving out an entire evening to practice wellness! On Monday, pet-owners and pet-lovers alike gathered to introduce their pets to their SLIS colleagues. Chris, a Ph.D. student studying accessibility in public libraries and LISSA Community Liaison, hosted the event with her two dogs Boomba and Lacey and foster dog Tripp. On Tuesday, students engaged in meditative journaling to reflect on the past semester, set goals for the semester to come, and remind themselves of their “why” for being in the SLIS graduate program. Rosie, LISSA President, provided prompts on dreamy powerpoint slides that participants could journal directly onto while the old at heart wrote out their intentions on paper. Wednesday evening turned physical as Johnna, LISSA VP of Events, helped participants…
SLIS Faculty Finds a Silver Lining to 2020 and Wins Award
Posted November 5, 2021 by Johnna Purchase
Creativity – albeit forced creativity – became the order of the day when teachers and programs pivoted to online learning for the end of the 2020 and the entire 2020-2021 school years. In recognition of the optimism and innovations of the faculty, Simmons dedicated a $10,000 Presidential Grant from the Davis Education Foundation to a Post-Pandemic Innovative Teaching Award, colloquially called the “Silver Linings” Award. Out of more than thirty applications, eighteen faculty members were recognized, including SLIS’s own Professor Lisa Hussey. Professor Hussey was recognized for her implementation of a flipped classroom to foster meaningful remote engagement and to engender class community even from afar. An initial hurdle for Professor Hussey was imagining how to transition her course Reader’s Advisory, built around class discussions of nine novels and the application of genre theory, to a remote setting. Although Professor Hussey had taught other courses virtually, she never imagined this course in a remote learning setting. However, thanks to the success she had with transitioning it online, Professor Hussey plans to offer the class virtually…
Welcome New Blogger – Abbey
Posted October 22, 2021 by Lindsey Clarke
My name is Abbey and I am a first semester student in the Simmons History & Archives Management dual degree program. I grew up in a small town on the Mississippi river. From there, I went away to school at Syracuse University in upstate New York. At Syracuse I studied English Textual Studies and History, and learned to love a long, brutal winter. I got my introduction to archive work while studying abroad in Poland. When in Eastern Europe, I ate many pierogies and fell in love with working with book history materials. The Prohibited Library in Prague, and its collection of censored samizdat papers, inspired me to continue my education with a master’s in Library Science. I had realized that if we did not prioritize looking after the material evidence of history, then who would? I spend my time reading good books and watching bad television. I like stories about haunted houses, running during the fall when the wind is a little too cold, and Taylor Swift. Boston has been my dream city for…
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…
That’s a Wrap!
Posted December 16, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I am almost done with my last paper for the year. I just need to double check that all my citations were done correctly, and then I’ll be all set to turn it in! I had to choose six books (three nonfiction and three fiction) to include in my library’s collection. To do this, I read fiction and nonfiction book reviews from the January 2020 issues of Booklist and School Library Journal. It was a much more daunting task than I had anticipated. A lot of books were reviewed, especially fiction books, and it was overwhelming. Luckily, I printed out the reviews so I could write myself some notes. I highlighted the most important parts of the reviews and noted my overall impressions of whether to book would make a good addition to the collection or not. Otherwise, all the reviews would have run together. I was impressed with the variety of books that were reviewed. There were many genres and books that featured diverse or marginalized voices. I recognized several of the titles, but there were many more that I didn’t know about. I added several books to…
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…
Back to Class
Posted November 23, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
We’ve had some time off from live (Zoom) classes since I last posted, and it’s felt really weird. We had two weeks off—the first week we had off because of the election, and the next week was planned in the syllabus. I’ve gotten really accustomed to the live classes, so not seeing everyone each week has been odd. I know, this is the first live class I’ve taken at Simmons–I should be used to not being in class each week! However, in the absence of live classes, things have been quite busy with some recorded lectures to watch in lieu of being in class, readings to do, and we have two big assignments to work on, not to mention our big semester-long project, as well as registration for Spring 2021! This week marked our return to live classes, and a start to what I consider to be Part Two of LIS 454: Digital Information Services and Providers. Part One was all about learning about different types of databases and search strategies. I’ve briefly spoken about this before, but this was a…
More Statistics!
Posted November 13, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I was introduced to the fascinating and overwhelming world of statistics in my Collections Development class last year. I used data from the US Census and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for an assignment that and got to see a wealth of data about all aspects of libraries. I loved doing that work, so I was thrilled to have another statistics-based assignment for my YA class. This time, I have a new source: the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MDOE). The MDOE has a ton of statistics about public and charter schools in Massachusetts, including a breakdown of student enrollment by race, gender, and ethnicity; the amount of money spent per student and where that money comes from; standardized test results; and average class size. There is also attendance and discipline information, as well as information about advanced coursework opportunities. Each school also has an “accountability profile” which rates it in relation to other schools in the state. This information is very useful, but also very overwhelming. Luckily, the assignment has clear directions of what information is needed. It involves…
Spring Courses!
Posted October 28, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
It may be the end of October, but I’m already thinking about January because the Spring 2021 course list is out! And thus beings my analysis (or over analysis, because I’ll be honest, it could be either one) of all the course listings. First off, LIS 458, Intro to Database Management is indeed being offered online. I’m still undecided about whether I want to give it another chance. I’m leaning towards not taking it, because I don’t think I’m a database person, and because there are a few other options that I think I would enjoy more. There are two classes about digital objects: LIS 448, Digital Stewardship, and LIS 447, Digital Asset Management. I’m not exactly certain what the difference between the two is but they are both taught by the same professor, and I’ll probably send him an email asking for more explanation. I am interested in finding out more about how to manage digital collections, because I took LIS 462, Digital Libraries, last year and really enjoyed it. But that was about creating a digital library, not about managing…