Technology
Do you dare?
Posted December 21, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
While I continue my efforts to make myself a well rounded library student I have started to target blogs. I set up my google homepage through my Simmons mail so that I’m alerted to their newest posts etc. As you well know there are a ton of most excellent blogs run by libraries and librarians alike. I love the bloggish library site I work on at my job. In what other job can I spend a good half hour on a well crafted “Hey girl” post, complete with graphic and cuddle speak from the man we all know and love? Really…only in libraries. God, I love my job! In this spirit I comb the web for blogs to inform my studies and my work. Multiple times a blog is shows up in other librarians blogs, exciting webinars cite a guest speaker most commonly known as the daring librarian. She defines her commentary on what works in school libraries as “sweet, snarky freshness”. She’s tech savvy and embraces the massive changes taking place in the…
PIN IT!
Posted December 8, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
Yes, this is about the field of library science. For serious, it is. I promise. It just takes all those pesky listserv emails to a whole other visually pleasing and not annoying dimension. Don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of the idea of sharing and consulting with other professionals in the field when it comes to library questions. But does anyone get tired of the incessant emails? Because I do. Between all the clubs, the Simmons info, the tech lab, and my Moodle classroom forum posts, I’m awash in a sea of email that I must wade through to get to the nuggets of pure gold. As it is officially the holiday season and the end of the semester I am BEAT. I have no patience. All I want is pretty, shiny, sparkling lights and peppermint cocoa and “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?” I want things that make it easier to be inspired.This is how I came to pinterest. Ok, this isn’t how I came to pinterest. There was actually a…
Librarian Olympics and Other Fun
Posted December 5, 2012 by Julie Steenson
We all know that librarians are awesome at bookish endeavors, but time and again, my professors (and my experience) tell me that the ability to unjam a stapler is an extremely important librarian skill. This is right up there with troubleshooting the fax machine, clearing the paper jam in the printer, learning the new phone system, and my most recent nightmare….using the new projector and sound system at the library’s movie night. The problem with all of these minor technical horrors is that one usually must deal with them on the spot, with patrons waiting. Time is of the essence, and well, to be honest, I am spending all this money on a Master’s degree and I don’t enjoy being stumped by a fancy new remote control. It’s embarrassing. What we need is Librarian Olympics! Imagine a convention hall packed with hundreds of different types of copiers, fax machines, and e-readers and teams of librarians competing to troubleshoot the uncooperative machines in the shortest time…The training sessions alone would turn us all into brilliant mechanical…
“Library” Cataloging Experience
Posted October 22, 2012 by Sarah Barton
I thought that cataloging would be my jam. My calling. My future. This assumption, for better or worse, was based on one thing: my iTunes library. Ever since I can remember, I have been militant when it comes to organizing my music. I have carefully constructed playlists by genre (Country, Hip-Hop, Rock, etc.), but I also have some that are not quite so easily categorized, such as “Chill,” “Random,” “Strange,” and “Guitar Hero” (thank you, junior year of college). My basic cataloging method is as follows: For every song in each of my playlists, the “Genre” field in iTunes contains the name of the playlist that the song is in. That way, if a playlist gets accidentally deleted, or I can’t remember whether I put a song in “Strange” or “Chill,” I can easily figure out where it lives. It isn’t sophisticated or foolproof, but it forces me to make deliberate categorizing decisions and gives me peace of mind. One thing that I love about my iTunes library is that many of the choices that…
Librarian Stereotypes
Posted October 21, 2012 by lazylibrarian
So everyone knows the “Marian the Librarian” stereotypes. The big glasses, the bun, the pencil skirt, and the finger always ready to shush you. (If you haven’t seen the Music Man, watch this!) Hopefully, those stereotypes are on the out. In fact there is a great Tumblr called This is What a Librarian Looks Like that shows that librarians are anything but that. One stereotype that seems to persist though at Simmons is that librarians love cats. It has a basis in fact I guess since everyone around me seems obsessed. There are multiple GSLIS professors who use Lol Cats in their powerpoint presentations, my friends spend dinner oohing and aahing over cute animal pictures and even the “Be a Sweetie, Wipe the Seatie” sign in my hall’s bathroom is a kitten…I don’t know, perhaps I have no heart but that is one professional stereotype I do not represent. Cute children? Yes. Puppies? A lot of the time. Cats? Uh, no. Sorry cats. However, I have noticed something interesting about all the librarian friends I’ve…
Instant Gratification
Posted October 13, 2012 by Maggie Davidov
Yes, we live in that kind of culture. Yes, our society demands satisfaction from us RIGHT NOW. I have never been more aware of this need for speed now that I assist 13-year-olds with their research every day of the week. What is it about waiting for answers that makes us so itchy? Has Google gotten THAT good? Have we gotten that lazy? I ask myself these questions as I sit at this reference desk after I’ve had three different students ask me in a matter of 15 minutes what the difference is between reference and reserves, and why in the world they can’t take these books out of the library. I suppose the library does seem antiquated with it’s rules about not being able to take certain books out and only being able to take out only so many books/dvds/cds to a generation of young people who get whatever they want whenever they want it on the world wide web. This younger generation doesn’t want to be limited. They want access…to EVERYTHING. In my…
A Wonderfully Incurable Disease
Posted October 9, 2012 by Julie Steenson
If you haven’t heard of Roy Tennant yet, you will. (No, to my knowledge, he is no relation to David Tennant of Doctor Who fame, although one can’t help but think of how library databases are like the Tardis – bigger on the inside! Sounds like a future post.) Roy Tennant is often quoted for his 2001 statement: “…after all, isn’t it true that only librarians like to search? Everyone else likes to find.” (http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA170458.html) When I first encountered this reading, it made me laugh knowingly before I delved into the meat of the article about cross-database searching. (A great article if you have the time, and he writes a lot of interesting stuff.) You will hear arguments on both sides about how Tenannt’s statement is true or untrue, and in the world of librarian blogging, it has formed a life of its own. I can only speak for myself. I love to search and I love to find, but my desire to search is like an addiction, an incurable reference librarian disease. When anyone…
Dorm Living as a Grad Student
Posted October 7, 2012 by lazylibrarian
Many undergrads cannot wait to get out of the dorms and get their own place, so it almost seems a little backwards to go into the dorms as a grad student…and to stay there for a second year. As all my friends moved into apartments after their first year in GSLIS, I stayed. Not actually by choice, it’s a complicated story but there are some definite good sides. Take for instance, yesterday. I’m a dual degree GSLIS and History student. I am taking a history class this semester that requires watching one film per week. Lucky for me though I never have to hunt them down, the library has them all on reserve. So I’ve gotten into the routine of making Saturday my “movie-watching day”(And when some of the films are 9 and half hours long it really is an all-day affair). I grabbed a coffee and a snack from the café on the academic campus and went to go take out the movie. When the movie is on VHS there is a very nice…
What’s Online?
Posted September 26, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I am having a great new experience this semester, by taking classes on both campuses. As you have all heard me whine just a bit about my lengthy commutes, it is no surprise that a recently minted GSLIS student on the Boston campus asked me, “It’s so far for you…have you tried out the online classes?” The answer is yes, I have now tried online, face-to-face, and blended, and they all have their advantages, but face-to-face is increasingly becoming my favorite. What you get online: Interaction and learning opportunities with faculty who are otherwise too far for you…this could just mean a different campus, but it could also mean a different state or university altogether. Access to classes not offered by Simmons but accepted as part of our Simmons GSLIS degree. Interaction with students you might not otherwise meet. The freedom or burden of managing your own time and schedule – I do think this is both a pro and a con. No commute. What you don’t get online: Morning text messages from your peers…
To Tweet or Not to Tweet?: Using Social Media in the Professional World
Posted June 24, 2012 by dunhame
The title of this post is pretentious and misleading. I’m sure I’m breaking a cardinal rule of blogging by using a title that’s pretentious and misleading. But please bear with me anyway as, rather than producing the manifesto my title implies, I simply attempt to wrangle in all of the thoughts I’ve had about social media lately. As the Webmaster of the Simmons College Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCoSAA), I have taken on the responsibility of maintaining the organization’s social media accounts. As of now, SCoSAA has a Facebook page and a Twitter account. I’ve been thinking a lot about what I need to be doing with these accounts in terms of frequency of updating and content. Prior to taking on this role, I would sometimes get annoyed with how much discussion there was in library literature and online library communities about how to use social media. I snobbishly thought to myself, “Okay, we get it! Everyone knows how to use social media and we all know it’s important. Can we…