A Blizzard, Zombies and a Book Sale: Kingston Part 2
Posted July 18, 2013 by Julie Steenson
I attend a fact-to-face class each Saturday and more often than not, I find myself sharing the latest news from fictitious Kingston. (In case you missed it, read here about this unique online learning opportunity that is part of my Management class. Alternate Reality and Library School) So what have we been up to in Kingston? First there was the Blizzard in June! Yes, the temporal instability leads to some crazy weather, and as much as a blizzard sounds good right now in all this heat, such unexpected disasters require good disaster planning by the town’s LIS organizations to weather the storm. All of our libraries prepared amazing disaster plans for the blizzard, but then also for other unforeseen events like hurricanes, fires, floods, and even a prison riot. And then there was Fourth of July! Of course, our organizations all needed floats in the parade. My organization, The Kingston Correctional Facility Library prepared a float of librarians wearing prison garb, promoting the freedom to read. The Franklin Public Library, another organization in town, created…
Preserving Morris Dancing
Posted July 16, 2013 by lazylibrarian
For the last two months I have been enmeshed in a collection about Morris Dancing. Until two months ago, I did not know such a thing existed. So imagine my great surprise Friday night when I ran into multiple Morris Dancer groups performing on the Common in conjunction with Shakespeare on the Common! I wasn’t even supposed to be there at that time but had absentmindedly gotten off at the wrong T stop and ran into the very people my collection documented! As I stood watching, a woman came up to me and said, “Has anyone told you what this is yet?” She seemed used to having to explain it to passersby. “It’s Morris Dancing!” I said excitedly and she looked at me as if I were the one jumping in the common with bells tied to my shins. Yes! I do know what it is! This led me to a wonderful opportunity to not only talk with her about Morris Dancing and how she came to be involved with it but also about how…
Learning Outside the Classroom
Posted July 13, 2013 by Carolyn Lucas
This summer has been hot, rainy, and is going by fast. And did I mention busy? Yeah, it’s been busy. This summer, as I’ve mentioned in a few previous blog posts, I’m doing a records management internship for Biogen Idec, a biopharmaceutical company located in Kendall Square in Cambridge. And I can already say, just because I’m not taking official classes this summer does not mean the learning has stopped… I find myself every now and again marveling at how I ended up here. When I initially applied to library school, I never thought I would have the opportunity to work in a place like Biogen. It’s one of the aspects that we don’t cover too much on the archives track -archives includes records management, and records management isn’t just for city planning or traditional libraries. Corporations (especially since the Enron debacle) have been tightening the leash on records management. And in this case, more regulations just so happens to equal more jobs. Two of my lovely new co-workers are actually Simmons alumni, which not…
The Fairbanks House
Posted July 10, 2013 by Katie Olivo
This summer, in addition to working a full-time job, I’m working as an intern at the Fairbanks House on Fridays and Saturdays. I’m not taking this internship for credit – I decided not to take any classes this summer as I meant to devote more time to beginning my thesis, but I wanted to make sure my archival skills stayed fresh and if I could land an internship, it would look great on my resume. Well, not only will this experience look great on my resume, but it is quickly turning into something I look forward to each week. I worried that working longer hours Monday through Thursday and then going to an internship on Friday and Saturday would leave me worn out and wishing for more free summer days. This is definitely not the case. Going to the Fairbanks House does not feel like work – I’m having fun, and I’m finding that perhaps working at a historic house is more along the lines of what I want to do with my career. Why?…
Library Lesson Learned IV
Posted July 8, 2013 by Sarah Barton
As much as I am looking forward to having the perfect library job, I am not quite so naïve to think that such a thing will fall into my lap, especially on my first attempt. In fact, I would argue that no job is perfect – there is always something that renders even one’s ideal job just short of utopian. For my current part-time public library job, teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) classes is that something. Now, before the ESL police come knocking down my door, let me clarify a few things: 1) I fully understand that ESL is a crucial program for an urban library population, 2) I have seen firsthand how much the ESL students appreciate the classes, 3) I think it is fantastic that many ESL programs (including the one at my library) are taught by volunteers, and 4) As a strong candidate for an Introvert of the Year award, talking/teaching for two consecutive hours is not really my thing. It’s not you, ESL; it’s me. I dread ESL like…
Sage Advice
Posted July 4, 2013 by Julie Steenson
I wish I could join my peers in talking about trips to Europe or ALA in Chicago, but alas, my summer is being spent working and taking two classes. The rain has washed away many of my herb plantings, but at least the cabbage and onion plants seem happy…as do the weeds. All the warnings that two summer classes would make for an intense experience were true! In my first semester (Jan 2012), I took Technology for Information Professionals (LIS 488) which was initially intimidating and ultimately empowering for a middle-aged career changer like myself. I was a regular user of computers at home, but new advances and I were strangers. In that class, my professor gave us some good advice that I recently shared and used in another class. He encouraged us to use every presentation as an opportunity to try out a new technology. This past weekend, I had to give a presentation in one of my summer classes, User Instruction (LIS 408). I shared this advice with my class as an introduction…
Site Visit
Posted July 1, 2013 by lazylibrarian
I went on my first site visit on Friday. A site visit is a visit to a prospective archives donor to see the size/condition/subject matter of a collection to see if it’s appropriate for the archives before accepting the responsibility to move the entire collection. This visit was half site visit, half social call since the Cambridge History Room had already accepted the collection from this donor and we were only going down to pick up two more boxes she had found. We were to meet the donor at her house in Marshfield, about a 2 hour ride from Cambridge. Once we got off the highway into the little cape towns, it was gorgeous! All those trees! Boston is a lot greener than some cities I’ve been in but you forget the amount of foliage that lies undisturbed right beyond its borders. We saw old farm houses, little town markets, and even a few horses. Our directions, written by the donor (who is an author), told us to take such and such a road “winding…
GSLIS Goes to Rome!
Posted June 28, 2013 by Emily Boyd
Ciao! I’ve been absent from blogging for the last few weeks because I have been on a whirlwind tour of Europe. My travels took me to Rome and the surrounding countryside; including day trips to Florence, the Mediterranean Sea, and a day of wine tasting in Orvieto. After the course ended, I extended my visit further east to Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. I’ve returned to the states inspired, overwhelmed, and reassured once again about how much I love GSLIS. This was the first time Simmons has taken GSLIS students to Rome and while the trip was not without its glitches, overall the experience was wonderful. We stayed in a beautiful neighborhood full of cafes, wine bars, and restaurants and had easy access to all of Rome’s historic sites. Highlights of the trip included our day trips outside of the city, a fabulous tour of the colosseum, and eating my way through the city of Rome. Lest I forget, I should also mention that we were in Rome to take a class. My Intellectual Freedom and…
Drawn to Being Withdrawn
Posted June 24, 2013 by Sarah Barton
I have recently done an unusual amount of reading about solitude while also living a more solitary life than usual – I do not have classes, work less than thirty hours per week, and my significant other is interning in Washington, DC this summer. I am an introvert by nature, so this temporary low-key lifestyle is right up my alley. Any doubts about my chronic introversion were nullified by Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I also read The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Peale (as a counterbalance to The Positive Power of Negative Thinking by Julie Norem, which confirmed that I am quite the defensive pessimist, but that is a whole different story) and this speech by William Deresciwicz, both of which touch upon the importance of solitude and reflection in developing one’s thoughts and cultivating one’s best self. Over the past two weeks I have spent a bulk of my free time reading and writing instead of watching TV and socializing, and it has…
Busy, busy, busy!
Posted June 20, 2013 by lazylibrarian
You’d think summer would be less stressful….but no. I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off. New job, new internship, new apartment, new bank account, even a new boyfriend. Breathe in, breathe out. But my internship is so much fun! I’m in the midst of planning two exhibits, both based on the same collection. Today, I worked on the second one which is going to trace how a children’s book is published since we have all the steps represented in the collection. Notes, contracts, illustrations, mock-ups, royalty checks! So cool! But I also got to see some other sides of the archives today. Wednesday is our “late” day. The archive is open from 5-9 instead of the regular earlier time frame so that people who work full-time can have a chance to stop by. That makes it a little more busy than usual. Today we had three patrons in the room at the same time! That might not sound too amazing, but the manuscript portion of the collection is very small since…