Do Grades Matter?
Posted April 27, 2013 by Maggie Davidov
As I check Moodle like a fanatic, waiting for the final verdict on my grades for this semester, I am reminded of a talk my professor had with my class a month or two ago when all of my classmates and I thought we were going to fail. We had all just received sub-standard grades for literature reviews. For most of us, this had been the first time we had written a literature review and its vastness was terrifying. Our professor described our journey to this paper’s end product like a walk in an unfamiliar wood: every time we turn the corner we should expect to find more woods, an ever deepening void of nothingness. As I said: TERRIFYING! My professor, who shall remain nameless, indicated that it didn’t matter what grades we got. At that point there was a collective sharp intake of breath. Grades don’t matter?! What! Of course grades matter. This is what I assume was the general mutterings or internal protestations of the group. Grades matter because we all want to…
Time Flies When You’re Having Fun
Posted April 26, 2013 by Emily Boyd
It seems like only yesterday I was starting my first day at GSLIS. This semester has flown by and left me invigorated to learn more. All four classes I took this semester have reassured me that the GSLIS program is absolutely the right place for me and I can’t wait to see what the future holds. I started this semester with no friends in the program, very little knowledge of the library profession, and no specific academic focus. Only a few months later, I am finishing my first semester with good grades in all my classes (fingers crossed!), a great group of friends, and a decision to focus on public libraries. When I first started classes in January, I had no idea how much my life was about to change. I leave for Rome in just under a month and could not be more excited. In addition to taking three classes in the fall and continuing to write for this blog, I have also accepted a leadership position in a student organization. I have been…
What’s the name of that book…?
Posted April 24, 2013 by Julie Steenson
Working in a public library, I often have requests for a book with an unknown title. These requests come in many varieties. A few of my favorites are listed below. It has a brown cover, sort of, is about this thick (patron displays width with fingers), and has an Indian on the front. Answer: The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks It is blue and was sitting right here on the New Shelf when I saw it about three weeks ago. Answer: Benediction by Kent Haruf I am looking for a book I read as a kid in the 1940s – it had a train and some kids…and they passed messages with the conductor or something… Answer: The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit We listened to an audiobook a while ago – it had some weird clock and something to do with eyes…and there might have been gypsies or something like that… Answer: The Cabinet of Wonders by Marie Rutkoski I love these kinds of questions. I heard today about another local library…
GSLIS is great, and everything. But let’s talk about Community.
Posted April 23, 2013 by Carolyn Lucas
There have been a lot of events going on at the main Simmons Campus this week. On April 15, Boston experienced two bombs that rocked the famous Boston Marathon. Then, just this past Thursday and Friday, there was a city – district? – wide manhunt for the two suspects. I personally live in the Cambridge area, very near MIT. My husband works at the Whitehead Building, only a block away from where the valiant MIT Police Officer, Sean Collier, lost his life. I was terrified – my husband was still at work when MIT was put on lockdown – and I felt helpless and confused. Of course, eventually the manhunt was relocated to Watertown with a whole other set of terrors. But you all know the story of what went down recently – I want to talk about all of Boston’s reaction to it, and more specifically how Simmons reacted. Community is a strong word. Community, in my mind, evokes thoughts about people holding hands and having a strong bond tied to a location or…
Boston Strong
Posted April 22, 2013 by Sarah Barton
I am neither eloquent nor competent enough to put into words the thoughts, fears, feelings, and emotions that I experienced last week during and in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt. It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes something this tragic and senseless to bring out the best in people, but Boston responded with the heart and spirit of a city that will not let this tragedy define one of its greatest traditions. If anything, the marathon will come back stronger next year. Boston Strong(er).
Information Overload
Posted April 21, 2013 by lazylibrarian
The whole world knows what happened in Boston this past week. I don’t wish to ruminate on the agonies, rather focus on the lessons. As common with tragedies, there are many. One that I came across, that might seem minor in the scheme of human suffering this week, nevertheless is the one I want to focus on because of its tie-in to library science. There has been much media coverage over the “social media aspect” of the Boston Marathon Bombing and in the horrific misidentification of the suspects in the New York Post but even before the New York Post coverpage there were thousands of people on Reddit and other websites trying to solve the crime like amateur Sherlock Holmes. I do believe their intentions were good but more and more I saw links to the supposed Twitter of the suspects, their Facebook, statements such as “if this is the same so and so then they worked here” or “if this is the same guy he won this award in the year X”. We’ve already…
World Book Night
Posted April 20, 2013 by Maggie Davidov
What a week this has been! I’m overwhelmed with relief, grief, exhaustion, and patriotism. It’s been a week. Incidentally, aside from being the week of the Boston Marathon Bombing, this week was also Library Appreciation Week, and this Thursday was also Poem in Your Pocket Day. How I wanted to celebrate these holidays. Yet they slipped through my fingers, and got away from me. Today, as we breathe a collective sigh and remember what’s important in life I’d like to point out another way to celebrate books, Boston and general well being. Next Tuesday evening, as you’re walking home from school or work keep an eye out for the ladies and gentlemen giving away free books in celebration of World Book Night. While April 23rd (this Tuesday) is UNESCO’s Day of the Book as well as Shakespeare’s birthday the people of World Book Night give away books, donated by a variety of authors, to promote the love of reading. This program is only 2 years old! It’s free to sign up to be a distributer…
How to Have a Job after Graduation
Posted April 16, 2013 by Carolyn Lucas
As I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the things that bugged me the most about my undergraduate experience was the lack of support when they pushed you forth into the world. When people inevitably ask me what I like the most about Simmons, my answer is always the same: while I love many of the classes and professors, and the students are some of the sweetest and brightest I have ever met, I feel that the support Simmons offers to its students in terms of employment is one of the best things a school can do. Simmons is great in that you enter this program knowing that you would like to be employed at the end of it – and you get employment support from the moment you enter orientation. In the Archives Concentration you are automatically enrolled in two internships – one 60-hour, and one 130-hour – that provide you with experience in an actual archive. These internships often provide invaluable networking experience, and more often than not the repositories ask the…
Marathon Monday
Posted April 15, 2013 by Sarah Barton
Forgive me for writing about sports for a second consecutive week, but the Boston Marathon is kind of a big deal. The Boston Athletic Association claims that in terms of media coverage, the Boston Marathon ranks behind only the Super Bowl as the largest single day sporting event in the world. Yowzer. As I wrote at this time last year, I love watching the marathon, and it is another unique Boston experience. Simmons is about a mile from Mile 25 of the marathon, where Beacon Street and Commonwealth Ave will be absolutely packed with people cheering for runners as they gut out the last few miles through Brookline and Boston. Today is Patriots’ Day, which is only a holiday in Massachusetts and Maine (although for some reason in Maine they move the apostrophe and call it Patriot’s Day), so many people either have or take the day off to witness thousands of people running. Watching people run sounds fairly boring, but the emotion and camaraderie are palpable. You have to be there. This is not…
How Libraries Changed Me
Posted April 14, 2013 by lazylibrarian
So I came across this wonderful article entitled Five Times a Library Changed Me and began to think about how the library had changed my life, outside of you know, wanting to be a librarian. I went to a pretty small private school where everyone knew everyone and what you could or could not do. I wasn’t good at sports, was too scared to sing or play an instrument in front of people and was too much of a rule-follower to be known as a rebel or class clown. But I found my little niche in books and specifically in the library. I was the girl who held the record in Mrs. Johnson’s first grade reading contest, the girl who received permission to take out the “adult” books (this was a Christian school, that just meant regular adult-level books), the girl who organized everyone’s classroom libraries and the girl who was always picked to read devotions (again, it’s a Christian school) for the class every morning. But the greatest thing of all was being the…