Filling the Big Shoes
Posted September 19, 2012 by Julie Steenson
Last week, I did some marketing of my town library at the local elementary school Back-to-School night. I was lunching with coworkers a few days later, chatting about the event, and someone remarked, “No one likes the new principal.” Someone else replied, “No one ever likes anyone new, and he has very big shoes to fill. Mr. Brown was so popular and was here for twenty years!” This struck home when another staff member turned to the guest of honor of our luncheon, our departing daytime librarian who was going off to bigger and better things, and said, “Now, remember, if you don’t like it there, you can always come back!” This was met with enthusiasm by our little crowd. Ouch. Since I was the one filling the soon-to-be vacant position and moving from nights to this better day job, with more responsibilities, I felt a little bit like my entire library team had just announced my second-best status and expendability. Thanks, guys, that makes me feel great. Lest you all think I am a…
Library Lesson Learned
Posted September 17, 2012 by Sarah Barton
The other day at work I was shelving books when a woman asked if I work there. Eager to be helpful and put my developing library wisdom to use, I said yes. She said that her daughter, who was there with her, had just finished The Trumpet of the Swan and was looking for other books by E.B. White. I asked if she had read Stuart Little or Charlotte’s Web, and she said yes. I think my next utterance was something along the lines of “ok…hmm.” The girl then proceeded to give an effusive summary of The Trumpet of the Swan, hoping that I could come up with another book that she might like. I don’t know much about children’s literature, and suggested that she ask the children’s librarian. Needless to say, my first official readers’ advisory opportunity was a total bust. In my reference class last semester we talked about readers’ advisory resources, so I know they are out there. But in that moment, with the girl looking longingly at me as I struggled…
Archivists in Library School
Posted September 16, 2012 by Danielle Geller
Last week, I briefly mentioned that I decided I no longer wanted to pursue my Masters in History (at this time!), and I will be focusing solely on my Archives Management concentration. I made this decision due to a number of factors, including cost and time constraints, but also a desire to just get out there and work. The reason that the decision wasn’t easy for me to make is because I truly believe that history as a discipline has a lot to contribute to the way that archivists think about archives. There are a number of articles out there that talk about the intersection of history and LIS departments and the subsequent evolution of archival education in the US. (Joseph M. Turrini published an article titled “From History to Library and Information Science: A Case Study of Archival Education at Wayne State University” in Information & Culture: A Journal of History this summer, which is available through ProjectMUSE. For our archivists in training, you can find an abbreviated version of his discussion here). Due to…
A Report on My Summer Classes
Posted September 15, 2012 by dunhame
I’ve been absent from the blogosphere for quite some time now–it doesn’t feel at all like over a month has gone by, but that seems to be the case! Last you heard from me, I was finishing up my summer semester. I had just a few weeks to recover from that and am already embarking on semester #4. I don’t believe I ever reported to this blog about my summer classes, so I will take the opportunity to do that now! This past summer I decided to take my final two core courses: LIS 403 (Evaluation of Information Services) and LIS 488 (Technology for Information Professionals). It was, in a word, intense, to complete 6 credit hours-worth of work in 6 weeks. They went by in a blur, but I was able to walk away from them with some useful information and some marketable skills. In Evaluation, we learned some of the basic theory and technique about conducting action research studies in information environments. The final project consisted of developing a research proposal for a…
It’s Good to Be Back
Posted September 14, 2012 by Maya Bery
School is back in session, and though we’re only in the second week of the semester, December seems frighteningly close. Maybe it’s because I’m on a fairly strict deadline of when materials need to be due for my second teaching practicum experience, but there really is not that much time. But that’s not the point of this post. This post is to revel in how nice it is to be back in a school environment, doing my librarian thing. I have so far spent two days at my practicum site, and I’m already brimming with ideas and glowing with some successes from yesterday. An 11th grade science class had come in to do preliminary research for their science fair projects. The librarian I’m working with did a quick overview of Dewey, and then they were off to the stacks. Some students knew immediately what they were looking for, others grabbed books on science experiments and sat down to review their choices. But a few students looked puzzled, so I seized the chance to…
GSLIS West Book Swap
Posted September 13, 2012 by cdelnero
Even to those of us not swimming in student loans, money is often on our minds at the start of a new semester. With the cost of tuition, school supplies and transportation, the cost of books added to that can take a toll on our wallets! Most of us here at GSLIS West feel defeated by the outrageous cost of course materials. We buy over-priced, crummy copies of used books on Amazon.com or attempt to rent copies (which honestly doesn’t save us that much money). I’ve known students who go without required texts because of the cost. This fall, students are solving this problem with the first GSLIS West Book Sale/Swap. The idea is for all of us to come together and trade or sell our used books. Like many students, the text books of past courses are sitting like grave stones on my bookshelf, collecting dust. So today I lugged them to the GSLIS West office and sold two of them to students in need. I made a couple extra bucks, and the other…
The Tale of Two Campuses
Posted September 12, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I started my Simmons GSLIS career on beautiful West campus, at Mount Holyoke College. It was a long, two and a half hour drive, but other than a few dicey snowstorms, the commute through the meandering hills of NH and Massachusetts was a pleasant one. I enjoyed many great books on my MP3 player during the commute, and the faculty and students at GSLIS West were (and still are) a brilliant and supportive bunch. I had two classes that took place on campus and one online…I will blame my online one, with a remarkable Boston professor, for what happened next. Boston? I got it in my head to take advantage of ALL Simmons had to offer a library science student. Was I missing something by being on only one campus? Or is the choice simply one of geography? I decided to find out. So, last Saturday I attended my Database Management class on West campus, taught by a library professional and professor from Harvard (who also teaches the class in Boston), and on Monday, I…
Begin Year Two
Posted September 11, 2012 by Danielle Geller
I’ve been making a lot of trips back and forth between Boston, D.C., and my hometown in Pennsylvania since the end of my internship at the Smithsonian’s NMAI, and I feel like classes crept up on me out of nowhere. I decided to take three classes this semester (instead of two last year) in the hopes that I can finish my degree a little faster. I’m scheduled to take Access and Use; Records Management, and Establishing Archives and Manuscript Programs, and I’m really looking forward to them. I decided not to continue working towards my Masters in History, so I’m down to just the Archives Management concentration. I had a really great talk with my advisor, who was able to address all of my concerns and fears. I’m a much different person than I was when I first enrolled at Simmons, and a lot of my goals have changed. I may pursue a Masters in History somewhere further down the line, and I actually have a ton of ideas for my thesis, but I’ll probably…
Don’t Fear the Syllabus
Posted September 10, 2012 by Sarah Barton
One of my biggest issues at the beginning of the semester is that I get myself into a tizzy when the professor goes over the syllabus. I get all worked up about the assignments, even the ones that are due sometime in November. “How am I ever going to have that paper done before Thanksgiving?!” should not be a concern in early September. Thankfully, after the first class I never again need to look at the syllabus as a whole. Instead, it becomes a week-by-week guideline, which just seems so much more manageable. Once the semester gets going, everything more or less falls into place. Readings get read, papers get written, and assignments get done. Sometimes it’s all a blur, and sometimes I decidedly labor over things that are miniscule in the scheme of things. For example, when posting to online class discussion forums I have been known to incorporate parallel structure, consult a thesaurus, and vacillate between using a semicolon or a dash. (Note: the posts are almost never graded on content and never…
Another Semester Begins…
Posted September 7, 2012 by Maya Bery
It’s hard to believe the semester’s start is already upon us. Just yesterday, it seems, I was luxuriating in the post-semester haze of sleep and excitement for a full summer that stretched in front of me, gloriously empty. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way (for the better), but I’m back and ready to take on my second round of practicum teaching (HS level), and my VERY LAST GSLIS CLASS EVER! Ahem. It’s the last of the required “core” classes, Evaluation of Information Services, which should hopefully prove interesting as well as giving me my annual exposure to people outside the SLT program. Yet, even though the semester hasn’t officially begun yet, things are already in motion. The fabulous new officers of the MSLA-SIG group are hard at work, preparing for the back-to-school introductory meeting, I will be on campus in two short hours to share my practicum experience, tips and tricks learned to the newest crop of first-time practicum students, and my own practicum meetings with my cooperating librarian and practicum supervisor are…