Why Forbes is Wrong
Posted July 11, 2012 by Katie Olivo
So, if you haven’t heard about the article Forbes.com released at the beginning of June, you’re about to read all about it. The article is titled “The Best and Worst Master’s Degrees for Jobs” – and guess what is the No. 1 worst Master’s degree according to their “experts?” Library and Information Science. This comes as a shock to me – I’m pretty happy with my education. And after reading the article, I think there are some important things to point out. Obviously, I have a counterargument, but I’m not the only one. ALA President and Simmons GSLIS graduate, Maureen Sullivan, responded to Forbes.com’s claim on July 10th. I’ll pull out a quote from her press release, as it is a great starting point for my personal response – “The profit-centered, corporation-based measures valued by Forbes suggest that pay rates and growth are the only valid reasons for selecting a career or seeking an advanced degree. While it is true that for some individuals these factors are the principal focus, for librarians the primary motivation is job…
Adventures in the Social Law Library Archives
Posted July 8, 2012 by dunhame
My unplanned foray into the world of law librarianship has taken yet another unexpected turn: I’m working in an archives at a law library! A few weeks ago, my supervisor at the Social Law Library told me that, if I wanted to, I could spend a couple of hours each workweek in the Archives. Of course, I said “yes” with no hesitation. As I’ve articulated in a previous post, I’ve found a great deal of professional value in my circulation job at Social Law, even as an archivist-to-be. But I would be a fool if I didn’t jump at this opportunity to squeeze some more relevance out of my pre-professional job. I have quite a task ahead of me when it comes to the Social Law Archives. Due to budget/staff shortages, there is no professional librarian or archivist tasked with managing the Archives. To make matters even more interesting, the Library moved in the early 2000s, and whatever order that had been established in the previous Archives got jumbled up when it moved to the…
Missing June
Posted July 6, 2012 by Danielle Geller
One month down and 5 weeks to go at my internship with the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and I’m really starting to feel the time constraints. I am in the process of compiling a report for the Repatriation Committee Chair of the Board of Trustees that creates a history of Board discussions and actions regarding repatriation since the enabling legislation of 1989 through the present day. I’ve been given access to a lot of confidential information, and I’ve also been given the opportunity to browse through some collections at the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives on the mall!In the middle of all this, I’ve also been assisting the repatriation staff in digitizing and organizing documents in their information management system, Client Profiles. It’s interesting because it’s intended for legal use, but it works really well for their purposes. It’s also capable of syncing Word and Outlook email, so you can link information from multiple points of origin. (You can even upload audio files.) I haven’t really been on the information creation side of things before,…
One of those librarians…
Posted July 3, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I had the recent misfortune to encounter one of “those” librarians in a public library. You know who they are. You have seen them and they are everything we don’t want to be. We are (or want to be) the kind of librarians who are friendly, want to help people, and are happy when the library is busy with swarms of people, and children are making joyful noise. I, for one, am delighted when the book drop is full, the carts need shelving, and a patron with three small children wants to check out a stack of 23 picture books. It means we are alive! We are thriving. But not “those” librarians. They complain when people use the outside book drop during open hours; Apparently they never had small children in the car asleep while doing errands after work. They complain when the library is busy because they really hoped to sneak personal computer time. They delight in informing patrons that they have overdue fines, while they delete fines for themselves. They ignore all opportunities…
Summer of Sarah
Posted June 26, 2012 by Sarah Barton
It is nearly July, and a few people have asked me if I have been busy so far this summer. The answer is yes, provided that vacationing qualifies as being busy. May was busy with volunteering and taking the Corporate Libraries course, and June has been busy with trips to Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and a quaint little New Hampshire lake. So yes, technically I have been busy, even though my time has been increasingly spent vacationing rather than working. I have spent the last three weeks hiking in Santa Barbara, exploring San Francisco, and lounging on an inflatable raft in New Hampshire. It has been glorious, and the gallivanting is set to continue through July with a visit to the Rhode Island shore, a road trip to North and South Carolina, and more inflatable raft time in New Hampshire. While all of this has been, and hopefully will continue to be, wonderful and cultural and relaxing, I must constantly remind myself that this Summer of Sarah is not real life. Coming to terms with…
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…
The Library as a Cool Space
Posted June 22, 2012 by Maya Bery
If you’ve been in Boston the past two days, you know that we have issued in summer with a bang. Record-setting temperatures of the high 90s (with the humidity making it feel like the low 100s) have made people seek cool spaces, whether outdoors in the shade or by a pool, or indoors, in the air-conditioning. Having air-conditioning can often be a life or death matter for people at high risk of heat stroke (the elderly, young children, the infirm, the homeless), but not everyone owns an air-conditioner, or has the means to adequately cool their residence (my own apartment currently has seven fans and a portable AC running). That is why Boston, like many cities, designates places as cooling centers, where people can go and escape from the heat for a few hours. Suggestions include hanging out in shopping malls, movie theaters, museums, or libraries. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m in the first three places, chances are high I’m going to be spending money while staying cool. Great for…
The Library’s Changing Role in the Community
Posted June 20, 2012 by Julie Steenson
I have many career ambitions for my library degree, and to be honest, working in a small, public library is not one of them, but since the opportunity presented itself, here I am. I suddenly find myself at the circulation desk and preparing movie nights for the adult summer reading program. My first library job back in 1993 was in a children’s public library, and I absolutely loved it. If I had had the same opportunities then, I would have become a Children’s Librarian. I did, in fact, check out Simmons in the early 1990s, but as a single mom who lived far from Boston, it didn’t seem realistic at the time. Credible distance learning opportunities like West campus, and online/blended classes did not exist. One of my duties so many years ago was an evening storytime, complete with kids in PJs with teddy bears, usually accompanied by working dads who were having quality time while moms enjoyed an hour or two to themselves after dinner. We had our regular afterschool moms and kids, too,…
Online Classes
Posted June 19, 2012 by Katie Olivo
Now that it’s the end of June, my classes are certainly keeping me busy. I have just a week and a half left of my history course on Race and Media, and I’m in the full swing of my online course – LIS 440: Archival Access and Use. Taking an online class certainly requires some adjustment. Our system, Moodle, is a very easy system to adapt to, but the online environment is a bit different. For the first time, I feel like I am truly in control of how much I learn. Granted, I was always in control of the amount of information I digested or whether or not I did the readings, etc., but this time no one is lecturing to me and I have to read and record the information in a way that I will learn it on my own. It requires more responsibility and thus far, I’m not that sure how I feel about it.
Corporate Librarianship: Selling Out or Buying In?
Posted June 13, 2012 by Sarah Barton
Goodness gracious was that one-week “Corporate Libraries” course a blur. In five days I had to do two short papers and two group presentations, so there was no time for “I’ll do this later.” Maybe that was a sneaky introduction to the “I’m asking you now, but I needed it yesterday” corporate library culture. Based on what I learned from the course, that theory doesn’t seem too far-fetched. [Before I get started, so as not to confuse the “Corporate Libraries” title with the many different types of libraries we learned about, this course could very well be renamed “Special (With a Large Emphasis on Corporate) Libraries.” Just doesn’t have a very nice ring to it.] Two of the most useful things about the course were the field trips and guest speakers. (I know I sound like a middle schooler, but bear with me.) Over the course of the week, we visited three different special libraries and had a number of guest speakers. We also had in-class lectures, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, and readings, but the visits…