Welcome Elizabeth!
Posted April 8, 2022 by Lindsey Clarke
We have another new blogger joining the team! Be on the lookout for Elizabeth’s first post next week. Elizabeth Poland is a graduate student in the Cultural Heritage Informatics concentration here at Simmons SLIS. She great up in southern Connecticut, and loved reading, writing, and creating all different kinds of art. In 2020, she received a BA from the University of Connecticut in Art History, with minors in Studio Art and English. After working in museum education at Old Sturbridge Village in central Massachusetts, she knew she wanted to dive deeper into the inner workings of museum collections. Her goal is to combine her passion for history with hands-on approaches in a career in collection or preservation management. In her free time she loves to hike long distances, sew her own clothes, and paint portraits of people’s pets. Since moving to Boston, she has also been able to easily take peaceful walks through local museums, absorbing all that the city’s cultural heritage institutions have to offer. Welcome Elizabeth!
Assignments and Resumes
Posted April 5, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Now is the time in the semester where everything is busy and lots of assignments are due. These past few weeks since coming back from spring break I have had at least one major assignment due each week. It has been a little stressful and certainly busy. But even so, the amount of pride and excitement I get when I finish these assignments is great. I always feel so much more accomplished than I did going into them and often, I am much more confident of my own skills on whatever the topic may have been, from metadata to programming to book reviews. It is a wonderful sense to become more confident and surer in my abilities. This is also the case with me polishing up my career materials as I creep closer to graduation. One of the ways I did this was by attending the Resume Revamp hosted by SLA this week. I was a great event hosted by the Special Library Association Student Chapter at Simmons where they connected students who submitted resumes…
Spring Sprint
Posted April 4, 2022 by Abbey Metzler
From the basket of laundry next to my bed, to the hundreds of unread and unorganized emails in my inbox, the evidence of this semester’s time crunch is everywhere I look. The workload from my first semester at SLIS didn’t feel like a particularly far jump from the end of my undergraduate career. The reading was heavy, and the papers forced me to slow down and remember back to the kind of academic writing I hadn’t practiced in the year I took between my graduation from Syracuse and starting at Simmons. The three classes did keep me buzzing from one day to the next. But, in a mid-March reflection, I’m realizing now that this semester has been a whole other beast. I run, often literally, from work, to class, to my LIS 438 field placement. Each of these pieces to my schedule is vital. I can’t miss class, or else then I’ll be behind in content and deadlines. Can’t afford to miss work and still be able to order the delicious food found…
Welcome New Blogger Ivy!
Posted April 1, 2022 by Lindsey Clarke
We have a new blogger joining our team! Ivy is a second year Archives and History dual degree student at Simmons and hopes to work at a university post-graduation. She works as a Student Ambassador and as the Serials Intern at the Boston Athenaeum. In her spare time she loves hiking, petting dogs, and (as many SLIS students can relate) reading and collecting books. Ivy’s blog posts will come rolling in soon. Keep your eyes open for some fun new content!
Spring and the Midway Point
Posted March 21, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
The past few weeks have been your standard Boston spring weather. Beautiful days sometimes going up to even fifty degrees followed by frigid windy days that sting at your face and snow that covers the ground, only to melt in the next few warm days. Meteorologically speaking, it is a strange time, but so is coming back to classes after a weeklong spring break. For all my classes, we have officially passed the midway point. It’s a great feeling and my classes have all been going really well. But it’s also strange to be nearing the end of the semester and, in the grand scheme of things, my time at Simmons. I’m starting to realize how much I will miss my classes. I know that may be strange to say, but I did miss the lectures and discussions last week, and it made me start thinking about the future. But let’s not dwell on melancholy topics. I am truly excited to really start getting into my assignments for the end of the semester. I have…
Spring Break?
Posted March 3, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Next week will be Spring break, and the first one I’ve had since 2016 when I graduated with my BA. It feels almost surreal as I haven’t had one since being an undergrad due to covid. It’s left me wondering exactly what will I do with my time off? Of course, part of me will still be working on some course work. I have some long-term books and projects that are due at the end of the semester that I would like to get a start on. But I also really need to take this time to relax before the end of my last semester kicks into gear. It will be a balancing act. But spring break is always a good midpoint marker and it’s weird to think that this semester is nearly half-way over. It has gone by so fast and has been so great. I hope I can continue to enjoy it as things turn towards the end and get ready for whatever lays ahead for me. But like I said earlier, I…
Garden Archives
Posted March 1, 2022 by Abbey Metzler
Sometimes, the semester is busy and the world is loud. The long and short of this week’s blog post is that I need a distraction… Today’s particular break comes in the form of the Smithsonian Archive of American Gardens. According to their website, the Archive “Collects, preserves, and provides access to visual resources that document the history of gardens in America” and “Inspires new ways of interpreting garden history and design so that America’s rich garden heritage can be better understood, appreciated, and enjoyed today and in the future”. All of these are very noble and worthwhile causes. But really, I turn to this Archive to see some lush, green vignetted photography when Boston is feeling slushy and the rest of the world particularly smokey. The collection seems to be entirely digitized, and can be browsed by state, garden structure/furniture/feature, or by type. Looking for the familiar flora of your home state? How about indulging your pastoral interests with some topiary or trellises? If you’re like me and dream about that herb garden you…
SLIS Townhalls
Posted February 17, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Most of the time when people think about townhalls, espeically now, they are often political events that lead to a lot of talking and side handed comments. But that is never the case with SLIS townhalls. In fact, they are usually the complete opposite. I did not hear about townhalls until I joined SLIS, but not long after, I started to realize how great they are. And last night’s meeting was no exception. For anyone who might not know what a townhall is, traditionally, they are when the voting members of a town meet together in one space and disscuss and vote on issues for their town. I grew up going to many and they have a whole section of literature on them in American politics. If you’re interested in those topics, I highly recommend researching more. SLIS townhall’s follow a similar format, but because we are usually like-minded individuals all associated with SLIS, the usual bad blood between neighbors need not apply. And that’s what makes them so great. While I haven’t always been…
There You Are
Posted February 15, 2022 by Abbey Metzler
Lately when I am not in class at Simmons, it feels like I’m only ever at my job. It isn’t technically a bad feeling in itself. I work, essentially, as records management at a financial firm right off the Boston Commons. When you squint, my job responsibilities look like archival work. I am tasked with taking the old files from my office basement, some older than myself and all slightly funky with various degrees of water damage, and digitizing, organizing, then shredding them. My closest colleague is our network room printer. He is large and one of the more temperamental machines that I have had the pleasure of toiling beside. I don’t do much appraising, just checking that the tax returns are over seven years old before I send them to the document organizer where all files go to die. The problem is that this feeling of constant work is paired with the second semester of graduate school conviction that I am terribly behind everyone else. My work does not have a museum…
A Snowy Boston Day
Posted February 1, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Over the weekend, a huge blizzard hit the area and blanketed everything in snow. I’m a born New Englander, so this weather doesn’t faze me at all. I actually really love all kinds of storms, but especially snowstorms, since you can ski and snowshoe after. But there is always an issue when the snow falls, and if you aren’t used to snow, you may not realize it. Where to put all of it? Snow stays around, especially when it’s cold. And after the storm on Saturday, there’s was a lot of snow that’s wasn’t going anywhere. For me, I simply just strap on my boots, put on my warm jacket, and off I go. Sure, the commute into Boston took longer and the trains had some issues, especially since some plows accidentally took out a few of the crossing guards while cleaning up (oops). But I realized when I got to campus and chatting with fellow students, that my attitude of how normal this is, is not always the case. For the Simmons students who…