Last semester… OH NO!
Posted February 16, 2011 by homerj
The semester is in full swing and I thought I would write about some of the classes I am taking. I have already finished my requirements and now I get to pick some electives! This is my last semester here at GSLIS (and I am devastated) and I am taking three (3) classes to close out my Masters of Science in Library and Information Science. Class 1: Medical Libraries I am very much interested in Special Libraries (my career goals involve government libraries). Medical Libraries sounded immensely interesting and was recommended to me by a number of GSLIS Alums. We are a few weeks into the class and I love it. Everything about Medical Libraries is interesting. We just took a field trip (yes this building is on the same street as the Palace Road building but still it was a grad school field trip!) to the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences Library. There we spoke to the director of the library and its head of reference services. It was interesting to…
Ripped from the Metro… Libraries Are Invisible
Posted February 7, 2011 by fox32
Had not thought of this point recently raised by Marilyn Johnson (author of This Book is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All) but worth noting, and potentially tough to reverse. Libraries are invisible to people in power. Politicians [and corporate bodies generally i would say -ed.] have their own research staffs and IT support and newspaper subscriptions; they dont see how dependent the rest of us are on that shared information. –Marilyn Johnson Endnote: I always come back to a quote from my tutor Alan Smith, worth repeating; “Show me a town that denies funding to a library, and I’ll show you a librarian who stays in the office. Show me a town that funds its library, and I’ll show you a librarian who takes donuts down to the fire department. Who goes down to the city hall and goes into offices asking if they need anything. You have to be proactive. It might come as a shock to some of you, but a large part of the success of that library…
GSLIS Mixer and Trivia
Posted February 7, 2011 by homerj
On Friday LISSA (Library and Information Science Student Association) had a GSLIS Mixer and Trivia night at the Bell in Hand Tavern here in Boston. LISSA is a student group you are automatically entered in once you start here at Simmons GSLIS and they plan different types of events, everything from Guest Speakers to Trivia nights. Let’s just state that my group had the best name of the night. I had some pretty funny names (being somewhat of a trivia connoisseur) but we decided to go with “This is how we Dewey it” (which I thought was weak to my other suggestion: “Junk in the truncation” [which is hysterical I might add]) but majority rules and we went with Dewey. Clearly we won the name contest. Then the trivia began. What do you ask a bunch of Library Science students you ask? Oh just some facts about Libraries/Librarians. The first round asked pop culture related questions. One such example is the quote: “Look, I… I may not be an explorer, or an adventurer, or a…
Walkin’ in a winter wonderland
Posted February 2, 2011 by turcios
I commute to school and work on the T and/or the bus. This means some walking and standing around waiting for a bus or T in the elements, while carrying around my daily essentials: coffee, water, food, reading materials for school and for fun, and sometimes my gym clothes. And as my fellow bloggers have all mentioned, we’ve been getting crazy amounts of snow lately. If you plan on commuting too, you might want to think about investing in a few things to get you through the snowy, slushy wonderland. 1) You’re gonna need a good, waterproof backpack. Not a shoulder bag. Shoulder bags are fine when the weather’s warmer or when there isn’t any slush, snow, or ice on the ground, but on a snowy day it just becomes something else that might throw you off balance. A good backpack with lots of compartments, including those side mesh pockets for easy access to your water bottle or coffee mug, has worked really well for me. 2) Good waterproof boots with textured soles. Uggs are…
A great big balancing act
Posted February 1, 2011 by labrecql
In the Fall 2010 semester, my student loans allowed me to pay for the mandatory health insurance not only for me, but for my husband and 17-month-old son as well. Thats a pretty big chunk of change, but the insurance covers a calendar year, and I was able to take two classes with the money left over. Since I dont have that expense in the Spring 2011 semester, Ive taken on a third class, and boy, does my plate feel full! Ive got Picture Book and Childrens Lit and Media Collections back to back on Mondays thats six straight hours and Management on Wednesdays. For me, the LIS courses come naturally, because theyre about doing, and they train me to accomplish something practical, but the CHL classes are much more challenging in that I must force my brain into academic/analytic mode. Im more comfortable there than I was last semester (CHL 401 whipped me into shape pretty well), but I still find it hard to get those gears turning. I feel so…
Posted January 31, 2011 by homerj
It is my last semester and I am seriously kicking myself in the rear for not applying for more school because I really do not want to be a grown up. (Yes, I realize the fact that I am 24 and therefore an adult but as long as I am in school I can be in denial.) Now that the semester is underway, I need to start seriously applying for jobs. So I thought I would share some solid websites/listservs and job hunting venues with you. ALA JobList: http://joblist.ala.org/ This is the American Library Association job site and contains up-to-date job openings. My favorite part of this website is the face that I like them on facebook. The facebook page posts dozens of different links, blogs and articles all around the topic of finding a job. I have read some seriously helpful information from this website and facebook. For Massachusetts the Library Board of Commissioners maintains a job listing database here: http://mblc.state.ma.us/jobs/index.php. This is helpful for professional and pre-professional roles. (It is always a good…
This Southern girl is out of her element
Posted January 26, 2011 by holdenjr
I just got back from winter vacation last week, and while I am so happy to be in beautiful Boston again the weather is testing my courage and endurance. When I left for the (what I hoped would be) warm, sunny climes of Athens, GA over a month ago it had not yet snowed here. The roads and sidewalks were still dry and ice-free and I could still prance around without fear of slipping. The city was all decked out in lights and it hadnt gotten very cold yet. I was in great spirits and I got home expecting a nice, warm, green Georgia Christmas. Instead, my hometown got three inches of snow on December 25 (three inches is a BIG deal down there!), only the second time in Athenss recorded history that it had snowed on Christmas (the first time was in 1993). It was Atlantas first white Christmas since 1882 when Chester Arthur was president. We were all very excited to see the snow we built snowmen, threw snowballs at each other,…
Children’s Literacy Foundation
Posted January 25, 2011 by fox32
The Childrens Literacy Foundation (CLiF) serves more than 350 communities across every region of Vermont and New Hampshire with the goal of nurturing a love of reading and writing in children. They focus on children from birth to age 12, especially rural and at-risk children. Further reading. I have written about book donation programs on my personal blog before but CLiF also does in-class author readings and workshops and more. Just to be clear, I have no connection to these guys, but this aligns with many of my interests. CLiF’s programs are supported entirely by donations from individuals, companies, foundations, and social organizations… Great, so what?? Well, for anyone who has a connection to an elementary school or library in New Hampshire or Vermont, tell your librarian or a local teacher about these two 2011 grants provided by CLiF; Author/Illustrator Visits or Writer-in-Residence Grants New Hampshire and Vermont elementary schools looking for a free author visit to their school should check out these two simple grant applications. Have an author visit your school and give…
Life after GSLIS, aka “Finding a Job”
Posted January 25, 2011 by Colleen Mahoney
Hi everyone! Remember me? Your long-lost GSLIS blogger from last year? And you thought you were rid of me (ha!) I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite awhile, but in the midst of finishing my thesis for the history side of my archives/history dual degree, finding a job, getting a job, and moving for that job, it just hasn’t happened until now. And I think it’s about something pretty important–what happens after you finish your degree from Simmons GSLIS? For me, finding a job was a lot easier than I expected it to be. We all know that the economy is not the greatest right now, and things like libraries, archives, and museums have been especially hard hit. I found that the key to finding a job was research, research, research. I spent about an hour every day just looking for new job postings. My favorite places to look: GSLIS Jobs & Opportunities – A job listing site run by Simmons GSLIS. This one has a lot of preprofessional and volunteer jobs, as…
It’s colder than the Arctic Circle – but not for long.
Posted January 24, 2011 by Christine Leland
Yes, really…Jason’s post last week was not that far off-base in terms of weather in Boston this winter. This morning Boston.com reported that the temperature in the city at 8:00AM (-2 degrees Fahrenheit) was colder than at the same time in Murmansk, Russia, the northernmost city in the Arctic Circle (6 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s chilly no matter which city you happened to be in at the time! That said, Boston is not ALWAYS this cold, nor does it (thankfully) stay this cold for long. As of this time tomorrow we’ll be enjoying temps in the mid-thirties, a welcome change. Weather like this tests your patience but mostly it gives you a good story to tell in the future – and I’m sure everyone has heard rumors about hearty New Englanders (“I trudged 8 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways…”). While I certainly never had to walk 8 miles to school, I’ve lived here all my life and temperatures like this come along only rarely. In the meantime, I’m surviving by watching for…