An Ode to Western Mass.
Posted November 8, 2021 by Erin Finn
Western Massachusetts is one of my favorite areas to explore in my free time! Maybe I’m a bit biased as I grew up here, but it’s an area rich with history, the arts, beautiful scenery, and plenty of other things to see and do. If you are a student at SLIS West, whether new to the area or visiting to take a library course on the Mount Holyoke campus for the first time, here are some of my recommendations of things to do in the surrounding area near the SLIS West campus! If you enjoy being out in nature, whether that be biking, hiking, walking, or your preferred nature activity, there are many trails and conservation sites to spend some time basking in the outdoors. My personal favorites are the following: Hiking up to the Summit House on top of Mt. Holyoke (if you want to see the beautiful views of the valley, but can’t do the hike, you can drive and park at the top when the road is open). Check out the view…
SLIS Faculty Finds a Silver Lining to 2020 and Wins Award
Posted November 5, 2021 by Johnna Purchase
Creativity – albeit forced creativity – became the order of the day when teachers and programs pivoted to online learning for the end of the 2020 and the entire 2020-2021 school years. In recognition of the optimism and innovations of the faculty, Simmons dedicated a $10,000 Presidential Grant from the Davis Education Foundation to a Post-Pandemic Innovative Teaching Award, colloquially called the “Silver Linings” Award. Out of more than thirty applications, eighteen faculty members were recognized, including SLIS’s own Professor Lisa Hussey. Professor Hussey was recognized for her implementation of a flipped classroom to foster meaningful remote engagement and to engender class community even from afar. An initial hurdle for Professor Hussey was imagining how to transition her course Reader’s Advisory, built around class discussions of nine novels and the application of genre theory, to a remote setting. Although Professor Hussey had taught other courses virtually, she never imagined this course in a remote learning setting. However, thanks to the success she had with transitioning it online, Professor Hussey plans to offer the class virtually…
One Simmons and New York State of Mind
Posted November 2, 2021 by William Crouch
Alright so I’m finally getting around to our ONE Simmons project. You can probably read more about this here but I’d like to discuss a little more about the student experience with having things a little messy on campus currently. Since I came back in September, the major changes to campus have taken some getting used to, but I’ve learned to navigate my way around the campus. Classes are a little more all over the place currently with some LIS classes in Lefavour, some in the Palace Road building, and some in the Management Building. While I won’t get to be here when it is all said and done, I’m expecting that once the library has opened back up in its proper place, then things will settle down a little more. Speaking of, as someone who has needed to heavily rely on the library’s resources this semester because of my thesis, I’ve been impressed with how they have problem solved effectively with such a reduced space. InterLibrary Loan is still active and has been a…
Welcome New Blogger – Erin
Posted November 2, 2021 by Lindsey Clarke
Hi everyone! I’m Erin, and this is my first semester in the DYO program at Simmons, where I’m studying at SLIS West. I grew up in Massachusetts, western Mass. to be exact! I’m quite happy to be back in the area for graduate school. I did my undergraduate studies all the way in northern New York at the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam, where I studied Flute Performance as well as some Music Business. I’ve always loved libraries and books, but what really spurred my interest into thinking about librarianship as a career path was a library and education internship I did at Goodspeed Musicals in their Scherer Library of Musical Theatre (located in Connecticut!). I learned so much from that experience, and it really planted the seed in my head of combining two of the things that I love, music and libraries. And here I am now! Outside of grad school, I spend much of my time with music, in one form or another. These days I play the flute for fun….
Taking a Moment to Enjoy the Semester
Posted October 28, 2021 by Bryanne McArdle
It feels like only yesterday that the semester started, even though I know that’s not the case. I could get into the semantics of how short in reality a semester is, usually a mere 14 weeks, and how much shorter seven weeks are. But debating time and how long (or what it is really) doesn’t have much of a place on a Library and Information School blog. Unless we’re discussing the concepts of cataloging or creating dates for Metadata. This is the first semester that I have had an on-campus course, mainly due to the pandemic. Last year they were all online and mostly asynchronous, with the exception of one that had a synchronous lecture via Zoom. And while it was not how I originally intended to study for my MLIS, I wasn’t too bothered by it. I had always intended to take a mix of online and in-person courses as I wanted to continue working a day-job while working towards my degree, the pandemic just made me change the percentage I envisioned with more…
Half-Time
Posted October 25, 2021 by Abbey Metzler
In October, I know how I am supposed to be spending my weekends. I’m not talking about the fabled New England leaf peeping or the apple and pumpkin picking we wait all year for. I mean that mid semester rush of projects and presentations and paper deadlines that loom large over the first half of the class and rush to arrive before any of us know it. The midterm season in graduate school is less defined than its undergraduate counterpart. While I used to have midpoint tests to look forward to, now my calendar is filled with a handful of assignments worth increasingly more percentages of my total class grades. It’s less a midterm schedule and more a mounting panic at how quickly the semester runs by. I spent the first few weeks at Simmons feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. And now, I wonder if it is worth bringing my laptop to work with me so I can look for entries for my next paper’s bibliography on my commute home. With my mental and…
Confessions of a Library Card Holder
Posted October 22, 2021 by Abbey Metzler
Reader, I have a confession. I, a Simmons Library and Information Science master’s student, have lived in Boston for over half a year now without getting my Boston Public Library card. The shock! The horror. I can hear the admonishments now. But maybe you, like me, moved to a new city during this time of great lockdown and weren’t sure how libraries were available to us with their front doors firmly closed and sanitized. That is why I write to tell you of my own journey for the little plastic card and the membership it represents. I decided to remedy my lapse in patronship during one of my library science classes. No, I won’t tell which one. It’s my first semester here and I want to make a good, attentive first impression on Simmons’ venerable professors. In said unnamed class, I pulled up the BPL website and found the page for their eCard registration. The eCard is available for anyone who lives or works in Massachusetts, even if you are only here part of…
Welcome New Blogger – Abbey
Posted October 22, 2021 by Lindsey Clarke
My name is Abbey and I am a first semester student in the Simmons History & Archives Management dual degree program. I grew up in a small town on the Mississippi river. From there, I went away to school at Syracuse University in upstate New York. At Syracuse I studied English Textual Studies and History, and learned to love a long, brutal winter. I got my introduction to archive work while studying abroad in Poland. When in Eastern Europe, I ate many pierogies and fell in love with working with book history materials. The Prohibited Library in Prague, and its collection of censored samizdat papers, inspired me to continue my education with a master’s in Library Science. I had realized that if we did not prioritize looking after the material evidence of history, then who would? I spend my time reading good books and watching bad television. I like stories about haunted houses, running during the fall when the wind is a little too cold, and Taylor Swift. Boston has been my dream city for…
The Pandemic Effect
Posted October 15, 2021 by Bryanne McArdle
I’m sure this is a buzz word in some circle. Maybe it’s a phrase that’s used so much now it just counts as normal vernacular at this point. I’m not quite sure. Just like I’m not really sure how during a global pandemic I was able to apply, enroll, and succeed at a Library Science Program. It’s all kind of…a nebulous mystery. Just like the where on Earth this past year a more has gone?! But at the same time, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I enrolled to study ways to increase people’s accessibility to resources and information, just as everyone suddenly needed access to resources and information in an extremely turbulent time. When politics and divisions were highlighted, I got to see clearly where I had wanted to shine a spotlight focused on by others too. It was incredibility reaffirming in my choices. So, all in all, the pandemic effect has not been a bad thing for me. You just have to look at it differently, like looking at the pretty colors…
Sports in Boston. Sports in the Thesis.
Posted October 15, 2021 by William Crouch
As I bet most of you reading know, Boston is very much a sports city. With the Red Sox and Celtics both being historic teams in baseball and basketball respectively and the Patriots being the dominant force they have been for 20 years, Boston’s love of sports speaks for itself. One of the really cool things I got the chance to do recently was attend a fairly new sporting event in Boston, the Laver Cup. The Laver Cup is a pretty new tennis tournament that attracts the biggest stars to come play as Team Europe takes on Team World. Some of the biggest names in tennis like Federer, Nadal, Djokovic have all played the Laver Cup before. In 2019, the Laver Cup announced that Boston was to be the host site of the 2020 edition of the Laver Cup. I’m a pretty avid tennis fan myself. I played in undergrad for the Austin College ‘Roos and took the sport back up during the pandemic with my dad. When the opportunity came to get tickets for…