Snowy First Week of Classes
Posted February 10, 2021 by Isabelle Raposo
I kicked off my final semester at Simmons by joining a doctoral-level course, Conducting Research (LIS 621), a few days before classes started. I became interested in biomedical research data management and medical librarianship this fall, and my research project for this course will allow me to explore that area of the library field. I’ll also learn the foundations of how to conduct social science studies! The first meeting of LIS 621 on Tuesday was really exciting, especially after six weeks without classes. As always, it was fascinating to hear about everyone’s background and reason for taking the course. After some in-depth introductions, including sharing our research interests, we talked about the logistics of the course and then broke into small groups. In the Zoom breakout rooms, we developed definitions of the word “research” that would be helpful in the context of this course. On Wednesday, as soon as I had syllabi for all my courses, I put all the assignments for the semester into my calendar. I’m taking three courses (or nine credits, which…
Goodbye 2020, Hello 2021!
Posted February 3, 2021 by Sarah Callanan
Happy 2021 everyone! We’ve had a nice, long break, and the Spring 2021 semester starts this week. With the end of the Fall 2020 semester, I completed three years at Simmons! Can you believe it? I now only have three classes left, and if all goes according to plan, I will be graduating in December! The end is in sight! After completing my first two years at Simmons, at the end of each year I did posts of the lessons I learned, and some of my takeaways from the program, so I thought I would do it again! Third time’s the charm! I learned so much in 2020! I took three classes—LIS 453: Collection Development and Management, LIS 475: Organizational and Information Ethics, and LIS 454: Digital Information Services and Providers. I learned how library collections are developed and maintained and I got a thorough understanding of the collections process in LIS 453, I learned all about information and organizational ethics and the ethical implications of decisions within organizations and management in LIS 475. And, most recently, in LIS 454, I learned all about different types of databases, search…
Spring 2021
Posted February 1, 2021 by William Crouch
The new semester is right around the corner and I just finished up my intensive course this January so I thought it would be a good time to write about it. This January, LIS 439, Preservation Management, was offered as a two-week intensive course instead of taking it the entire semester. Over the past two weeks, our class has met 6 days to learn about and discuss the best practices for preservation techniques in historical institutions and libraries. I’ve learned a lot about what I didn’t realize is necessary to protect our records. For example, we learned about how to store different materials like cellulose nitrate film, which when stored improperly can burst into flames! We also learned about disaster preparation in case our institution is hit with a major disaster like an earthquake or fire and how to recover from that. One of my favorite parts of this class was an assignment that had us find 5 different items we owned that were damaged in some way and analyze the damage, what possibly could…
Creating a Character Database
Posted January 19, 2021 by Isabelle Raposo
This finals period was challenging but fun, and encapsulated what I’ve enjoyed about my courses at SLIS. I had a lot of latitude in choosing topics for my final projects in each course, but enough structure that I felt challenged by the assignments. For Database Management (LIS 458) with Professor Danielle Pollock, I designed and built a database about the characters in George Eliot’s Middlemarch, my favorite Victorian novel. Developing this database was one of the most intellectually challenging projects I’ve done at SLIS. Professor Pollock set us up to succeed by requiring us to turn in different elements of our database design throughout the semester, so I was able to revise my design and structure based on her feedback. I wanted to capture detailed information about every character in the novel, including clues to their socioeconomic background. Sorting out the technical details of how to display that information pushed me to grapple with the topics we covered during the semester. I ended up scaling back my project as the semester went on. Middlemarch is…
Welcome New Blogger Isabelle
Posted January 13, 2021 by Lindsey Clarke
Hello Readers, We have a new blogger starting with us for the semester. Here is a little bit about Isabelle. You will start seeing Isabelle’s posts next week! I studied English and Classics at Wellesley College, just outside Boston, and moved into the city to attend Simmons SLIS in 2019. I came to the program with some library and museum experience, as well as an interest in the role of technology in the field. I’ve taken courses on a wide variety of topics, from User Instruction (LIS 408) to Data Interoperability (LIS 487). Getting to know other students at Simmons has been a great experience, and I’ve learned so much from my SLIS classmates as well as my professors. It’s always interesting to hear my peers’ perspectives on material we’re covering in class, since everyone comes to the classroom from different professional backgrounds. I’m excited to be sharing my last semester at SLIS on Student Snippets.
Virtual Internships: Fun, Valuable, and Worth Going For!
Posted January 8, 2021 by Guest Blogger
It is 2021 now and thank goodness last year is over! As 2020 ended, I completed my coursework at SLIS and I have been reflecting a lot on how positive my experience was at Simmons University. While I enjoyed all the courses in the Leadership and Management track I was on, my absolute favorite course was LIS 512-Advanced Field Experience in LIS and the virtual internship with Boston Public Library’s Teen Central that I got to do through it. I must admit, I was skeptical of doing a virtual internship. With so much uncertainty in 2020 and so much of everyday life shifting into a new, virtual environment, I had so many questions about what a virtual internship would entail. Would I be able to get a sense of how the library functioned? Would I be able to contribute to the work being done? Would interaction with staff and patrons be possible? Would the experience be as beneficial as I perceived in-person internships to be? After wrestling with these questions, I sought the advice of…
End of the Semester and End of the Year
Posted December 17, 2020 by William Crouch
Hey everyone. It’s been a long time since I last posted a blog. My semester has been pretty crazy as I imagine everyone else’s has been. Trying to keep up with the election, the pandemic, and continuing classes fulltime has been pretty stressful so I began to limit the amount of time I am on social media each week to basically zero which has been pretty helpful I would say. In my Collective Memory course, our final project was a group presentation on a historical event, person, or group that our understanding of has been affected by the idea of collective memory. My group chose to do our project our Crispus Attucks, the first victim of the Boston Massacre, and how his identity as a runaway slave and martyr helped with the abolitionists and even in the Black Lives Matter protests. In Archival Access, our final project is to create a MARC record and Finding Aid for a collection. We’ve been learning about how to create Finding Aids with XML code and MARC records so…
That’s a Wrap!
Posted December 16, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I am almost done with my last paper for the year. I just need to double check that all my citations were done correctly, and then I’ll be all set to turn it in! I had to choose six books (three nonfiction and three fiction) to include in my library’s collection. To do this, I read fiction and nonfiction book reviews from the January 2020 issues of Booklist and School Library Journal. It was a much more daunting task than I had anticipated. A lot of books were reviewed, especially fiction books, and it was overwhelming. Luckily, I printed out the reviews so I could write myself some notes. I highlighted the most important parts of the reviews and noted my overall impressions of whether to book would make a good addition to the collection or not. Otherwise, all the reviews would have run together. I was impressed with the variety of books that were reviewed. There were many genres and books that featured diverse or marginalized voices. I recognized several of the titles, but there were many more that I didn’t know about. I added several books to…
The End is Near
Posted December 14, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
Can you believe it’s almost the end of the semester? The end of the semester is always such a crazy time, with due dates and projects. Since my last post, I’ve had two assignments due, and my big semester-long project is due next week. It is definitely crunch time! As I discussed in an earlier post, my semester-long project is the Electronic Resources in Libraries Case Study Project where we do a thorough investigation of an academic library’s electronic resources offering with a partner. My team is investigating the resources of MCPHS University, as that is where both of us work. It’s a huge project—we’ve had to interview the electronic resources librarian, thoroughly investigate the databases, the research guides, the different ways to search the library’s resources, and more. My team has been working really diligently throughout the semester and having regular virtual meetings to check in and go over our project, so we’re doing pretty well progress-wise. I’m not too worried about our actual written report, the thing that I am nervous about is our presentation. I’ve done plenty of presentations at Simmons;…
End of the Semester
Posted December 7, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
This week has been crazy busy, especially Wednesday. For my first time working almost full time while in grad school, balancing school and work this semester has been hard. And this struggle is only with only one class! Next week is my last weekly meeting for the semester-long group project in my Information Services for Diverse Users course. This project has been an interesting study on how to work with the information needs of those who have low digital literacy skills. Work at the elementary school library is now very busy. Instead of 3-5 kids having library class once a week and checking out books during library class, kids get a book as soon as they return a book. So, if a student returns a book they finished reading on Tuesday, then they will get a new library book when they are back in school on Friday. This is more work for me and keeps me running down the halls to bring books to each of the classrooms! By the time I finished running around…