It’s the Final Countdown!
Posted January 27, 2020 by Maria Reilova
Happy 2020, everyone! I’ve been kind of absent from the blog last semester, so I am way overdue on given y’all a HUGE life update. I’m officially in my final semester and I am busy. Last semester I had the opportunity to work for the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University as well as intern for the Museum of Fine Arts Registrar’s Office. Now for anyone who doesn’t know me, this was a dream come true! My background is in art history and I have always seen myself working in either a museum library or a specialized academic library. At Harvard, I was working as the Collection Assistant and was able to learn so much about how they run their library and also see first hand some of the incredible things that the Fine Arts Library collects. I also on a few occasions got to work with the paper conservator on flagging some materials for preservation. All the things I loved learning about in my classes were really coming into play in my new role. …
Library Setup
Posted January 22, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I had my first assignment for Collections Development last week and it was very interesting. Each student chose a different library to focus on for the semester, and the first thing we had to do was visit that library and observe how it was set up. I visited my library late on a Thursday afternoon. As I went through each room, I noted what was there and how it was arranged. I also focused on who was there and what they were doing. I normally don’t spend a lot of physical time in the library because I request items through the online library catalog and go directly to the circulation desk to pick them up. I know where everything is in the library, but I never thought about how it was arranged. Obviously setting up a library is more complicated than simply placing books on shelves. It must have an order and be easy to navigate. I never had to think about that before, but I tried to keep that in mind when I browsed…
A Day in the Life of a School Library Teacher Student
Posted January 17, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
It’s the first week of classes, and yet all I want to do is stay under my blankets near the furnace. The average temperature in Boston right now is in the single digits, with the high being 15 F. This is Boston in January, I guess. As much as I want to stay under my blankets, I need to clean off my desk and sort through all my reading. For a library school student, you may be surprised to hear I am reading a guide on student teaching (also called Practicum Experience) requirements, CAP Guidelines as assigned by Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the Evaluation for Educators regulations as set by DESE, Waltham Public Schools’ Kindergarten Curriculum for Information Literacy, and a syllabus for my online SLT Tech class. I am almost done with my school library concentration and well on my way to becoming a certified school librarian. My placement is at a school in the far north part of Waltham, so a bit of a trek. Getting out to Waltham…
New Year, New Semester
Posted January 15, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
Happy New Year everyone! Welcome to 2020 (although it is now halfway through January)! I had about a month off of work and school and even though it was great to have time off, it’s good to be back in the saddle again. This week is the first week of the Spring 2020 semester for me here at Simmons, and it is also the first week of the Spring 2020 semester for the students at the university library where I work, so things have been busy for me both at school and at work! This semester I’m taking LIS 453: Collection Development and Management, although sadly I’m not in the same section as Amie. I’m very excited for this class and to learn more about how library collections are developed and maintained and get a thorough understanding of the collections process. While a few of my previous classes have briefly touched on some topics relating to this, such as budgeting and weeding, this class is going to be an in-depth look at collection development as…
Ready to Go!
Posted January 14, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
It was nice to have a few weeks off but I’m ready for classes to start again. 2020 is going to be an important year for me. Not only is it a big birthday year (I’m entering a new decade!), but it’s the year I’ll be graduating. Since I have a lot to do between now and the end of the year, I started browsing the Simmons Career Education Center website to see if it offered anything to help me through the process. It turns out that the CEC offers a lot of services to students and alumni. I was a little overwhelmed by all the options, to be honest, but I found two things that seem especially useful: the resume review service and the career fairs. I could use some feedback on my resume. I am not sure it’s as strong as it could be, so I’m going to make an appointment to have someone from Simmons review it. This will be especially important because I’m planning on attending at least one of the…
Public Art in Providence
Posted January 13, 2020 by Katie Carlson
At the close of last semester, I was able to participate in one of my favorite final projects I’ve ever done! For LIS 446: Art Documentation with Ann Graf we were tasked with cataloging three instances of public art in a location of our choosing. I partnered up with my good pal Willa, and we decided to explore Providence. I took the commuter rail from Boston (how does Willa do it every time we have class?) to Providence on a frigid but sunny day, and we set off to observe and take pictures of the works we had selected. The first piece we chose was Dear Urban Females (2019) by AGONZA. It is located on the back of the Weybossett Facade if you want to take a look for yourself! AGONZA is the truly rad woman and artist of color responsible for this piece, which was created as a tribute to strong urban women of all backgrounds. Dear Urban Females is a self-portrait of sorts. AGONZA was born in Providence, but spent her formative years…
Spring 2020 Classes
Posted January 10, 2020 by William Crouch
I figured it was probably time for me to post about what classes I’m taking next semester considering the fall semester is more or less done. I’ll actually be taking four classes over the Spring semester. One of my weekly classes will LIS 438 Intro to Archives. It will be my first archives course and it includes a 60 hour internship so I’m pretty excited to start it and learn more about what will hopefully be my eventual career. Another weekly class will be LIS 407 Information Services. It’s one of the required courses for the LIS program and sounds similar to LIS 415 which I enjoyed. My last weekly course will be HIST 574 Modern US History. I’m a big US history buff and am mostly interested in modern history so this class will be one that I hope to take the methods that I learned from my current history course and be able to apply them. Finally, my last course is actually not weekly. Instead it will take place entirely over spring break…
End of Semester
Posted December 19, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
Unlike my classmates in LIS 483, I submitted my final paper almost a week after the last class. If I have learned anything this semester, it is that we are all human – trying to make a difference in this field of library science. This semester hasn’t been easy, but I made it through with the help of two amazing professors. Amy Pattee has been with SLIS for fifteen years now, helping prepare Simmons students to go out into the world after graduation. One time I was at my local Boston Public Library branch seeking help from the children’s librarian (who also manages the teen/YA collection), and I showed her my Moodle course page for LIS 483: Library Collections and Materials for Young Adults (taught by Pattee). It was so fun seeing the librarian’s reaction to what I am studying. The fun part is that about ten years ago, this librarian in the Brighton area of Boston also had Pattee as her LIS 483 professor at Simmons. This is just one example of how the…
Two Years Down!
Posted December 18, 2019 by Sarah Callanan
As I mentioned in my last post, I am now officially halfway through my program! I started at Simmons back in Spring 2018, and I have completed 18 of the 36 credits needed to get my MS in Library and Information Science. WOO!!! I’ve learned so much in these past two years, and I’ve grown a lot as a person. Last December, I did a post of the lessons I learned and my takeaways from the program, and I thought I would expand on that now that I’m halfway done. I’ve learned so much over the past two years. I came to Simmons with no library experience whatsoever, and getting this degree has been such an education for me. My first year I took all the core classes, so that really laid the foundation of learning about search strategies, information organization, technology, and professional standards in the LIS industry; whereas this year I took all electives that helped me explore different areas of LIS, and helped supplement my knowledge. I’ve learned the importance of having…
Moving Across the Country
Posted December 16, 2019 by William Crouch
In September, I moved to Boston from Texas so I could attend Simmons and try and get a real winter. I’m only 3 months in and it’s already way colder here than it ever gets in Texas. I wanted to go over some of the things that were part of the challenge of moving here and how Simmons helped me with the move. The major thing was finding a place to live which can be difficult wherever you go. Finding a comfortable space that is also affordable is a challenging process. Thankfully, Simmons has a really great listing that students can access that lists available places within the area. It took me a while but I managed to find a little place in West Roxbury that a Simmons alum owns and managed to find a great roommate. The next thing to deal with was how to get to school and figuring out public transportation for the first time. In Texas, there’s no real convenient transportation service because everybody has cars and because Texas is such…