Midwinter Tales
Posted February 3, 2020 by Katie Carlson
While I attended the ALA Annual Conference in D.C. this summer, I was busy working the Simmons booth and balancing my girlfriend’s first visit to our nation’s capital, so (while I had an AMAZING time) I didn’t feel as though I had the full conference experience. This time was completely different! I was able to attend panels and discussions that spanned all of my library related interests, while still spending time with friends and family, as well as partaking in some delicious Philly food! I kicked off the conference by attending “Making Real Change: Moving Beyond the Interpersonal to Create Actual Diverse, Inclusive and Equitable Environments for Both Library Users and Employees.” I was a bit hesitant when the presenters did not appear to be POC, but I was put at ease when the presenters stated that they felt more white people should be putting in the work to combat white supremacy and oppression in LIS, instead of placing the onus on people of color. The section relied largely on discussion in small groups, so…
Week 2
Posted January 30, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
Last week, I started student teaching at an elementary school in Waltham. I have never worked an 8-5 job before, so the first week was quite a shock. Getting used to the routine of being at school at a certain time and working with different grade levels is a lot to adjust to in the first week. In the first couple weeks, I mostly shadowed the librarian to get to know the students and other teachers in the school. By watching the librarian, I learn about what books the kids like to check out and how to engage the students in a read aloud. The hard part about committing so much time to practicum (student teaching) is balancing the one other class. SLT students at Simmons only take one other class with practicum, and it is usually an elective. This semester, my one other class is the required LIS 460: Technology and the School Library Teacher. I was so tired on Friday night after my first week that I didn’t get to any studying that…
Reflecting on Collection Development!
Posted January 29, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
Let’s talk about Collection Development and Management! Week 3 of the semester just started, and my first big assignment is due in a few days. As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t have much, if any, practical experience in collection development–my current job as a Reference Assistant in an academic library mainly consists of me doing reference work, as well as some circulation and outreach. Collection development is new territory for me, and I’ve been learning so much! However, something that I have noticed is that there are common threads throughout a lot of my classes at SLIS, including this class. Even though the overall topic may be new, there are elements that I’m building off of from other classes. For example, in LIS 451: Academic Libraries, and LIS 404: Introduction to Management, we talked about how mission statements and core values informed the library and the overall structure of the organization, and how they relate to academic libraries (LIS 451) and management (LIS 404) in particular. In this class, LIS 453: Collection…
Building Blocks
Posted January 28, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
One of the things I love about my classes at Simmons is that they build on each other. It’s exciting when a topic I learned about in one class is referenced or expanded on in a different class. It’s fascinating to go more in depth on certain topics and to see how they tie together. Even though this semester is only three weeks old, it has already referenced a lot of what was covered in my previous semesters. Collections Development has built on many of the subjects covered by Introduction to Management (LIS 404). This includes types of budgets used by libraries, how those budgets are used, mission statements, and vision statements. It has also mentioned environmental scanning, which is a topic that came up in Digital Libraries (LIS 462). Environmental scanning entails keeping track of what similar libraries are doing in order to measure what your library is or is not doing, and what it can do in the future. It’s a way of staying competitive and relevant in the community. Metadata has…
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…