Influencer for a Day?
Posted November 8, 2019 by Katie Carlson
On Monday, October 28th, I was thrown into the world of large scale social media, as I was put in charge of Simmons University’s Instagram story! EEEK! While longtime readers know that I was a blogging queen back in the day, I only have 710 followers on insta, and had NEVER posted an original story — only shared content I was tagged in. I logged into the Simmons instagram, and suddenly had 6,000+ semi-captive listeners. Let me tell you, it was exhausting. While my takeover was largely authentic — yes, I do sometimes go to the Gardner on my lunch break, but NO I don’t always have on a full face of makeup at 8 a.m. — it took some planning and creativity to brainstorm just how to share my experiences with Simmons’ insta-sphere. I will admit that I definitely had a storyboard for my day, mapped out with what I thought would be good video opportunities. I was pretty proud of my “What’s in the bag????” section, where I went through what I have…
Creating a Digital Library
Posted November 5, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I wanted to write about LIS 462: Digital Libraries, because it is unlike any class I’ve taken before. It’s not just about studying digital libraries, it’s also about creating one. For our semester-long project, we are creating a digital library highlighting a late 19th century children’s scrapbook. The scrapbook, which was donated to the Boston Children’s Museum, contains drawings of different rooms of a house, with lots of color images that were cut and pasted into the book. There are also a few paper dolls. It’s a darling little scrapbook and I can imagine a little child having a lot of fun putting it together. To handle all aspects of the digital library’s creation, we have a project manager and several committees. These committees are responsible for different parts of the library. For example, the digitization committee scanned, digitized, and posted the scrapbook on our shared class Google Drive. The systems committee is creating the website and layout, the metadata committee is creating metadata for all the images, and the environmental scan committee looks…
Happy (almost) Halloween!
Posted October 30, 2019 by Sarah Callanan
Happy (almost) Halloween everyone! You know, I really think time seems to fly by much faster when you are in school. During the short breaks between classes, time goes so slowly but now it feels like just yesterday we were starting classes, and now it’s almost Halloween. So we’re starting Week 9 of the Fall 2019 semester this week! This week we’re focusing on Evaluating Information Services, which is a really important topic, and it’s really interesting too. I’ve been excited for this week since I saw it on the syllabus–the library I work at did a Library Experience Survey last spring, and hearing about it and the methodology behind it has made me really interested in evaluation. Every library does evaluation and it’s really been interesting to learn more about this topic, and I think I’m definitely going to add LIS 403: Evaluating Information Services to the list of classes I want to take before I graduate. This class has been really interesting so far! Some of the other topics we’ve learned about include…
Librarians are Resources!
Posted October 24, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
My assignment for yesterday was to bring a picture book of my choice that was published within the last five years, along with 6 assigned picture books, to my Writing for Children class. To prepare for class, I went to my local branch of the Boston Public Library. The children’s librarian there is very helpful for students of all ages. She is a Simmons grad and loves working at the library with the youngest patrons. This is just one example of how everywhere I go in the Boston Public Library – whichever branch I visit – I find a Simmons grad. Hoping to utilize the expertise of the librarian, I told her that I needed an exemplary picture book written in the last five years. I was hoping for a book that could teach me about a picture book’s narrative structure. The children’s librarian searched for notable picture books from 2018, and suggested A Perfect Day by Lane Smith: a hilarious book inspired by animals visiting the author and illustrator’s backyard. Knowing I had a…
Thinking of Spring
Posted October 22, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
Yes, I know it’s only October, but the Spring 2020 course list came out last week and it’s all I’ve been thinking about. I love looking at the course list each semester. There are so many interesting classes I could take! I’m taking two classes in the Spring, and I already know that one of them will be LIS 445: Metadata. I’m very excited for that class, because metadata is the key to many library services and is the foundation of information retrieval. I am curious to learn more about how that metadata is created and how it is applied to different objects. I already have a good foundational understanding of it from LIS 415: Information Organization and LIS 462: Digital Libraries, but I’m looking forward to a whole semester’s worth of lectures on the topic. It should be very interesting. Choosing my second class is going to be tough. I could take LIS 450: Public Libraries or LIS 451: Academic Libraries. Either of those would be interesting because they would give more information about…
Referencing Spook
Posted October 21, 2019 by Katie Carlson
I recently moved from circulation up to reference at the Watertown Free Public Library where I work! It was interning at the reference desk at my local public library in college that sparked my desire to be a librarian in the first place, so it felt a bit like coming home! It’s already been fun to help people that I recognize from working in circ with some of their more in depth questions. My first shift on desk (after my training) was Wednesday night, and I was able to help patrons with flyer making, provided information on literacy classes, completed some reader’s advisory, and updated some bib records. But my favorite thing by far was getting to design a book display! Whenever I do displays, I make sure to showcase the voices of authors of color and of various gender alignments. Displays are a chance to recommend books — even to people who don’t engage with you at the reference desk — and a fun challenge! I wanted to create something spooky, but not overtly…
Touring the Library of My Dreams
Posted October 18, 2019 by Maria Reilova
A few weeks ago, the Panoptican and Special Libraries Association student groups, put on a joint field trip to tour the Museum of Fine Arts’s library that is located not too far from campus! As a new officer of Panoptican and especially as an aspiring art librarian, I was very excited to attend but also to meet and chat with other Simmons students with similar interests and goals in the library profession. Getting back into the swing of things at the start of a new semester can be overwhelming but I knew this was an event I did not want to miss! While the actual MFA is basically diagonal to campus, the MFA’s library is offsite on Mass Ave by the Symphony T stop. While the main purpose of the library is to be a resource for the museum staff, they are also open to the public Monday through Friday from 1-5 pm. However, the stacks are closed and anyone interested will need call slips in order to view any materials, which I thought was…
Classes and Events at SLIS
Posted October 17, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
It’s that time in the semester when all you do is study, eat to take a break from studying, and try to get in some sleep. As a library student in the SLT school library program, I need to start preparing for next semester. Next semester, I will be doing my first of two practicums, which consists of 150 hours of student teaching in an elementary and then high school library. I have the placement school picked out, and in a few weeks the paperwork will begin. With my classmates figuring out their course preferences for Spring 2020 registration that happens in a few weeks, it is nice for me not to have to worry about what courses I will be taking. Those in the School Library Teacher concentration at SLIS plan out their course outline in their first semester, and will stand by that course outline as they make their way through the program. The first course I am taking this spring will be a Writing for Children class in the…
Planning for the Future!
Posted October 17, 2019 by Sarah Callanan
We are now in Week 7 of the Fall 2019 semester! When I was watching my professor’s introductory lecture for this week and she said we were halfway through the semester I almost couldn’t believe it! Then, a couple of days ago, the Spring 2020 course schedule dropped. My goodness this semester is flying by! As the Spring 2020 course schedule just dropped, I’m now intensely studying the course schedule, course descriptions, and trying to figure out what my game plan is for next semester (and beyond). Registration isn’t until November, so I have some time to think about what I want to take, and to strategically plan. I mentioned in my last post one of the things I was hoping to get out of my current class (LIS 401: Foundations of Library and Information Science), was to sort of get an overview and introduction of what’s out there in the LIS world and see what I’m interested in before I dedicated individual classes to topics. This class has been really interesting, and I’ve learned…
Live Session!
Posted October 15, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I had a live session of my Social Informatics class last week, and I really enjoyed it! There were three sessions available, each on different days and times, and we were required to choose one. I chose the evening session that started at 9pm. This made me a little nervous because I’m usually wrapping my day up at that hour, but I’m pleased to say that I made it through without yawning every two seconds. The worst thing about the meeting was that I looked horrible on the camera (laptop cameras do not do anyone any favors), but I’ll take that over a technical malfunction or brain freeze any day. We didn’t do anything major in the live session. It was more about allowing us all to talk and interact in real time. We started out talking about any questions we had about the course or the assignments, and then talked more about how information is transmitted and used. One of the most important themes of this class is recognizing that there is always someone…