(Graf)fiti Walk
Posted May 13, 2019 by Katie Carlson
Lucky readers, this week you get to hear about (and see) Panopticon’s Graffiti Walk with Ann Graf from two points of view because Maria and I both attended! When I saw the Graffitti Walk advertised in the weekly LISSA email update, I knew I had to make it a priority. I took LIS 415: Information Organization with Profesor Graf (along with Maria), and was fascinated when Ann told us about her thesis. Ann’s research looks at controlled vocabularies (retrieved from the Getty Research Institute’s Art and Architecture Thesaurus) and the description of art (especially graffiti and street art), so she was the ideal person to lead this walk! Everyone met at Brookline Booksmith (except for me, due to a late start), and meandered down Harvard Ave in search of anything tagged with spray paint. When I eventually met up with the group, we wandered down side alleys and behind businesses in search of street art treasure! I’m surprised (but grateful) that no crotchety manager or chef came out to interrogate us! There were plenty of…
End of Semester Reflections
Posted May 6, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I can’t believe my first semester is over! It sounds cliché but I really did learn a lot. When I first read my course syllabi, I was very intimidated by everything we were going to cover. I had no idea what most of the topics even were, so it’s really gratifying to be able to identify and understand them now. While I might not have mastery over all the concepts, I do feel like I have a strong foundation for my remaining classes. Even better, my brain has started to think like a librarian! I’ve been paying a lot more attention to how the library catalog is set up, examining the call numbers, and thinking about descriptions and relationships between authors and their works. There is a whole complex structure of organization and classification that I never paid attention to before. It’s exciting to be able to “read” and understand some of that code. And speaking of coding, I can’t believe I not only survived but thrived in my tech course. I would not have…
One Week Left!
Posted May 4, 2019 by Sarah Callanan
My final group project for LIS 451: Academic Libraries is done! Completed! Turned in! As I’ve mentioned in a few previous posts, the final project for LIS 451 is a Committee Group Project which you work on with a group throughout the semester. The final product was a written report as well as a recorded presentation. As this is an online class, my group collaborated via Google Docs and presented our project using Voicethread. I was on the Space Planning Committee, where our charge was to assess the current use of first floor space in a library and make specific recommendations for improvement. One of our group members is actually a library director at an academic library (she is a Ph.D. candidate) so we chose to use the library she works at as our model. This project was really interesting and useful as this task is something that a Space Planning Committee could have actually been given in an academic library. Additionally, this project was great in another way that I didn’t think of until…
Wrapping Up Two and a Half Years
Posted May 2, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
Now it really is my last week of class and internship. I’ve watched my long list of school things to do slowly dwindle down to the final item: a paper for metadata due on Monday. Once that is turned in, I’ll be finished. No more homework, no more classes, no more trips to Massachusetts. It has been an action-packed semester that has ended with a bang: last week’s tote bag ceremony at which I was honored as the recipient of the Terry Plum Leadership award, our conference presentation at CLA on Monday, and a part-time job offer at Fairfield University! I find myself in the bewildering position of having achieved everything I set out to do (and more) and feeling a tad overwhelmed and not sure what to do next. My time at Simmons has wrapped up in a manner far more exceptional than I imagined and I feel breathless – as if looking around and thinking, “did I really just do that?” To be honest I also feel like I want to crawl into…
Almost There
Posted April 30, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I can’t believe the last week of the semester is here already! Where did the time go? My only remaining assignment is my group project because I managed to finish my tech project early! I submitted it on Friday, and then I jumped up and down and did a happy dance with my dog ?. I am so glad I got it off my plate because I got to actually relax a bit over the weekend. I had some readings and a small extra credit assignment to do, but nothing majorly time consuming. My part of the group project is done and I’m just waiting for us to put everything together. It’s due on Friday and probably won’t be submitted before then because of all the coordination that needs to happen. But I don’t care when it’s submitted, as long as it’s on time. I also need to double check that I’ve fulfilled all my participation requirements for both classes. I’m pretty sure I have, but it never hurts to double check. So what’s next? …
SLIS Career and Networking Fair – Come for the Networking, Stay for the Swag & Brownies
Posted April 29, 2019 by Maria Reilova
Every spring, SLIS Student Services puts on the annual SLIS Career and Networking Fair for the students and alumni of the program. I am have been looking for some summer internship or part-time opportunities in Boston and I really wanted to attend this event as an informative experience, and a chance to practice my networking skills (something that still stresses me out constantly and I am always trying to improve). I am so happy I went. Even though I did initially have to hype myself up a bit with some caffeine. It was really nice to attend a career fair that was actually catering to my specific field. In undergraduate, I attended one career fair and since my college had a lot of business and technology students I did not feel too well represented as an art history student. There were definitely ways I could apply my liberal arts degree to different careers at the fair but it was nice to have that taken care for me at the Simmons SLIS Career Fair. Some of the…
I Can’t Believe How Many Books I’ve Read!
Posted April 26, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
Reflecting on the end of the semester, I keep thinking ‘I can’t believe how many books I have read!’ I created my goodreads.com account in December or November, after hearing about a local high school librarian who used it to track books she read. I thought it would be good to set a goal in January, around the time of the new year. This was before I enrolled in LIS 481: Library Collections and Materials for Children. I thought to myself ‘I’ll create a goal of 50 books. It’ll be super hard to read 50 books by the end of 2019.’ Well, our final reading journal assignment in LIS 481 was due a few days ago. I checked my Goodreads account, and I have read 31 books so far. Wowza, that’s a lot! Want to know the secret? In Library Collections and Materials for Children (a required course for anyone in the School Library Teacher Concentration or Children’s Literature Dual Degree) we are required to read 27 books throughout the semester. Children’s literature qualifies as…
Graduation! (Almost)
Posted April 25, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
This Saturday is the last day of class up at SLIS West and traditionally the day we do our last-day lunch, class photo, and tote-bag ceremony honoring all the graduates. The last-day lunch and class photo is held on the steps of the picturesque Mount Holyoke library (weather permitting) in between classes, and then the final ceremony is held after the last class, about 4:30. It’s a low-key, intimate, and friendly affair to which friends and family are invited and where most everyone knows each other. Graduates have their name read, shake Eric Poulin’s hand, and receive the coveted and well-earned official Simmons tote-bag. There are no processionals, no caps and gowns, no certificates, no megaphones, and no fanfare. Some may think this sounds like an anti-climactic culmination of so many hours and weeks of hard work and financial sacrifices. But I think it’s perfect and so much in line with the character of our little program out at SLIS West that anything else would be ingenuine. SLIS West students are certainly welcome to travel…
Crunch Time!
Posted April 23, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
It’s almost the end of the semester and I can’t believe it. Where did the time go? I am really looking forward to having a break, but I still have a lot of work to do before I can relax. I have two big projects due the last week of classes: a group project for my info organization class, and an individual project for my tech class. My goal is to complete the tech project early, partly because I want to use the last week to focus on finishing up my group project, and partly because I just plain want to get it done! Our assignment is to create a personal website for prospective employers. It’s a really great project because it requires us to use and showcase all the skills we’ve learned in class this semester. I have learned so much this semester, and I am definitely using everything I’ve learned, and more. Right now, I have the formatting all set up, and I just need to play around with the wording…
Accepted Student Luncheon (as a Current Student)
Posted April 23, 2019 by Maria Reilova
March/April is such a busy time at the admissions office at SLIS, where I work part-time, and just a few weekends ago, we had the Accepted Student Lunch on our Boston Campus for everyone admitted into SLIS for the Fall. I attended to participate on the student panel, help out with the concentration breakout sessions, give one of the largest tours I’ve done so far, and most importantly enjoy a delicious free lunch chatting with future students in the program. What I really liked about being able to participate in this event, is that I actually attended the Accepted Student Lunch last Spring before I was a student, and it was certainly a valuable experience for me as someone who had never been to campus before and was still a little hesitant about moving so far from home (and the sunshine). I remember being the first to arrive at my table and being super nervous about almost everything. Luckily, a few of the other people at my table were interested in the same concentration as…