Mentorship in the Massachusetts Library Association
Posted February 27, 2023 by Magenta Jasinski
One of the biggest assets to the Simmons Library Science program is being able to make connections outside of the program, surprisingly enough. Because Simmons is so widely recognized in Boston and New England as a highly ranked library program, many organizations form partnerships with the university. One of the partnerships I’ve benefited from is with the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) and their mentorship program. I got an email about the program several months ago, and I’ve been working closely with MLA, the “Up Close and Personal” Mentorship program, and my delightful mentor. There are a few aspects of this program that I find unique and highly beneficial to my library praxis, so I’ll go through them here. First, the program set me up with my mentor, who works at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols (BB&N), an independent school in Cambridge. I hadn’t heard about this school until I met my mentor; it is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Harvard. Their motto is “honestas litterae comitas,” which means “honor scholarship kindness.” The school…
Mid-Semester Update
Posted February 24, 2023 by Rebecca Devereaux
And just like that, we are almost halfway through the semester! It’s crazy how quickly ithas been zipping past. At this stage in the semester the larger projects are beginning to loomlarge in my to do list. My class on reference librarianship asks each of the students to develop aresearch guide. This is a cool project because I can add this to my resume not only as a skill butas an example of my work. In my archiving class we are learning the theory and practice behindprocessing plans and writing finding aids. On the library side of things this semester’s homeworkfeels very practical. I get to try my own hand at things which librarians regularly need toaccomplish. Slowly but surely, I am developing into a librarian!On the history end of things, I am off to a nerdy and exciting start. My history class thissemester is Transnational Labor History with Professor Sullivan. The topic of my final paper forthis course is loosely going to be tied to the labor of central Washington’s fruit industry. I amlooking…
Thesis Thoughts
Posted February 22, 2023 by Ivy Noonan
Hello everyone! I hope everybody’s been having a good semester so far. It’s crazy to think that this is potentially my last semester with Simmons. I’m currently writing my History thesis and taking LIS 456 – Records Mangement. Taking a class alongside the thesis is a lot of work but it’s been nice to be able to switch my brain off from historical writing to focus on an LIS project. Managing my classes and two jobs requires a lot of time management and planning out my days well in advance. I’ve found it’s super easy to get caught up in my to-do list and then forget about self care and doing fun small little things with a little bit of my free time. I’ve made a short list of things that don’t take a ton of time in the moment but you can walk away from feeling better. There are many others but these have really been helping me when I need a break. Good luck to everyone writing their thesis this semester and to…
New Blogger: Lauren Redding
Posted February 18, 2023 by Lauren Redding
Hi Everyone! My name is Lauren Redding and I am so excited to be blogging for SLIS Student Snippets. After a longer-than-planned stint with remote classes, I’m psyched to be on campus, at Simmons, and involved with the SLIS programs in person. Even in my final semester, I still feel like I find out about a new and exciting thing Simmons has to offer with every passing week. I am a MLIS student in the School Library Teacher Concentration. Final semester for SLTs means I am in the thick of my second of two semester-long teaching practicums (a.k.a. student teaching). It’s been engaging and exhilarating to finally be able to apply the skills I’ve been honing and learning in my Simmons classes for the past five semesters. I grew up in Utah, outside of Salt Lake City and attended undergrad there as well. Ever since I experienced the noted contrast between the warm, fun, social, vibrant library center at the middle school I attended and the studious, quiet, work-focused atmosphere at the high school, I…
Welcome New Student Blogger: Klaire Chandler
Posted February 15, 2023 by Ivy Noonan
(I’m kind of midsentence in this picture, but my friend took it on real film and develop it for me, so it’s sort of special.) Hi, I’m Klaire Chandler! I’m currently in my third semester here at Simmons. I’m in the Archives Management and History dual program. I’m from a very small town in Maine close to Acadia National Park. I grew up riding horses through the woods and collecting various “historical artifacts” (mostly just bits of trash) that I kept in my own little “personal museum,” (aka a cabinet in my room). The things I didn’t find in the woods, I found while combing through yard sales and flea markets with my dad. My prize possession was a WWI address book I found in an estate sale. Before coming to Simmons, I attended Salem State University where I majored in English and minored in Art History. After I finished my undergrad I moved to Seoul, South Korea to teach English for a year. Traveling to the other side of the world in the middle…
Lessons from LIS 488 – Technology for Information Professionals
Posted February 14, 2023 by Regina Dziergas
I recently started updating my final project for LIS 488, commonly referred to as “Info Tech” here at SLIS, and got to thinking about how funny it is that my favorite class at Simmons has been the one that I was most afraid of! Out of the three required foundational classes in the SLIS curriculum, LIS 488-Technology for Information Professionals tends to be the class that most SLIS students are afraid of. On the surface SLIS is a community of wonderfully nerdy people, each of us with our own niche interests and skills that bring unique perspectives to every class we take, but not all of us are confident with a computer or have encountered these technologies before. Comfort with technology is also increasingly becoming a job requirement for librarians and information professionals, so it can feel like a big hurdle to jump over that arrives early in your time at SLIS. As someone coming into SLIS with a masters’ degree in ethnomusicology, my work hasnever involved writing code. I’ve conducted my own fieldwork projects,…
Libraries in Germany
Posted February 10, 2023 by Rebecca Devereaux
It’s good to be back after a really nice winter break. Happy new year to everyone! I had a few grand adventures which I wanted to update you all on. After going home to Washington for Christmas and New Years, I went on a trip to Europe! This trip really revealed my library nerdiness. Almost every place we went I forced my friends to go on a mini exploration of the local libraries. In between rounds of museums, long walks on cobblestone streets and breaks of kaffee und kuchen here is where we went! Prague: Municipal Library of Prague—This is where the Instagram famous infinity books photos are taken. There was a huge line for the photo station, which I walked right by to go snoop in their library. Prague: Strahov Monastery Libraries—One is focused on theological texts and the other is on philosophical texts. They are all lusciously old. Made my archivist heart happy. Berlin: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—This library is so impressive. It is free to access and has some very cool collections. Berlin:…
A SLIS Boston Student Goes West
Posted February 7, 2023 by Claire Pask
This January, I began my spring semester in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where I completed my Preservation Management requirement over the course of two long weekends. Affectionately dubbed “Library Boot Camp” by Professor Donia Conn, the class consisted of six seven-hour days, during which my classmates and I studied old photographs and manuscripts, pored over different binding techniques, and learned more about pests and mold than I ever hoped to know. We (affectionately) handled old leather book casings, examined sheets of vellum from the eighteenth century, smiled at the rosy, painted-on cheeks of old tintype portraits, and held vintage Kodachrome film up to the light to reveal images of smiling families and pin-up girls—all in the name of understanding the makeup of the materials archives and libraries hold so that we may better preserve them. Our classes were held on the Simmons West campus at Mount Holyoke College, where we had the opportunity to visit and study two nearby libraries: the Williston Memorial Library, the college’s academic library, and the Gaylord Memorial Library, a small public…
Second Semester Successes
Posted February 6, 2023 by Magenta Jasinski
I recently started my second semester of the dual MA/MS in Children’s Literature and Library Science, which has been really pleasant. After a trip back to Wisconsin over the holiday break, a wedding between friends over New Years, and a few days to prepare for CHL 436A Narrative Nonfiction, I was back into it. I have always enjoyed the dependable routine of the semester: wake up, class, work, go home, repeat four times, and weekend. Knowing what every day of the next three-ish months will hold is a great source of comfort to me. Another great thing about being in my second semester of the program is that I generally know who people are by now. Although I don’t know everyone in SLIS, I am an active member and moderator for our Discord group, recently renamed the SLIScord. I recognize people’s usernames and appreciate all of the fun things they put in there, which ranges from craft projects to job postings to club meeting times to book recommendations and more. I met one of my…
Welcome New Student Blogger: Regina Dziergas
Posted February 2, 2023 by Lindsey Clarke
Hello everyone! My name is Regina Dziergas, and I am currently enrolled in the Library and Information Sciences masters’ program with a concentration in Cultural Heritage Informatics. I am originally from Syracuse, New York, spent time in Western New York while completing my undergraduate degree in psychology/musicology at SUNY Geneseo, and moved to Boston in the fall of 2020 to start graduate school at Boston University’s College of Fine Arts for my MA in Ethnomusicology. So far, my favorite course at Simmons has been LIS 438: Introduction to Archival Theory and Practice, and I’m looking forward to starting my 60-hour field experience through that course later this semester! In my free time I like to collect books and vinyl records, practice flute and piano, bake bread, do yoga, hike, attend concerts, collect old cameras/shoot photography (primarily 35mm film), explore Boston, and spend time with my friends and family. I’ve also spent my last few years doing ethnographic ethnomusicological fieldwork in the greater Boston area, researching live performances, meeting and documenting the stories of local musicians/industry…