Mass Effect
Posted October 24, 2017 by Giuliana Gilbert-Igelsrud
Last fall, I moved out of California for the first time in my life. I’d visited Boston once, years before. I had vague memories of quaint brick architecture. But travel ≠ transplantation. When I said I was from California, people warned me about snow. But I’ve been to Minnesota. My culture shock came from other sources. 1. Fall. On the west coast, fall means everything dies and it gets colder. It’s a short transition between summer and not-summer. But here, fall is an event. People go “apple-picking” and “leaf-peeping,” everyone dresses up, cider is consumed. Oh, and IT’S INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL. 2. Darkness. In my hometown, we get 300 sunny days a year. Did you know the sun can set at 4:15? Did you know it can be overcast for a week straight? I didn’t. 3. Sense of distance. Here, I can visit four states in two hours. A trip to Maine can be shorter than a BART ride to SFO. 4. Regionalisms. I’ve mentioned “apple-picking” and “leaf-peeping”; other terms that tripped me up include “turnpike,” “bodega,” and, yes, “wicked”. 5. Drivers. Californians are not good…
Massachusetts State Archives Field Trip
Posted October 19, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Another guest blog by current student, Sarah Nafis. Sarah is in her final year of the dual Archives/History (MS/MA) program. Since moving to Boston, she’s exploring the city one restaurant at a time and has learned to embrace the quirks of public transportation. This semester I’m taking Government Archives as one of my electives. The class focuses on government archives at the local, state, and national levels and covers topics such as legal responsibilities, relationship between the different branches of government, accessibility, and challenges facing government archives. In addition to the course readings and discussion, we also have the opportunity to meet with guest speakers and visit a couple of government archives. And field trips are just as much fun in graduate school as they were in elementary school. Our class was fortunate enough to be given a personal tour of the Massachusetts State Archives (located just around the corner from the JFK Library and Museum) by the Executive Director, Michael Comeau. We spent just under 3 hours on site and I probably could have…
Libraries or Archives?
Posted October 16, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
As you may know, Simmons has one of the highest-rated Archives Management programs in the country. This was a major factor in my decision to choose Simmons because the idea of an MLIS with a focus in archives interested me much more than a standard MLIS. I felt like it would give me more options – I would graduate with the qualifications to work in both libraries and archives. And frankly, I wasn’t sure I was 100% on board with libraries. My interest in the MLIS degree came in a roundabout way as I chased my dreams of working in museums/cultural institutions while maintaining a connection to the world of academia. I knew I wanted to work in a museum or an archives, but I also thought that library jobs would be easier to come by and that I might be just as content to work in an academic library. The happy news is, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of my classes at SLIS West so far, and only one out of five has been an…
Adjusting to Urban Life on the East Coast
Posted October 12, 2017 by Josie Snow
Things I love: Access to almost everything: Concerts, shows, stores…stimulation is everywhere. Being at a nexus of the literary world Boston is a very literate city, with many events promoting literacy. In the span of a month, I will have attended the Boston Teen Author Festival, and the Horn Book Globe Awards and Symposium, and the Boston Book Festival. These events all bring me close to authors, editors, and agents. The Dress Code: It is nice to be able to dress casually more often. Even though I strove for comfort in my professional clothes, nothing beats jeans and a t-shirt. The diverse environment: Like any city, Boston is home to a wide variety of people, from a wide variety of locations. It also helps that my residence caters to international students, so I get to meet people from many different countries, and learn from, and with them. It is amazing how diverse the group is, on my floor of nine residents alone; there are residents from 5 of the 7 continents. Things I will need…
Adventures by the sea
Posted October 5, 2017 by Josie Snow
I have been here a month now, classes have begun, jobs have started, and I am more confident about where I am going. It is finally sinking in that I am not a tourist any more. I have begun to develop routines, and to truly adjust to my life in Boston. I did get a chance to do some more exploring and had a few more adventures before settling down in my little world of Boston. First, I went to the former home of August St. Gaudens, an artist who is particularly famous for his sculptures and coin faces. He is responsible for some of the most famous coin faces in the US, particularly the double eagle gold piece, as well as several Civil War statues. Next I went to visit the town of Kennebunkport, Maine. Where I got my first taste of New England’s famous rocky coastlines. Finally, I returned to the cape and to one last dip in the Atlantic Ocean. As I got out of the water, I witnessed a very interesting…
Living the Dream
Posted October 2, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
WHOA it’s been a crazy week! So crazy, in fact, I’m going to have to break it down with a numbered list. Here are the important announcements/news items from this week: 1. I started my internship at the Fairfield University archives! This internship is a big deal for me. I haven’t worked since I had my son almost five years ago, so I need all the professional experience I can get. Also, I’ve never done any actual archives work before. I have some library experience and some museum experience, and here I am in grad school claiming I want to be an archivist with only a foggy idea of what that actually means. So YAY FOR INTERNSHIPS! Can you tell I’m excited? I’m super excited. This internship is perfect for me. It’s not too far from my home and it’s a small university archives, which frankly is exactly the kind of institution I see myself in some day. 2. I visited an archives for my field study. This would be only the second…
Getting To Know Boston
Posted September 27, 2017 by Josie Snow
These next two years will be full of learning experiences for me, and I am looking forward to that. Already, I have learned a few things. Did you know that Boston is where America’s first public school was founded? Or that 75-80% ground the city is resting on is man-made? Have you ever heard of the Boston Harbor clean-up project? Here are some of my initial impressions of Boston. Things I love: All the history: Guys, I got to visit some of the most important places of the American Revolution! I climbed Bunker Hill (and Breeds’ Hill) I have seen replicas of the boat that tea was tossed from during the tea party. I live in a building built hundreds of years ago. It makes my heart sing. The student environment: Boston is one of the biggest college towns in the nation. According to a 2011 publication by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, Boston is home to 35 colleges, universities or community colleges and there are more than 150,000 students enrolled in those institutions. So whether…
Put People First
Posted September 25, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I was sitting in church this past Sunday listening to a woman tell a story about a piece of advice her older sister had given her which had become a guiding principle in her life. The piece of advice was, “put people first.” This axiom could apply to all areas of life and for me, I’ve been thinking about it in relation to library work. We’ve begun learning about the reference interview in LIS 407 and on Saturday we watched videos of a “bad” reference interaction and a “good” interaction and discussed the behavioral performance guidelines set out by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA). RUSA’s guidelines read a lot like the basics of being a kind, considerate, caring person with a few library-specific points thrown in. Stuff like: make eye contact, acknowledge patrons with a friendly greeting, focus complete attention on the patron’s need, and communicate in a “receptive, cordial, and supportive manner.” One of my classmates said that most of the guidelines were common sense, and another said that they were basically…
On Being Ambassadors
Posted September 18, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I think I can safely say now that this will be one tough semester, characterized with lots of work outside the home. My first semester I had to drive to class every Saturday but all of the work and the assignments could be completed at home, on my own time. Not so this semester. This week I will go interview a reference librarian. Next week I will be visiting an archival repository as a researcher. And any day now my archives internship will start up, requiring 60 hours of work over the course of the semester. As an avowed introvert and homebody, I do not relish the thought of all the running around I’ll be doing. But I also feel confident that once the stress of setting up appointments and making arrangements is over, I am going to love getting out into the field, talking to archivists and librarians, and getting the hands-on experience. The museum internship I had so many years ago right out of college was such a formative experience for me and…
Introducing a New Blogger!
Posted September 14, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Hello everyone! We’d like to introduce one of our new student bloggers, Josie Snow. Please read her bio and first post below: Josie Snow grew up in a small mountain town in Colorado, where she lived until September of 2017. Her love of reading prompted her to become a teacher, and later to pursue her masters in Children’s Literature, which is what brought her to Boston.In her free time, she enjoys exploring the east coast (its all so different than her home!), puzzles, hiking, and stories of all types. New Adventures in Boston I brace my feet and don my special glasses, trying to get a glimpse of the solar eclipse out the train window. I can’t help but think how appropriate it seems for me to be hurtling through the countryside towards exciting, yet unknown territories at the same time that the sun and moon are reminding the world just how much we have to learn; how just as the moon will temporarily replace the sun, so too am I replacing mountains for coastline,…