Dig Libs & Graduates
Posted April 18, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
My graduation is approaching and all you devotees to my snippets on this blog (hi Mom!), know that senioritis is really setting in for me. Actually, it has been there all semester pretty much, which is a little crazy since my graduate school experience has only consisted of 5 semesters, counting the summer when I took classes. So 1/5 of my time in grad school has been under the haze of senioritis. Aren’t humans funny little things when it comes to anticipation? Anywho, I thought in this blog post I would use that senioritis focus and combine it with something I love to do- scour digital libraries for interesting ephemara, artificats, letters, pics, etc. So here you are blog followers and compatriots! The wonderful world of graduates as seen through collections in digital libraries around the states. (note: I excluded videos & sounds in collections, but that’s also a fun ride if you enthusiasts want to go exploring. Many of the sites cited below also have such materials available on the interwebs). …
Whole-self Librarianship
Posted April 13, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
I learned passion and enthusiasm from my dad. My dad is a college English professor and his passions include subjects such as Victorian literature, poetry, Shakespeare, and John Milton. He has other passions as well that he indulges outside of the classroom, like birdwatching and playing the guitar. Both his professional and personal interests make up who he is and tend not to honor the distinction between “professional” and “personal.” His academic interests follow him home from the office, work their way into casual conversation, and inform his worldview. Likewise, his personal interests flavor his teaching style and influence the way in which he relates to students and colleagues. I have observed my dad in his various capacities and positions within the home, at the workplace and in our church and I can tell you he is the same man all across the board. I was reminded of the importance of passion at SLIS West on Saturday. First, there was the lunchtime panel on interview skills with Tom Raffensperger, the Dean of Academic Information Services…
10 things I didn’t expect to learn by becoming a librarian (but I did)
Posted April 11, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
1. How to make memes and animated gifs There’s lots of easy ways to make them. My favorite is using Photoshop. DPLA has a list of resources on how to here https://dp.la/info/get-involved/workshops/#gifs and they run a boss contest every year with some great results like this one: (https://dp.la/info/gif-it-up/) 2. How to make book earrings http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Book-Earrings Library fashion is the best fashion, y’all. It’s so much fun, and it’s not all book related. (Though there is a lot of that). 3. What the semantic web is I don’t know that I’d even heard that term before, and in general, I didn’t really get how much of librarianship is about technology and playing well together in the sandbox with every other information provider in the “digital age.” I’m not gonna explain the semantic web here, but it and RDF and linked data and all the good stuff that comes with are super interesting and worth finding out more about if you don’t know about them yet. Oh, on this note, I don’t think I expected to…
Do You Have Time?
Posted April 6, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
Last week, I began a study in the name of science (and academic success)! You see, while counseling with my advisor recently, I was given this handy little factoid that you should expect to spend 10 hours on your coursework for each class, per week (in addition to class time). I had never heard this before! In the following weeks I began to wonder how many hours I was actually spending on my homework. So I decided to pay more attention to my time usage and record hours spent on schoolwork. These are the questions I hoped to answer: How much time do I spend on schoolwork in a week outside of class? How difficult is it to achieve the optimal 20 hours? Are those 20 hours sufficient for completing my assignments? How is my workflow? How efficiently do I work? For the purposes of this study, I have not included activities such as reading/responding to school-related email or writing blog posts as part of “homework time.” This study is in its early stages and…
It’s the Final Countdown
Posted April 3, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
* 26 days until I finish at SLIS West (our campus has to end a bit earlier than Boston because we use the Mount Holyoke Campus classrooms) * 26 days until my digital libraries class presents at our graduation party, till I celebrate with SLIS West students and alums for our end of the year celebration, and till I get my special SLIS West tote bag signifying I am an alumna 🙂 * 29 days until I finish my SLIS Boston class * 46 days until I walk at commencement in Boston * 44 days until I figure out what to put on the top of my hat for said commencement (ideas welcome) * an unknown number of days until it really feels like spring * 1, 418 days (if I’m calculated correctly) until Amherst College celebrates it’s bicentennial (I’m the Bicentennial Project Metadata Librarian, so this is an important countdown for me) * and, well, I think this should end here- I’m getting a little nervous counting down the days of my life. My…
Less is more: Small scale librarianship
Posted March 30, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
One of the great things that I love about attending SLIS West is the lunchtime events. Many of my blog posts will probably contain thoughts and reflections from the latest SLIS West speaker or presentation, especially since I plan to attend ALL OF THEM. Part of my motivation for this is the free lunch provided. Listen: I think I’ve had to bring my own lunch only twice this entire semester. This is a great, great thing. The food that they get for these events is excellent. Also, I am like an eager little sponge that just wants to soak up all the library stuff, and this is an easy and convenient way to do it! So, last Saturday we heard from Andrea Bernard, Library Director at the Tyler Memorial Library in Charlemont, MA and one of 10 I Love My Librarian Award winners in 2016. I just have to quote this section from the story about Andrea’s award: “Andrea Bernard will go out of her way to serve her library patrons. Just ask Stephen Ferguson,…
Harvard Internship Part 2
Posted March 29, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Another guest blog by current student, Sarah Nafis. Sarah is in her second 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. My internship at Harvard’s Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments (CHSI) is still going well. Now that the craziness of getting the new exhibit up and running has passed, we’ve been able to spend more time on the collection. The physical records aren’t in great condition; however, we were lucky enough to find a digital copy of the entire collection. The collection was scanned in the late 1990s and having the digital records will help make the collection more accessible to researchers once we finish all of the processing. I’m more interested in digital preservation and part of my job is working to preserve the digital files. As a result, I haven’t done as much work on the physical preservation of the collection. But it’s been really interesting seeing how the collection…
I Am No Charles Schulz
Posted March 27, 2017 by Amanda Pizzollo
I’m kind of out of words lately. ACRL last week was super fun and awesome, and I highly recommend taking advantage of conferences as much as you can. It’s great way to know what other folks are doing across the library land and to get motivation and practical advice for your own role and community. But, I am kind of not functioning at high octane levels right now mind-wise. ACRL and the travel to and from while trying to keep up with my 2 classes (which are awesome but the most work intensive courses I’ve had my whole grad school time) and settle into my new position at work has left me a little out of articulation energy and wherewithal. So, here’s a bad comic I made today to illustrate my current feelings about dealing with Dublin Core- a specific metadata schema- for my digital libraries project with class. PS: don’t mistake this post for me grumbling about being stressed/overwhelmed or even about me not loving Dublin Core. I am a bit overwhelmed with school…
Why You Should Go to Library School (or more specifically, SLIS West)
Posted March 23, 2017 by Megan Ondricek
A post from our new student blogger, Megan Ondricek. Since you are here, reader, I can probably safely assume that you are already in grad school or seriously considering it. Maybe you don’t need convincing. But if you’re like me when I was researching my options, you might be having some questions like, “Is library school/SLIS West for me?” “Will it further my dreams and ambitions?” “Am I going to like it?” Here are some of the happy discoveries I’ve made so far that have confirmed that coming to SLIS West was the right thing for me to do: SLIS West is small! The program generally enrolls around 80 students. Your classes will be small, your discussions will be intimate, and you will get to know most of your classmates and make friends quickly. The setting is quaint and beautiful. Don’t get me started on how much I love the Mount Holyoke campus and surrounding environs. This really needs its own blog post. Students here come from all ages and stages of life, and bring…
Introducing a New Blogger!
Posted March 21, 2017 by Katie Olivo
Hello everyone! We’d like to introduce one of our new student bloggers, Megan Ondricek. Please read her bio below: My name is Megan Ondricek and I live in Norwalk, Connecticut with my husband and two children, a four-year old boy and two-year old girl. I’m currently in my first semester of grad school, driving two hours to attend class on Saturdays at SLIS West and so far, I haven’t met anyone else who travels farther! My current profession is stay-at-home mom, and past jobs have included library assistant, administrative assistant, and a Smithsonian museum intern. I’ve lived in Connecticut for about three years now, having lived in southwestern Virginia for the previous fifteen years. I am a small-town girl, outdoor enthusiast, cat-lover, Francophile, art admirer who at one point wanted nothing more than to become a park ranger. Fun fact: I met my husband on the library shuttle eight years ago, and so I guess libraries were always destined to make bold brushstrokes on the canvas of my life. I love school always and forever…