(Family) History Hunting
Posted March 11, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Last week, my grandfather called up my mother, who called up me because I live in Boston. He needed a favor. For years, my grandfather has been trying to hunt down family records to find out where the family immigrated from in Ireland, and he was able to trace them back to Boston sometime in the early 1870’s. Boston has the original records of marriage and ship arrivals in the Massachusetts State Archives, which is on the UMass campus. He was hoping I could find some of the original records concerning the marriage of my great-great-great grandparents, and maybe any records of their arrival. Of course I said yes. He also said the boring grandfatherly stuff you’d expect him to say like “Don’t let it distract you from your schoolwork” but I have no control when it comes to research. I did find an 1871 marriage record, and I do have a copy of it which gave him extra information (and then he pulled me off of it because “you need to focus on your…
Pop-Up Shops! Who Knew?
Posted March 10, 2016 by Katie Caskey
Who is enjoying their spring break so far? I know I am! As I write this, I am simultaneously finishing up laundry left over from a weekend spent hosting my mom who flew in from Minnesota and packing for a wedding in Tennessee that I leave for tomorrow…no rest for the weary, but I wouldn’t trade these frund times for the world! So, in honor of the fun, bubbly, vacation-y mood I’m in, I”m taking a week off of blogging (or thinking) about anything remotely schoarly. Sorry, but I want to talk about donuts instead. To be more specific, I want to talk about the maple bacon donut that I had a few days ago from the fun, new pop-up shop next door to my grocery store. This donut was perfection! First of all, it was HUGE, and, as we Americans know, bigger is always better when it comes to sweets. J The frosting was rich and maple-y without being too strong, and the bacon was real fried bacon, not those stale smoked bacon bits…
Subversive Librarians and Magic Spells
Posted March 5, 2016 by Amy Wilson
Last night, my Legal Information Services class went to Northeastern University’s law library, where both of my professors work. Northeastern’s wifi is really restrictive, so we had no access to the catalog and were totally reliant on print sources. We took a tour of the library (and had to remember where the books were located), then were let loose with a list of questions to answer. Finding information in legal print resources is very time consuming – the index is your best friend – but also satisfying, like a scavenger hunt… a scavenger hunt that I would not enjoy in the context of actual research. After that assignment, (are you ready for the Harry Potter reference?) I’ve realized how totally crazy it is that students at Hogwarts had to do this completely the old-fashioned way. No wonder it took Harry, Ron, and Hermione four months to find a reference to Nicholas Flamel in The Sorcerer’s Stone. WHY didn’t anyone in this magical world create a control-F spell? And my bigger issue – why didn’t JK Rowling create a cooler librarian?? Madame…
Playing the Hostess
Posted March 4, 2016 by Katie Caskey
I am so excited because it is finally March! This means that spring has sprung (kind of), Spring Break is just around the river bend, and my mom is coming to visit from Minnesota!!!!!!! This will be the first time since moving me out here two years ago that my mom has been to Boston, and now that I’m settled I finally get to introduce her to my life on the East Coast. But how does one even begin to narrow down the huge list of possible activities, restaurants, and sites Boston has to offer when their guest is only going to be here for two full days?! Well, it’s taken quite a bit of list making and revising, but I think I’ve finally decided. So, without further ado, here are my Top 5 Things to See in Boston. 1) Faneuil Hall This old state building turned shopping center is a great hub of activity to check out. There are usually street performers in the courtyard outside, and the building has that charming and…
Spring Break!
Posted March 3, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Today is the first day in two weeks that I haven’t woken up at or before 7 in the morning. Now, I know this is “normal adult behavior” but as a 22 year old grad student, it’s not something I appreciate or normally do. I’ve been getting up at this sort of ridiculous hour because these two weeks have been absolutely packed with stuff to do. For example, last week’s schedule: Monday: Class and work Tuesday: Class and work and class Wednesday: laundry, cleaning part of the apartment, and then work Thursday: Blogging and then spending most of the day at the MFA Friday: Learning the usability testing then watching most of Fuller House for a binge watching party Saturday: work Sunday: work Usually I have one day of the week where I can stay home and focus on school work, but up until today, which is my first day of spring break (grad school schedules are awesome for scheduling super long breaks), I have been absolutely booked. I have had a lot of fun…
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places: an Annotation
Posted February 27, 2016 by Amy Wilson
As promised, this week I am posting my assignment from last week: my reference annotation from my 407 class. I don’t make it a habit to post assignments because I think it’s kind of unoriginal, but I think when you read about this reference source, you’ll understand why I am sharing. This book, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, is fun to read and fun to write about. I’ve written a long and a short annotation below. Find out more about annotations at Purdue OWL. (the long version) This 755 page paperback volume from Harcourt Publishing is a travel guide for the imaginative reader. The original text, published in 1980, was followed by an expanded paperback run in 1987; this critically acclaimed third edition has been, according to the authors Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi, co-authored by their readers’ submissions. Illustrators Graham Greenfield, Eric Beddows, and James Cook have created 150 maps and 100 illustrations to accompany the 1000 plus text entries. The book includes an original foreword and an authors’ note for this edition. The authors explain…
Yay for Free Books!!!
Posted February 26, 2016 by Katie Caskey
I will be the first one to admit that grad school is tough! There are papers to write, internships to complete, and that’s to say nothing of the one or two (or three) part-time jobs one has to work just to afford food and heat! But, you all know that already, so I’m not going to scare you/bore you with the woes of grad school. Instead, I want to take this time to highlight my absolute FAVORITE perk I’ve encountered in my time as a children’s lit. grad student at Simmons…FREE BOOKS!!!!!! Every year the children’s literature department holds their free book giveaway for all the students in the program. Many of the professors in the program are also book reviewers, so our department is sent many review and advance copies of newly-published or about-to-be-published books. As the year goes on the collection grows, filling the shelves in the book nook until there just isn’t room for anymore. It is then we all receive the much-anticipated invitation to come live out a book-lover’s dream. Each…
Nothing Much
Posted February 25, 2016 by Tara Pealer
I haven’t done anything blog worthy this week. My friend and I took her cat to a free vet clinic for a check-up, I went to school and work, and I paid all of my bills. Yesterday I did laundry. No one wants to hear, read, or talk about those things. I don’t even feel like writing about them. The end of the week looks exciting, though. My friends and I will be spending Friday binge watching all of Fuller House and probably not getting completely drunk. I’ll probably be going to the MFA to see the new acquisition of Frida Kahlo. I might do some cleaning to make my apartment presentable. I probably won’t buy more than two cups of the Smoked Butterscotch Latte (soy milk, no whip) from Starbucks. This is all in the future, however. Which, honestly, leaves me with absolutely nothing to talk about. There was a lunch event with a professor who talked about ways in which the LIS field has limited its discourse through language choice, teaching method, and…
Cookbooks
Posted February 21, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
Looking out the window from my desk at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science, I can’t help but think about how, exactly one year ago, the city of Boston was drowning under piles of snow. While I am a big fan of snow and snow days, I have to admit that I am rather relieved that this year, the weather has decided to play nicely. Considering that I have a thesis to write, research to do, an internship to complete, and heat bills to pay, I am quite content with having 50+ degree days in February. And how exactly is that thesis coming along? Well I can tell you that it is coming along. This evening I will be submitting my outline to my advisor which I have to admit, is equal parts exciting and terrifying. I treat my outlines like architectural blueprints. Having outlined the overall structure of my paper enables me to focus on each section at a time. Since an average thesis runs about 60-80 pages, having something like an outline is definitely…
Making a Statement
Posted February 20, 2016 by Amy Wilson
This month, I have prioritized getting scholarship applications out for next year. I had deadlines of March 1 for the American Library Association and April 1 for the Association of American Law Libraries. I decided to do it all at once because I know that I am only going to get busier from here. Below, I am posting an abridged version of the essay that I submitted to AALL. That essay was allowed to be longer because they also wanted to know about my financial status. The version that I submitted to the ALA was limited to less than 300 words. Editing it down was great practice for an assignment that I had this week in my reference course. We had to create an “annotation” for a print reference source; I chose “The Dictionary of Imaginary Places” and had a lot of fun writing it (stay tuned next week for that)! Anyway, here is my personal statement: When I was an undergraduate, the most influential classroom of my education was a small, sunny office near the reference section of…