The Legend of the Famously Curious Monkey
Posted February 12, 2016 by Katie Caskey
In honor of this year’s Chinese zodiac animal, I would like to tell you all a story about what is, perhaps, the world’s most famous literary monkey…Curious George. I preface this post with the acknowledgement of the story’s source, Anita Silvey. Anita is a professor of Children’s Literature here at Simmons. She has worked for many years in the publishing industry, served as the editor of The Horn Book review journal, and has published a book (and a blog) called Anita Silvey’s Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac, in which she highlights a different children’s book for each day of the calendar. Because of her many years in the industry, she is full of remarkable behind-the-scenes stories of some of our favorite books’ publishing histories. When I took her class on Publishing I got the chance to spend an entire semester listening to her wonderful tales. Here is one of my favorites… Hans Rey, creator of our favorite mischievous monkey, and his wife Margret were living in Paris in 1941 during World War II. Just three days before…
Advice from the Advisor in Residence
Posted February 11, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Simmons LIS is really lucky to have an amazing support staff working in the dean’s office to make the best of opportunities for student looking for career advice. Currently, the student support staff is working to arrange the career fair and other events to assist students, like myself, in improving their resumes and interview skills to appeal to today’s job market. One of these opportunities is meeting with the Advisor in Residence, Amy Ryan. Amy Ryan was the first female president of the BPL, and, among many other accomplishments, graciously volunteers her time to offer advice on resume, skill building, networking, and interviewing to SLIS students. She has meeting times set up for individual meetings, holds group lunch meetings to discuss the job market and other LIS topics, and actively engages with the students to help them network and find positions. Have I mentioned that one of my favorite things about Simmons is how career focused their program is? Long story short, I signed up for a meeting with Amy Ryan for Thursday to ask…
How I Spent SuperBowl 50
Posted February 8, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
I want to preface that I am not a big football fan. I enjoy watching a game every now and then but only casually. I barely know any rules associated to the game; I can only name like three players; and half of the time, I forget which team is which. Like I said, I am not a football person. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t find ways to enjoy myself when I watch a football game. This year, my entire apartment decided to do something special for the Super Bowl. Last year, our first year living together, three of us were extremely sick and I spent the majority of the game hallucinating from the flu. So, to celebrate 50 years of Super Bowl fun and not being sick, we decided to put together a massive Bingo game. Pretty impressive huh? We got into the tradition of making Bingo boards during the last year’s baseball season. Since then, we make a board for every sport game we watch. Some times it works better than others but it’s…
This week in 3D printing adventures…
Posted February 6, 2016 by Amy Wilson
Last Tuesday, I hosted a lunch event at my law firm as part of our “Innovation TED Talk Series.” I’m on my Information Services department’s Innovation Board, and one of our most successful “ideas” has been this series of lunchtime sessions, where we view a TED talk and then discuss it as a group. Even though we have the capability to have meetings with multiple cities, we have kept this at the local office level because it has been very nice to just have a discussion with people that you might cross paths with in the kitchen but never really have an opportunity to talk with. It’s also a venue for people to brainstorm and share ideas generally. After the first talk, I also campaigned to have these kind of events count toward our department-wide annually required professional development training. This quarter, our talk was “Where Good Ideas Come From,” a 2010 presentation by Steven Johnson that examines what kinds of spaces and environments lead to innovation (if you have 18 minutes, it is worth…
Ice Cream: The Only Good Thing About a Warm Winter
Posted February 5, 2016 by Katie Caskey
I don’t know about all of you, but I am NOT happy about this crazy warm “winter” we’ve been having this year. I want snow, and hot chocolate, and ice skating, and cold cheeks and noses! I do NOT want to walk out of my house in a spring jacket and be sweating from the humidity before I reach the train station. Last night, in particular, I was really feeling steamed about this heat wave. So, I decided to make myself chilly, even if it was 50-some degrees outside. (I should explain that I’m from Minnesota, so the cold is in my blood…it’s a part of me…I need it). Anyway, I headed to the freezer, dug out a carton of cookie dough ice cream, and prepared to make my own winter experience. As I settled onto the couch and started munching, my brain began to wander, as it does, and I got to thinking about ice cream. It’s just the most wonderful treat, and it’s so customizable! You can make it fruity, chocolatey, hard, soft,…
Color Our Collections
Posted February 4, 2016 by Tara Pealer
Anyone who’s set foot into a bookstore recently has spotted the latest trend in bookselling: the adult coloring book. There’s ocean scenes, fandom pages, and kaleidoscope images. There are funny ones, spiritual ones, and calming ones. Long story short, adults have been given a mass market way to say “it’s acceptable for me to color too!” And, when it comes to trends in the book industry, libraries and archives like to be included. Which brings us to the latest initiative sweeping archives across the nation–“Color Our Collection”. I first ran into the concept when browsing through the Librarian and Archivist tumblr community, when I saw a post about how the Bodleian Libraries (at the University of Oxford) is inviting people to add color to their rare book images. However, they’re not the only ones. A quick google search will pull up results from the Digital Public Library of America, the New York Public Library, and the Stanford Libraries. Even the Smithsonian is participating in the fun! Okay, but real talk: what do they plan on…
Interning at Johnson and Wale’s Culinary Arts Museum
Posted February 2, 2016 by Jill Silverberg
Like many students who entered SLIS in the fall of 2013, this semester I will be completing my final LIS course. While each program within SLIS is structured differently, all feature a Capstone course that usually includes an internship requirement. For this internship, students can either wait to choose a location from a database of options (similar system to what is used in LIS 438, the introductory course for those on the Archives track) or they can work alongside the Capstone Coordinator, Kendra Giannini, and set up an internship at a location of their own choosing. Since my first semester as an Archives-History dual degree student, I have known that my dream job would be to work within a museum or special library that features a large collection of cookbooks and other texts and items associated with food culture. When I met with Kendra, we talked about my interest in Food Studies and she suggested that I consider trying to satisfy my Capstone requirement by interning at the Johnson and Wales Culinary Arts Museum. With…
Not Much Happenin’ Here…Or Is There?
Posted January 29, 2016 by Katie Caskey
I’ve got to be honest…I am struggling with this blog post this week. I usually like to post about fun activities or cool experiences I’ve had in the past week. But this week has, thus far, been pretty event-less. I began the semester, and I started binge-watching episodes of Veronica Mars, which I would never have discovered if it hadn’t been for my professor including the first episode on our syllabus “reading” list. For that I am very grateful! But honestly, what do I write about in the doldrums of January? It’s not yet Valentine’s Day, I don’t have any papers to stress over, I still have a relatively firm handle on my homework load. I’m kind of coasting right now, and that doesn’t make for very interesting blogging. My apologies. ***A few hours and a few snacks later*** Alright, I’ve thought of something! Aren’t you relieved? Today’s post is for those of you who, like myself, feel like they are drifting through their first few weeks of the semester. Enough is enough! Time to…
On Hobbits and Morning Classes
Posted January 28, 2016 by Tara Pealer
I woke up early on Monday morning– –after hitting the snooze button for twenty minutes and silently yelling at myself to put down the phone and make breakfast, that is. These past few weeks, save a few days of work and ALA Midwinter, I have had the privilege to sleep in until 9 or 9:30, laze around for half an hour, eat cereal, then another half hour later I’d make some toast, and then, an hour later, I’d make an actual breakfast with actual substance. By the time I had finished that, it was lunch time and the cycle could begin again. I have long ago accepted the fact that I am probably a hobbit. However, hobbits don’t have morning classes. I have two 9 AM classes this semester, which means that my hobbit-esque schedule is irreparably broken. Waking up at 6:00 am? Definitely something I have to re-accustom myself to. Luckily, my first class of the semester, LIS 488 (one of the options to fill the technology requirement), I have with two of my…
NDSR Residencies and Digital Repositories
Posted January 26, 2016 by Alexandra Bernson
Yesterday I had the opportunity of attending the NDSR Mid-Year Event, where NDSR Residents gave presentations regarding the progress of their projects at their host institutions. If you are like me and know nothing about this program, you would be completely lost as to what any of this means. Don’t worry – despite my own interest in digital preservation, digital stewardship, or any other areas within the ever-expanding world of digital libraries and repositories, I hadn’t been aware of this program either. Originally hosted by the Library of Congress, the National Digital Stewardship Residency (or NDSR) assigns its residents to libraries or repositories looking to improve or originate their own digital stewardship program. This cohort model, where residents and their “hosts” work together to analyze and implement new theories and programs, has resulted in successful programs at past host institutions. Potential applicants are all recent graduates from various iSchools or MLIS graduate programs, and many of them did not have digital stewardship tracks at their graduate program. Currently, the NDSR Boston has residents at Harvard,…