Well, that was fast.
Posted June 2, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
I just submitted the final assignment for LIS-505, Reader’s Advisory. Hurrah! LIS-505 was a two-week class, and by that I mean a full three-credit class jammed into two weeks. We read eight novels from different genres, about 20 articles on different aspects of reader’s advisory, book selection, leading discussion groups and genre fiction, completed three assignments and gave an in-class presentation. I’m not going to lie — it was a lot of work in a short period of time. But it was fun work, interesting work, and I enjoyed the professor, classmates, readings and assignments. I did not enjoy the timeframe so much. It turns out that I really like to take my time with assignments. I guess I knew this, but taking a two-week class really made it clear. Usually, I write a first draft well before the assignment is due, and revise it considerably until the day before the due date, and then try to submit early, which is essentially impossible in a two-week timeframe. However, every once in a while it’s good…
Ready Set Rhubarb
Posted May 27, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Well, it might have taken a bit longer than I would have liked but at long last the Boston Ice Age has ended and Spring has firmly declared its presence. For the last few weeks of April and even the first few weeks of May, I was seriously starting to get worried. After the winter we just went through, the last thing I needed were any more days below 55 degrees. However, judging from the explosion of flowers, leaves, and the sudden outbreak of open toed shoes, I think it is safe to say that those chilly days are behind us. Goodbye winter chill, hello spring/summer humidity! Wait….I hate humidity. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Fortunately my apartment’s ability to remain far cooler inside than it is out will mean far more pleasant days than my old place last year. While I will forever miss my very first apartment, the place’s lack of windows made the unit a walk-in-oven. While this certainly encouraged my roommates and myself to get creative with ways to stay cool (three of them bought…
Two Jobs and Three Clasps
Posted May 25, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
This past week I started two new jobs. Well one is not that new, it’s the same library assistant position I had during the Spring Semester, but now my hours have been doubled and I have a few new responsibilities. As I write this, it is Memorial Day Weekend, and for the first time, I’m the senior staff person on duty. No managers today; no one will bail me out or make a tough decision for me if there is any sort of incident. It’s really not a big deal on a slow weekend like this, but it’s nice to know my managers think I’m competent enough to handle things. I also was invited to co-author a libguide with another librarian, which is basically a set of webpages with useful resources and for patrons on a specific subject. Many jobs I’m interested in applying for after graduation prefer applicants with experience in patron instruction and creating digital resources, so I’m excited to be able to eventually put this on my résumé. The other new position…
Author Events and Expectations
Posted May 21, 2015 by Hayley Botnen
Before moving out to Boston, I had never been to an author event. There were a couple in my old town, but they weren’t authors I was interested in, so I never went. Since moving out here, I’ve had the opportunity to go to three different events (and The Horn Book Awards, but I don’t count that). I’ve been a little spoiled though because the first event I went to was amazing. I wrote about the experience on this blog. I went to listen to Lois Lowry speak about The Giver. It was so much fun. I only had a short wait in a line to get my book signed, and then she spoke for an hour about her life and what inspired her to write The Giver. As someone who wants to write, I love hearing what inspires other authors. The other two events I’ve since gone to were hosted by the same book store. The first was to see Kiera Cass, author of The Selection series. My roommate and I got to the…
Exploring Options, SLIS Style
Posted May 19, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
When I enrolled at SLIS, I was sure that I would take all my classes on campus, in person. That was the whole point of going to grad school, right? I wanted to meet my professors, form relationships with my classmates, ask questions and have face to face conversations. Then, for family and scheduling reasons, I ended up taking an online class this past semester. While I still prefer on campus classes and face-to-face interactions, I now appreciate the great flexibility online classes provide, and I’m actually taking another one in the fall. I was also pretty sure I’d take all my classes during the traditional fall and spring semesters. A friend of mine, who also went through Simmons when her kids were in Elementary school, shared horror stories of the shortened, intense summer semester — “that’s when my kids learned to cook their own meals, since all I did was study.” However — and I think you know where I’m going — I’m about to start a 2-week “short course.” It meets every day…
Revisiting Childhood
Posted May 7, 2015 by Hayley Botnen
As someone who is pursuing a degree in Children’s Literature and Library Science, I spend a lot of time in my courses rereading books I loved as a child. I also get to read books which I missed as a child or which came out after I grew up a little. Many of the books which I reread are considered classics in the field of Children’s Literature (Where the Wild Things Are, Goodnight Moon, Ramona Quimby Age 8). I always enjoy reading the books. Sometimes I will get little flashes of memory-feeling which remind me how I felt when I read the book when I was younger. I’ll remember having my mom read to me, or the first time I connected to the character. Outside of school, I’ve moved away from rereading in the last few years. There are just so many books out there! If I reread a book, I’m giving away the time which I could otherwise spend reading a brand-new adventure! However, this last month, the West Roxbury Branch of the Boston…
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Posted May 2, 2015 by Samantha Quiñon
Even though I’ve been living in Boston for almost a year now, I have yet experience and do many things that are quintessentially “Boston”, which is to say touristy in the best possible way. So I have made a list of things that I want to do this summer, including walking the Freedom Trail, taking a Duck Tour, walking around the Public Garden, and going to the North End for Italian food. On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to start crossing off things on my list early by going to a Red Sox game. I went with my boyfriend and his friends to a night game at Fenway Park where we drank and ate overpriced park food and beverages, sang along to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”, watched a proposal on the JumboTron, bopped around in our seats to cheesy walk-up songs, and saw the Green Monster/Monstah (the legendary left field wall) in person. Attending classes at the main campus means that I’m constantly in the heart of the Fenway, just blocks from the stadium. While I’m often…
Link Roundup
Posted May 1, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
Here’s a wrap-up of library- and book-related links people have sent me recently. As I’ve said before, no one ever did this when I practiced law or worked in state government… TIME’s 100 Best Children’s Books. I like all kinds of “best” lists, mostly because it’s fun to see what other people think is “best” and how that relates to my personal idea of “best.” This list is pretty comprehensive, but I don’t love the format (you have to click for each book, the Time banner obscures the top of each title, and every few books you’re stopped for an ad — what’s up with that, Time?). Top Ten Most Challenged Books in 2014. You’ve probably seen this list, originally from the ALA’s most recent State of America’s Libraries report. The ones I haven’t read are definitely going on my summer reading list. Boo, censorship! Library Partnership. A friend teaches an online course for high school history teachers that focuses on using primary sources in the classroom. One of her students is involved in this…
The task of getting…
Posted April 26, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Getting into a library I mean. Normally this isn’t something that most people would assume would be a difficult task, and yet, depending on where you go, it can be a herculean effort. A few years back my uncle and I decided to spend a day in New York City. Since I had just recently decided that I wanted to pursue a M.S. degree in LIS, my uncle wanted to celebrate by showing me the library of his former grad school, Columbia University. As a then student worker in my undergraduate’s school library, I was accustomed to the idea of non-students visiting a school’s library. Sometimes it’s tourists, other times researchers. In the case of where I worked, it didn’t matter who you were; the library was part of the local community. Considering this, you can imagine my surprise when we arrived at Columbia’s library and were stopped at the door. “Sorry, only students and members of the faculty can enter,” said the guard. “Well,” my uncle replied back, “I am an alumni of the…
LibraryThing, My New Love
Posted April 24, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
There’s a lot to love about libraries, and there is definitely a lot to love about LibraryThing. Maybe some people knew about this fabulous program before SLIS, but I didn’t. When Candy Schwartz assigned a small LibraryThing project in 415 my first semester, my mind was basically blown. Oh, the possibilities! This semester, I used an assignment in 488 to do what I really wanted with LibraryThing, creating a website that weaves book recommendations through my personal and professional background. As part of the project, I cataloged over 400 children’s, adult fiction and nonfiction books with basic tags that I plan to refine over time. I’m only inputting books that I’d actually recommend to someone else — believe me, there were many that didn’t make the cut. I went through our library history, my old journals, all our bookshelves, fifteen years of my book club booklists, and my older daughter’s near-encyclopedic knowledge of everything she’s ever read. What a trip down memory lane. Even better than the fun of cataloging the books is the fact…