The Fabulous Book Club
Posted January 7, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
For the last fifteen years, I’ve been part of the modestly named Fabulous Book Club. In January 2000, we were a group of mostly single 20-somethings living in Somerville and Cambridge and Jamaica Plain. Over the years, we’ve somehow turned into a group of mostly married 40-somethings living in far-flung suburbs (although I’m holding fast to Somerville!). We’ve had high highs and low lows. Some women moved away, others moved in. Today, about 6 of us meet monthly for dinner, conversation and book discussion (really! We do talk about the book!). We have a pretty good system, and I think we’ll go for at least another 15 years. Because I’m sure there are legions of people out there wondering how we’ve stayed together for 15 years, here are my tips for keeping a book club going long term. We also have fifteen years of really great book lists, which I’m happy to share if anyone is interested. So. To start and keep a book club, you need… People. In January 2000, a friend and I…
2015 Reading Challenge
Posted January 5, 2015 by Hayley Botnen
It’s a brand new year! And while a lot of people enjoy making new year’s resolutions, I’m not really one of them. I try to always keep certain resolutions in mind (eat healthy, exercise as much as I can, love myself more), but one of the few resolutions which I love and keep up with is reading challenges. Last year, I wanted to read 100 books in a year, and I made it to 140. This year, I’m aiming for 150 books, and I stumbled across this challenge which will be a great way to make a dent. There’s 50 categories here which will end up with 52 books (one challenge is to read a trilogy). I’d love to hear if anyone is going to attempt this challenge too! I am so excited for this challenge, and I will be keeping track of this book on my goodreads account under my popsugar challenge tag. Happy 2015! -Hayley
Takin’ Care of Business
Posted December 20, 2014 by Samantha Quiñon
Good news! I have a cataloging internship for the spring (January-May 2015). It’s at WGBH (a Boston TV and radio station that produces two thirds of the country’s public broadcasting, like Masterpiece Theater, Antiques Road Show, and Frontline) at the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB). Besides cataloguing, I’m going to contribute to their blog and sit on an advisory sub-committee for PBCore (Public Broadcasting Core), the metadata schema the archive is using and developing for audiovisual material. I’m really excited. It’s been tough for me to find a cataloguing internship in the Boston area. The internship isn’t paid, so I need another way to make money. Fortunately, I was able to schedule two of my classes on the same day and one over Spring Break, so I have a flexible schedule to accommodate work. I’ve been applying for a lot of jobs, and I have interviews for three. Two are at local education institutions, one is at a museum, and they all are at libraries. Most of the employers that want to interview me…
Movie Time
Posted December 19, 2014 by Hayley Botnen
For today, I wanted to do something a little bit different. Now that the semester is over, I have time to pursue some of my other interests, and if you’ve looked at my profile, you know that one of the things I’ve been trying to do for the last few years is watch through Empire Magazine’s 500 Greatest Films. So here’s my own take on the handful of films I’ve watched since the semester finished. 312. Suspiria 1977 Terrible. Truly. The music that accompanied this film gave both me and my roommate a headache within the first five minutes. I think if it hadn’t been for the terrible sound-editing, it may have been an okay movie. However, even the special effect sounds were obnoxious. I literally wanted to sit in absolute silence after this movie was over so my ears could recover. 142. Almost Famous 2000 I had no idea how many well-known actors were in this! Also it starts with the Chipmunk’s Christmas song and a discussion of To Kill a Mockingbird,…
Just like they said in class!
Posted December 18, 2014 by Alison Mitchell
Yesterday, at work, there was a dilemma. It was a fairly sticky issue, and had multiple perspectives and points. (I know, you’re rolling your eyes, thinking: what kind of crazy problem could there be in a Children’s Department? Just take my word for it.) As the librarians debated how to handle the situation, reviewing library policy, professional ethics, and good sense, I said “This is exactly the type of thing we discussed in my 401 class! I can’t believe things the professors teach us actually happen in a real library!” Actually, I can believe it. The SLIS program is a professional degree, and the focus is on teaching the skills we need for a particular job. Our professors know what employers are looking for, and they make sure that we’re exposed to the practical, applicable parts of library science. We learn how to handle problems, use particular skills, and take what we’ve learned and apply it to different situations. We are getting a top notch education that can be put to work in the field…
Free Time
Posted December 15, 2014 by Samantha Quiñon
This week was blissfully uneventful. Mostly, I stuck to my routine. I had class (for the last time this year), volunteered in the library at the Boston Arts Academy, and finished my internship. Things happened that were outside of my routine too. I interviewed for jobs and internships for the new year, which was both stressful and exciting. (I won’t tell you which ones, because I don’t want to jinx it.) I also went to a holiday party at my friend Meaghan’s apartment and went to the movies and out for dinner with my roommate to celebrate the end of the school year. On a more productive note, with all my newfound free time, I ran dozens of errands I’ve been procrastinating, so my eyebrows now don’t resemble Frida Kahlo’s and my wardrobe is newly expanded with clothes I finally got dry-cleaned. On top of that, I checked out a lot of books from Beatley Library (Simmons College Library) to read over the break. Currently, I’m in the middle of The Night Circus, a fantasy…
Semester by the Numbers
Posted December 11, 2014 by Hayley Botnen
The end of the semester always makes me think about numbers. The big GPA looming over my head. How much time I spend wasting instead of working on my finals like I should be doing. This week, I decided to do a little bit of calculating and submit for your perusal the important numbers from my semester. 4: The number of classes I took (That’s 14 credits. Yes, I might be crazy. No, people usually don’t take that many classes.) 29: The number of hours I volunteered at Boston Arts Academy / Fenway High School Library. 160 : The approximate number of hours I spent physically sitting in a classroom. 53: The number of books I had on hold at my local library. 101 : The number of books I read (YA, middle grade, beginning readers and picture books). 168 : The number of articles I read. 27, 251 : The number of words in all my papers. 6: The number of presentations I did. As you can see, it was a lot of work….
Simmons Wrap Up
Posted December 9, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
When I decided to apply to Simmons for my Master’s, I was working as a records management professional in a corporate setting. I loved certain parts of my job, and I wanted to make sure I would be able to keep a career in records management going – so a Master’s seemed like a sound (if possibly unnecessary) investment in my future. (Corporate records managers haven’t really needed a Master’s in the way that a librarian would, although in the current climate it is becoming more and more necessary to have some education or certification to make you stand out from the rest of the pack just to get a job in the first place.) I was worried about how I was going to balance school and working full-time. I was especially worried that I would end up only being able to take one class per semester, and would be in school for 4+ years – that I might lose momentum, or that there were so many things that might happen to knock me out…
That’s All, Folks! (For Now)
Posted December 6, 2014 by Samantha Quiñon
I’m finished!!! I turned in all of my work for the Fall term and did all of my presentations. I think everything went well, but I won’t know until I get my grades in a few weeks. Technically, I still have one more week of class for LIS 407 (Reference), but since I gave my presentation last week, I can basically just show up in my pajamas and kick back while other people get stressed out. I won’t, but I am enjoying that I could, hypothetically speaking. My presentation last week, which I gave with four other people, lasted forty minutes and was about PubMed, which is a public medical database run by the National Library of Medicine. A small percentage of our grade depended on how professionally we were dressed during our time in front of the class, so it was pleasantly unusual to see everyone looking so nice. It’s not that people in the program are slobs or anything, but around this time of the year, everyone is looking at their laptop and…
Happy Study-mas!
Posted December 3, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
Well, this is it. The final weeks of the fall semester have finally arrived! Yes that’s right, the end is finally in sight; what we see up ahead is the light at the end of the tunnel. Now the only thing standing in our way from kicking off winter break: Finals. Ah finals. Like Christmas, finals is that magical time of the year when everyone comes together and collectively moves into the library for a week or two. Instead of putting up decorations and baking cookies, we get to write essays and stand before our peers and present our group projects. While some people eagerly check off the days until their respective winter holiday begins, we’ll be busy checking off the number of hours we have before the dropbox on Moodle stops accepting submissions. The season of giving and joy might be upon us, but so is the season of all-nighters, study groups, and the feeling of triumph one feels when everything is finally completed. I recently researched the month of December just to see…