How to be a Public Library Director in 5 Very Packed Days
Posted May 30, 2014 by Emily Boyd
I got to spend last week talking about one of my favorite things, public libraries, with one of my favorite professors, Mary Wilkins Jordan. During my time at Simmons (so far) I’ve taken three intensive courses and I must say I love the format. While learning about the many aspects of library management (budgeting, outreach, programming, evaluation, collection development, and advocacy to name a few) in one week was a bit overwhelming at times, it’s also a great way to cover a lot of ground quickly and get to the heart of issues. Many people in graduate school, especially at GSLIS, are also working and do not always have a whole semester to devote to classes like LIS 450 Organization and Management of Public Libraries and the week-long intensive format is a great alternative. The class was structured in five jam-packed days over the course of one week and we covered a lot of ground in a very short time. This is a subject that I’m incredibly passionate about so it was wonderful to be…
It Isn’t Always Easy Being a Librarian
Posted May 28, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
The experience of throwing out books is perhaps the one part of being a librarian that I do not like. I’m not sure why, but I just find the notion of tossing books away to be kind of sad. Unfortunately for me, this past Friday at my new job working as a library assistant/intern at a law library, my co-workers and I had to toss out a good chunk of the library’s collection. Going into the day, I had come in prepared to do some moving, thinking that we were merely going to be moving boxes over to the library’s temporary location until the building was finished being renovated. What I did not know was that we would be throwing out books. However, since all these books were outdated and the library could not find any one who would be interested in purchasing them, there was only one solution left. The thing is, in the world of law libraries, things change frequently. Once something is outdated, even if it just under two years old, its most likely…
Visit a New Library
Posted May 26, 2014 by Maggie Davidov
I haven’t been on a real vacation in over a year, but two weeks ago I unplugged completely and made the drive to Portland, Maine. Portland was everything I wanted it to be and more. I think I really needed to sleep and not look at my email for a stretch. For anyone who hasn’t tried these highly attainable things…you really should. Sleep is luxuriously restorative. Also, I never fully appreciated how much time I spend on email until I turned off my phone and spent time in the moment in the glorious outdoors. One of my other big takeaways from my mini-break was library tourism. I had never really been aware of this as a conscious act on vacation, but I realize it should be planned into almost any vacation. Check out the local library. See what they do differently. Open your eyes to the way they lay out their space. It’s fun to walk into a library that’s new to you. You have to experience it from the patron perspective and you can…
Here and There: Visiting the New York Antiquarian Book Fair
Posted May 22, 2014 by L. Kelly Fitzpatrick
It’s no secret; events and conventions are a big part of almost any interest group. Whether it’s through the relay of colorful lore, mailing list messages, and social media coverage – conventions and events are an exciting part of life and times at Simmons GSLIS. From presenting new projects to raising questions and dialogues, attending events can be an important step to rooting yourself into your professional field. Unbeknownst to me, I came face to face with my first professional event by complete accident. This past April, I was in Manhattan walking home from none other than my high school reunion. Passing the Park Avenue Armory, the banners adorning it were unmistakable, reading: New York Antiquarian Book Faire. Heart be still – I knew I had a couple of hours before evening plans, and I fully intended to spend those hours inside that building, seeing all that was humanly possible between now and then. I picked up student admission and quickly encountered a sea of exhibitors hailing from locations from Austria to Washington state which…
Derby Dames
Posted May 19, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
I am not a sports person. In Canada we have our hockey, yes, but even people who don’t like hockey are allowed to go about their daily lives with a minimum of head shakes and eyebrows raised. Even hockey, it’s understood, is not for everyone. That’s not possible in Boston. Sports are a religion here. It’s hard for me, an outsider, to say which team inspires the most passion in Bostonians; if hard pressed I would have to guess the Patriots, but the Patriots-Red Sox-Bruins trifecta is everywhere. Trying to explain that no, you haven’t been to Fenway to see the Red Sox play because you’re not actually a baseball fan will get you both head shake, the raised eyebrows, and an immediate invitation to come see a game, with the obvious expectation that yes, you too will soon be converted. (Which is why I will be not only going to a game on Thursday, but participating in some sort of giant flag (?) holding ceremony (??) on the field before the game (!!). I……
Semester Wrap Up and a Library Gala
Posted May 2, 2014 by Emily Boyd
My final “real” semester of school has finally wrapped up and it was quite a whirlwind! Had I known how difficult it would be to simultaneously juggle two intense classes and two demanding part time jobs I’m not sure I would’ve done it. That said, looking back I’m happy I survived and managed to find a reasonable amount of balance along the way. Next Friday I will participate in the GSLIS graduation ceremony and receive an empty diploma as I still have two courses left before I’m officially done. I’m looking forward to listening to our speaker David Weinberger and participating in the ceremony. The courses I’ll be taking over the summer are both week long intensives and should be a lot of fun. First I’ll be taking LIS 430 Organization and Management of Public Libraries the last week of May with Professor Mary Wilkins Jordan. I started this class in the fall semester but dropped it (because I signed up for too many classes) and I think it will be a fun and informative week….
What’s Next?
Posted April 30, 2014 by Maggie Davidov
I am graduating in December. This is painfully evident to me as many of my friends are graduating this spring. I watch them as they introduce themselves at the job fair in their smart pant suits. I linger over their announcements on the last day of class: This IS my last class at GSLIS. I jump for joy when they reveal in triumph: I GOT A JOB! This is what’s next this week: parties, life without homework, and the jobs on the horizon. But what about after that? What happens after the cheering is over, the reading for fun begins and the day-to-day routines of library jobs set in? This is inevitably what is addressed, or should be addressed, in any last class rant by a professor of substance. My two professors, both crazy intelligent beings, Amy Pattee and Linda Braun, spent their last moments with us pronouncing those fateful words: THIS IS NOT THE END! They’re right, it is only the beginning. I pass their words of wisdom on to you, dear readers, as…
Where Did the Time Go?
Posted April 29, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
I’ve looked at my calendar more times than I can count in the last few days. Surely the date can’t be right; wasn’t it January just the other day? Although it says that today is the second to last day of April, I’m about 95% certain that my laptop’s calendar is wrong. Shouldn’t the last few days of April be warm? I’m pretty sure that the weather outside is more like something I’d find in late February, or early March at best. No, this all has to be one massive, over the top hoax; any moment now Ashton is going to pop and inform me that I’ve been punked. Any moment now…still waiting….Ashton? Alright fine, I’ll face the facts, the semester is literally days from being over which means that somehow, I’ve just completed my first year at Simmons. Of course I’m over the moon excited by this fact; I have just one small twenty-five paper standing in between me and summer break. And yet, it seems like just yesterday I was leaving for…
Boston City Archaeology Lab
Posted April 28, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
It’s no secret that Boston has a rich history. One of the first things I did when I moved to this area was spend a long afternoon walking the Freedom Trail, which I highly recommend to anyone new (or not so new) to the area, especially now that the weather has gotten so lovely. Of course, the Freedom Trail only tells the recent history of Boston; the Massachusett and other Native American people were here long before the Pilgrims, and their history is harder to see. Not impossible, though – if you’re very interested in the history of the Boston area, the place you want to head is the city’s Archaeology Lab, out in West Roxbury.That’s the home base of Boston’s City Archaeologist, Joe Bagley, who oversees all of Boston’s archaeological digs and collections. (Stop for a minute and think about how cool it is that Boston has archaeological digs going on right now that are unearthing amazing finds about the history of the city. It’s pretty cool.) The best part is that if…
Professionalization of the Archival Field
Posted April 21, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
One of the things that struck me only after I’d started the archives program at Simmons was how incredibly diverse the field of archives really is. I knew that there were small historical societies staffed with volunteers with little or no formal training, but until I actually began to take classes in archives I had never realized how much there was to study, and how important that information was for preserving the items in the archive to begin with. My LIS438 and 440 classes were peppered with stories like the one about the (untrained) archivist who cut photographs into pieces to file each person in the photo under their name in the files: many collections of letters which were broken up in order to be filed under subjects, rather than by provenance; all the letters from all the collections mixed together forevermore; collections where diaries, of all things, were cut up so that individual “important” entries could be saved and the rest thrown away (this was thought the be an extremely efficient use of space)….