Big Moves
Posted February 6, 2014 by Alec Chunn
So, I moved. I’m still in Allston (darn), but at least I am several steps closer to Brookline. I could wax poetic about how much I love that city (fun fact: I volunteer in the Teen Room at the main branch of the public library) but that would do little for our purposes here. As much as I might like to publicly complain about my laborious moving process (it really wasn’t so bad), I find myself distracted by a much more exciting move than my own: The Horn Book is coming to Simmons. For the children’s literature world, this is huge. HUGE. I’m telling you. (Don’t believe me? Click here.) This move makes a lot of sense considering that the magazine’s founder, Bertha Mahony, graduated from Simmons in 1902. Nowadays, Simmons (specifically its Center for the Study of Children’s Literature) and The Horn Book are both involved in Children’s Book Boston, a new organization dedicated to providing a shared space for the Boston-based kid lit world. Simmons also hosts The Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium…
The Future of GSLIS: Blended and Online Courses
Posted February 5, 2014 by Maggie Davidov
You haven’t heard from me in a long while because I’ve been in class every day for the past three weeks. No, I am not taking more than my usual part time load. However, I am taking my first online class this semester. The online class is taking up most of my time. I spend a good hour every day following my class discussion on twitter. Check us out #lis460. I also listen to podcasts from my professor, the ever so talented Linda Braun. After the podcast for the week is over I watch her explain a new trend in social media through multiple screencasts on youtube. I then do my readings. Thankfully they are more relevant than a textbook on reserve at Beatley; they are blog posts or magazine articles from the LIS, technology or education field. I then take all of this knowledge and discuss it with my group on a collaborative google doc. There are of course other projects, but that is the bare bones of what we do every week. I…
I Need Office Supply Rehab.
Posted February 4, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
Please indulge me as I nerd out for a second about something that I don’t think many people nerd out about. Yes, I played World of Warcraft for years. Yes, I am really into Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and a plethora of even less well-known fantasy and science fiction-y stuff. But one of my favorite nerd-outs is so nerdy that no one even talks about it, and I’m not sure if anyone else suffers from this affliction besides myself (and apparently the whole of South Korea). Let’s nerd out about supplies. Seriously, guys. Is there anything better than the perfect pen, or a fresh notebook, or – the crème de la crème – a desk organizer? I have spent years hunting for the right school supplies. My father, bless his heart, finally gave up and sent me his credit card number so I could order my own planner, because in his words “just pick one already and buy it for yourself and consider it a Christmas present.” Everyone is different with what…
The Super Bowl from the Perspective of a Non-football Fan
Posted February 3, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
I’m not going to beat around the bush, I am not really big on this whole football thing. Don’t ask me why, because I can assure you that at age 22 ½, I’m still trying to figure it out. My three other roommates, on the other hand, are about as nuts about football as cats are to cat nip. Every Sunday evening, they can found in our common space with a game on (because there is always a game on, somewhere), surrounded by chips, dip, and beer. Like the fans in the stadiums, they hoot, they holler, they make snide remarks about the opposing team. Even from the perspective of someone who would much rather listen to silence than hear a baseball game broadcasted over the radio, my roommates somehow always managed to make whatever they are watching seem like they are watching the greatest show on earth. And so, after months and months of listening to their weekend hoopla, I found myself Sunday night, over at a mutual friend’s apartment watching the Big Game….
Hidden Value in Boring Courses
Posted January 31, 2014 by Emily Boyd
I’m about to say something that may shock you. Not all classes in library school are riveting. One in particular is considered by many to be the most boring class they could possibly imagine. This course has only recently been removed from the list of core courses and I’m here to suggest that when you come to GSLIS, you take that boring course. This infamously boring course is LIS 403 Evaluation of Information Services. Perhaps the name is a giveaway for why it might be considered a bit of a snooze. In truth, no it wasn’t my favorite class to sit through, for three hours, in the evenings, on Mondays, but I am now applying so much of what I learned to my current library job. Professor Mary Wilkins Jordan did her best to keep classes lively and interesting, and considering that the subject matter is dry, I’d say she succeeded most of the time. The real value of the class was the semester long assignment to create a research proposal for a theoretical evaluation….
Corporate Archive
Posted January 30, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
I work in a corporate archive. When I took LIS438 (Introduction to Archival Methods and Services) last spring, one of the questions someone asked me was what the main difference is between a corporate archive and a historical archive, besides the obvious fact that the corporate archive only hosts documents pertaining to the institution I work for. The one I can think of, off the top of my head, is that our legal department gets to determine how documents should come to the archive, and what shape they should be in when they get there. One of the first things I learned while I was doing my first archival internship at the Worcester Historical Museum was just how much I should appreciate the lovely uniformity of the records that I got every day in the corporate archive – everything organized and arranged just so before they even got to me. Of course, at the historical archive there was always the excitement of opening a box and having only the vaguest of ideas what might be…
Confessions of a Kid Lit Fanboy
Posted January 29, 2014 by Alec Chunn
Let’s talk about fandom. Surely, there is somebody out there whom all of you are dying to meet. Yet, you’re probably also terrified of meeting this person, for fear of being tongue-tied, boring, or just all around beside yourselves (my grandmother, bless her heart, would use the phrase “tickled”). Well, a strange thing happened here at Simmons this semester: by some cosmic twist of fate, I am now taking a class from one of my heroes, Roger Sutton. See, Roger doesn’t know that I idolize him. He doesn’t know that one of my biggest motivations to come to Boston was to someday be his intern (fingers crossed). He doesn’t know that, on the first day of orientation last semester, when I found out he’d be teaching this class, my jaw literally dropped and I had to pick it up off the floor. He doesn’t know that, that same day, I all-too-energetically ran to meet one of the members of his staff at The Horn Book. At least, I hope he doesn’t know these things. And…
Let’s Talk About Being Poor
Posted January 28, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
Let’s face it: deciding to pursue my graduate degree in Library and Information Science from a private college isn’t the most fiscally responsible decision I’ve ever made. When I informed my husband – who was at that time starting his own PhD program and netting around 30k/year for around 90 hours of work a week – that I wanted to get my LIS degree, and that we would ultimately be in the hole more or less 50k, it was…not received with great enthusiasm. Coming from Wisconsin, finances are viewed fairly differently there. 30k is more than enough money for a couple to live fairly comfortably; we rented a GORGEOUS lofted one-bedroom, two bathroom, apartment for $900/month. Then, stupid Carolyn…we moved into a tiny, 500 square-foot 1-bedroom for $2100/month, plus utilities and parking. That ranks among the all-time stupidest decisions I have ever made. Ultimately, though, we decided to move into a much more reasonably priced apartment – a 1 bedroom + den for $1650. Affordable! That’s a word I haven’t heard in recent memory. Let’s…
Learning the World of Computers
Posted January 27, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
As we all know, last Tuesday’s snow storm caused Simmons to cancel class that night. As I stayed nice and warm inside, I decided to do the responsible thing and do some reading for class. It was while I was reading through one of my two books for LIS 488 (Technology for Information Professionals) that I realized that I have a lot to learn in regards to computers. Now for those of you who might not know, LIS 488 focuses on the conceptual foundation and context of computing, Internet, and other technologies used within information-based professions. Besides learning the concepts and skills related to various pieces and aspects of technology, we are learning about the inner workings and history of computers. Considering that I grew up in the 1990s and had a front row seat to all the changes that occurred within the world technology, I figured that this course was going to relatively easy. Boy was I wrong. But not for the reasons that you’re probably thinking. I’ll be the first to admit that…
Let’s Beat the Winter Blues: Out of the House and Out of the Cold
Posted January 21, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
Hello friends! I hope you are all safe and sound after this bipolar weather we are having. I know that the last thing anyone feels like doing at the moment is traveling out, but sometimes you need to brace yourself against the cold, bundle up for sleet/snow/rain/55 degree weather, and go outside. Let’s talk about Making the Most of Winter! I will be sharing with you a few of my favorite spots to both mentally and physically escape the weather. The Museum of Fine Arts http://www.mfa.org/ The MFA is truly a must-see for anyone in Boston, whether you’re a permanent resident or only spending a weekend in Beantown. The MFA is a contender for the best museum in the country, and is certainly one of the top ones in the world – it houses extensive collections of American, European, Meso-American, and Byzantine art, to name a few of their collections. Additionally, there is a featured display that is always worth seeing. One of my past favorites was a collection of Japanese Samurai artifacts, including armor,…