Things to do in Boston in Winter
Posted March 2, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
When I moved to Boston from Vancouver, BC, I was a little afraid of the winter. Maybe more than a little, actually. We don’t get a lot of very cold weather in Vancouver, and it rains pretty much every day from October 1 to April 1. (This may be a slight exaggeration, but believe me when I say that it’s very slight.) We don’t get a lot of snow. We don’t get a lot of ice. I was a little terrified at the prospect of having to drive in either, having to walk around in either, and really just having to exist in either. I had this idea of winter in Boston as a dark, cold wasteland, with people spending most of their time gathered around heaters, dressed in five or six sweaters, hats and gloves on, shivering as they heard the wind whistling outside the ice-caked windows. It’s not really like that. Life goes on in Boston in the winter, without people letting the weather ruin their plans. In fact, there are a lot…
Beginning of the End
Posted February 28, 2014 by Emily Boyd
That’s not entirely true, I’ve got so much work to plow through between now and the end of spring semester that at times I feel like I’ll never be done. However, Wednesday afternoon I signed up for my last ever classes at GSLIS. True to form, I’m taking the road less travelled and finishing up my GSLIS career with two weeklong intensive courses over the summer, including one that I think is intended for archive students. My final semester as a masters student will be done in short intensive bursts. I’ll spend the last week of May taking LIS 450: Organization and Management of Public Libraries, a class I’d planned to take in the fall semester but timing hadn’t worked out. The second course will meet for two three day periods during the month of July, LIS 425: History of the Book. I’m most looking forward to LIS 425, in fact, it’s the class that made me originally decide I wanted to go to school to become a librarian. I remember very distinctly the day…
A Case for Classes at the Carle
Posted February 27, 2014 by Alec Chunn
Warning: This is an advertisement. Or perhaps it’s more of an endorsement. One of the coolest things children’s literature students at Simmons can do is attend classes that are held at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA. Currently, I am enrolled in one such class–Children’s Book Publishing–taught by Vicky Smith. We meet for the last weekend of every month, mostly in the windowless conference room, but the change of setting is refreshing. (And the lack of windows really isn’t that bad.) Taking a class with students who aren’t Boston-based is enlightening because they bring a different perspective. The cultural climate around the area reminds me so much of Bellingham, Washington (where I went to undergrad) so I feel right at home. So many of the students are writers in the dual degree track–at least in the case of this particular Carle class. For a would-be librarian like me, being surrounded by so many aspiring writers is just the coolest. I could shelve their books someday. Isn’t that wild? The class…
Judy Chicago Comes to Boston!
Posted February 25, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
I can’t believe this is already my last semester in graduate school – not to mention that the semester is halfway through. As some of you know, I am taking my 502 – my capstone internship – at the Schlesinger Library, part of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. As an intern exhibit researcher, I am working to coordinate an exhibit going up on October 14th regarding the Civil War. But as that’s months away, I want to share with you an exciting opportunity that’s coming up much sooner…Judy Chicago coming to Boston! I am sure that most of you know Judy Chicago, but a bit of background on her: she is one of the most influential women artists this century. Ostensibly her greatest work, The Dinner Party, is not only massive, but massively successful (and definitely on my bucket list of “to-see’s”) and lives in Brooklyn permanently; I highly recommend (re)reading the Wikipedia articles on both her and The Dinner Party, and then coming to see the new exhibit opening – featuring…
Monday with Julia Child
Posted February 24, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
This past Monday I ventured over to the Schlesinger Library, which is part of Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advance Study. Although I was making this trip for research purposes, I won’t deny my excitement about getting to handle the papers and letters of THE Julia Child! To begin with, this was the woman who not only taught America how to cook, but she was part of a food revolution that helped pull America out of its bizarre obsession with disgusting Jello-molds and pre-packaged foods. Going beyond that, this woman is somewhat of a role model to me. Like her, I went through most of my relatively short life not totally sure of what I wanted to do. Just like her, I tried different things, each fun but never quite providing me with the level of fulfillment of satisfaction that I was searching for. But then, I discovered how much I loved baking, and a passion began to grow. Sure, I didn’t have the same degree of a food epiphany that Ms. Child had when…
The Agony and Ecstasy of Group Work
Posted February 23, 2014 by Gemma Doyle
One of the main differences between undergrad and graduate school that I would probably have appreciated knowing about ahead of time was how different the workload tended to be. Instead of lots of small assignments, you usually only get 3 or 4 big projects per class per semester. I hate to tell you this, but most of them involve group work. I have to admit that I didn’t know that going in. For some people it doesn’t seem like a big deal – group work? So what? For others, though, myself included, knowing that my entire academic life at Simmons was going to depend on groups of peers working together was enough to make my heart sink. The first time I heard about the approaching group work storm, I was sitting at a table with five or six other new GSLIS students at the Orientation Day last spring, and we were shooting questions about GSLIS classes and professors at someone who was about to graduate. I swear that when he mentioned group work, every single…
There’s Nothing Part-Time About My Schedule
Posted February 21, 2014 by Emily Boyd
As of this semester I’m officially a part-time student, doesn’t that sound nice? It implies that I have tons of extra time when I’m not doing schoolwork. The same applies when I mention my part-time job, sounds like I’ve got all the free time in the world. The picture quickly changes when I start doing the math: one part-time job of about 25 hours a week and another of 10 or more hours and I’m quickly at 35 hours! Add in two classes, one in person and one online, a weekly commute to Boston and all these part-times are suddenly adding up. You thought being a full-time student was hard? Try being a part-time student. At first this seems like an oxymoron, how would taking fewer classes be more demanding? I’d never thought about this until I became one of the part-timers, and six weeks in I’m finding it incredibly challenging. It’s no wonder, just look at my schedule! When you’re a full-time student, school is your primary focus, this is no longer the case…
A Feast of “Air and Stories”
Posted February 20, 2014 by Alec Chunn
Because of Maggie’s previous post, I decided to take a chance and go to massmouth‘s Storytelling Festival last Saturday at the Boston Public Library. Well, maybe “chance” is the wrong word. I have long been a fan of the “idea” of storytelling. I decided to fulfill a dream, perhaps? Since I was a child, I have always feasted on stories. I know that I am not alone in this–certainly not in a program like ours. When many of us think of stories, though, we often think of books. Certainly I do. Yet, the raconteurs of my childhood were my father and my grandfather, who delighted in inventing tales that thrilled and terrified. It wasn’t until I grew older and learned to read on my own that my stories transformed into printed words narrated by a voice in my head (he’s quite good but, unfortunately, you’ll never get to hear him). Now I’m trying audiobooks. But nothing quite replaces the physical presence of a storyteller. Results of a survey released in September of 2013 revealed that…
A Valentine for my Macbook
Posted February 18, 2014 by Carolyn Lucas
Roses are redViolets are blueMy dear MacbookI love you. For a long time, I was a pen-and-paper kinda gal. If you read my most recent post about office supply rehab, this should come as no surprise to you. However, in the last few years of college and all of graduate school I have found myself starting to take more and more notes on the computer. This can be attributed to the fact that I was an art history major taking a Japanese art class, and my mutilated spellings of “Hiroshige” along with descriptive phrases like “View of Mt Fuji with Plants and bridge No. 2” led me to need to insert the actual piece of art itself, and since then I realized how much more easy it is for me to take notes on a computer. It hasn’t stopped there. I have started buying and reading my textbooks on my iPad, which is an absolutely amazing resource when it comes to not having to lug textbooks on the train if I want to refer to…
Weekend at the Boston Public Library
Posted February 17, 2014 by Jill Silverberg
Sitting right outside of the Copley T stop are two connected buildings that couldn’t appear to be more different. The first building is old and scholarly, the type of historic landmark that is almost begging to have its picture taken. Its classic charm makes one feel as if they are about to enter some sort of sacred place, an historic institution where knowledge is both value and shared. The second building seems to lack the romantic charm of its brother although that does not seem to hamper its popularity amongst the general public. Everyday, a wide range of people pass through this modern building’s rotating door, each looking for something different amongst the building’s vast collection and other offerings. Although both buildings might appear to be aesthetically different, they are actually one in the same. Together, these two buildings make up the Boston Public Library. Over this past weekend, I had the pleasure to visit the BPL not once, but TWICE! Starting with Saturday, I took a friend who’s lived in the city for the…