I am at the beginning of my library career, having started at Simmons in January 2010, and I’m a GSLIS West student. Other than a work-study job a million years ago at college, my only real library experience before now was as a patron. I walked away from my previous career, as a magazine editor and reporter (other recent experience includes grantwriting, nonprofit and school communications, and theatrical stage management), when my last magazine closed and there were few job options in that field. I am finding the fields of journalism and library science to be very similar in many ways, including a belief that information wants to be free, a sense of being public servants, and the notion that we both occupy front-row seats (and are onstage, as well) at the Information Revolution. I am the incoming Dean’s Editorial Fellow for GSLIS, and the new LISSA West secretary. As I am still early in the Simmons program I’ve only taken few courses, but I feel confident in urging my classmates to take reference (LIS-407) as early as they can. It’s a lot of work but the skills I’ve acquired are already enormously useful. I live in western Massachusetts with my programmer husband and ’tween daughter. My personal blog is at http://headinghomeagain.blogspot.com.
Take reference first, or as soon as you can. Do not be afraid of this class, it’s really great. But it is a lot of work, so pace yourself. Here’s some advice I got going in, along with a few suggestions of my own: Take reference first. That’s LIS-407 reference/information services to you; I call [...]
Summer class is a new animal to this returning student. It’s gorgeous out, the weather is getting hotter, my sixth grader is climbing the walls as she rides out the end of the year—she’d like to stay in sixth grade forever but she’s also thrilled summer is coming—and I’m inside cracking the books. Well, I [...]
It’s odd to be out of school. I had some classmates over for a barbeque on Saturday, mostly folks from my reference class, and I commented that it was odd to be speaking of reference in the past tense. That class (LIS 407) was so intimidating, it loomed so large in my life this spring! [...]
On this, the last week of classes in my first semester as a library grad student, I finally made it to the Simmons Boston campus. I am sitting in the campus center as I write, near the Java City café. It’s a gorgeous day and the afternoon sun is drenching the students lounging on the [...]
April 27, 2010 – 10:23 am
A word about being an older student: It’s not a big deal. My friends ask about this from time to time, and my experience is, in short, that the classroom is ageless. I’d say most of my classmates at GSLIS West, at any rate, are in their late 20s to early 40s, and I gather [...]
A woman I know slightly was talking about how she loves to hang around libraries, but she was glad she was so self-sufficient or else she might have ended up becoming a librarian. You know, one of those ladies with a bun in her hair, alone in the dusty stacks. Not that there’s anything wrong [...]
I came to library science grad school with no previous professional library experience (unless you count my one-semester work-study position precisely one million years ago). And everyone I talked to in the biz said to get some experience. Don’t expect to those MLIS letters after your name alone to land you a job; what every [...]
March 18, 2010 – 12:00 am
It’s odd that this week Simmons is no longer on break but Mount Holyoke College, where we take classes, is. It feels like we are the lucky ones with two weeks of break. It’s not true, though, everyone I know has piles of homework, and I have to make sure, then, that I can get [...]
I just read my colleagues’ entries for the week, a little late, and I am loaded with jealousy. Part of me would love to be staycationing in Boston right now, checking out some of the things Stacie and Jane make sound so great: checking out the sights, listening to some great music, eating some great [...]
A former colleague from my journalism days has written a wonderful book about librarians that should be required reading, especially for library students—and politicians considering slashing library budgets. “This Book Is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybarians Can Save Us All,” by Marilyn Johnson, is hilarious and inspiring and wonderful, and the perfect book for a [...]
