ALA Student Chapter at Simmons College

We're thrilled to announce that ALASC is having its first meeting this
Wednesday, September 19th from 1-1:30pm in the GSLIS student lounge (not
Thursday, as certain lie-ridden fliers have suggested. Sorry about that!).
We'll be featuring short talks by folks who attended June's ALA conference in
D.C., and would love to hear from anyone else who went and would like to
share their stories. We'll also be discussing the options available to
students who'd like to attend next year's conference in Anaheim, CA.

In addition, we will brainstorm ideas for ALASC-sponsored events and solicit
interest in ALASC officer positions for the '07-'08 school year
(resume-builder alert!). So come, meet some fellow GSLIS students, eat some
free pizza and find out what the ALASC is all about. See you Wednesday!

Posted by Ashley Elizabeth Peterson at 05:46 PM | Permalink

The ALASC at Simmons has had a busy year and we're happy to see it come to a successful close. The leadership panel in April was an inspirational finish for those of us graduating & moving on to professional positions in the library field, and gave continuing students something to ponder as they consider how their studies will apply to the real world of work.

The ALA's National Conference is June 23-26 in Washington, D.C. Please feel free to contribute to the ALASC wiki if you're interested in finding a rideshare to D.C., looking to share a meal with another Simmons student, or just wondering what kinds of sessions other will be attending.

For those of you continuing on into the Summer Sessions at Simmons, keep an eye out for the ALASC.

We are seeking officers for the coming year! Please consider taking advantage of a great leadership opportunity while you continue with your studies at Simmons. Please contact Em Claire Knowles if you're interested in learning more about becoming an officer.

Finally, be sure to check the ALASC flickr page for entries in our library photo contest; the photos will be used to create MOO cards for the student group in the coming year. Thanks to our library photographers. Students are encouraged to submit photos to include on our flickr page at any time; so if you've attended a conference or would like to share a particularly bookish shot, send it our way at alascsimmons@gmail.com.

Have a fantastic spring & summer!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 02:16 PM | Permalink

Dr. Robert Roth is the Library Director of The English High School (EHS) Library. One of three Emerging Leaders Project participants on the panel, Doc also leads by serving on several committees for the Massachusetts School Library Association & American Association of School Librarians. He is a GSLIS graduate.

"Going to Simmons College GSLIS and taking paraprofessional library positions marked a career change for me. I began leading in this profession by taking on the job of overseeing the production and sale of Simmons GSLIS t-shirts and sweatshirts; then by serving as treasurer of LISSA. I graduated from Simmons in May 2002.

At EHS, I oversee all library functions in my position as Library Director. In addition, I serve on the Instructional Leadership Team and the Teacher Leadership Team. I served as Co-chair of the committee that rewrote the Mission Statement and Expectations for Student Learning and as Co-chair of the Accreditation Steering Committee.

In the library profession, I sit on the Executive Committee of the Massachusetts School Library Association in the capacity of Co-chair of the Legislation Committee and previously as Constitution and Policy Chair. In the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a Division of ALA, I serve on the Legislation Committee and the Publications Committee. Both of these 2-year appointments terminate at the time of the ALA Annual Conference in June. The AASL recently reorganized its committee structure. I have not heard what my upcoming appointments will be although I hope and expect that they will be in the areas of advocacy for school libraries and the interactions of a school’s library program with teaching and learning throughout the school’s curriculum. The AASL sponsored me and the ALA selected me for the Emerging Leaders Project."

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 09:12 AM | Permalink

Mimi is a Reference and Instructional Technology Librarian at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. She is a recent Simmons graduate putting her IT skills into practice as a consultant and instructor as well as taking on responsibilities such as reference and collection development. Mimi will attend the upcoming Educause leadership conference, and is currently writing a bibliography about "leading from within."

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 09:06 AM | Permalink

Sarah is a GSLIS student working her way through the program while serving the Newton Community as Assistant Supervisor of Circulation at the Newton Free Library.

"I am most interested in library administration, access & user services and staff development. I have worked as an Assistant Supervisor, Circulation for almost two years and been with the Newton Library for over four. Only two classes after this semester and I will be a GSLIS graduate! I plan on furthering my studies in Business and would like to apply business models to the library environment."

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 09:01 AM | Permalink

Lana is a December 2006 GSLIS alum, now working as the Deputy Director & Outreach Librarian at the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library in Watertown, MA. She's an Emerging Leaders participant, sponsored by the Asian and Pacific American Librarians Association & upcoming MLA Emerging Leaders participant.

"I graduated from GSLIS in December, 2006 and two weeks later began working at the Perkins Braille and Talking Book Library, which is the free public library for anyone in Massachusetts with a visual, physical, or reading disability. I am active in (too?) many LIS groups and am particularly focused on librarianship's contributions to / intersection with social justice, services to underserved populations, and recruiting and supporting librarians of color."

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 11:36 AM | Permalink

Diane is a GSLIS alum who taught in Morocco as a Fulbright Senior Specialist last year and is currently the librarian for the Modern Foreign Languages & Linguistics Department at Boston University's Mugar Library. Read more detail about her experiences in Morocco in her "Dispatches from the Field" blog entries.

"I have been a librarian for only 10 years, but I have had much experience before this new chapter in life. Living abroad for years helped me learn many languages, and I've brought that knowledge into my professional skills as a librarian for the Modern Foreign Languages & Linguistics Department at BU. Before BU I worked at MIT, at the BPL, in a business library, and now feel settled at BU. I applied for a Fulbright because one of my tasks is to represent the Arabic department in my collection duties. I knew very little of that world - culture, civlization, language. Having spent 6 weeks in Ifrane at the Al Akhawayn University, I now feel competent to purchase and evaluate works for our collection. It was a stupendous experience for me."

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 12:35 AM | Permalink

Join us for a panel discussion about leadership in libraries this coming Thursday, April 19 beginning at 7 pm in the Main College Building, room 101. The panel features 5 excellent librarians who demonstrate leadership in their current positions at academic, school and public libraries.

Light refreshments will be served. See the ALASC wiki for more about the panel & further resources. Also, check out some leadership-related titles on display this month at Beatley.

See you there!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 11:59 PM | Permalink

Please read on to find out about podcasts @ Simmons College, courtesy of the folks in the GSLIS Technology Lab...journalist Kim Martineau is one of the first podcasts to be featured!

(Original photo by David Dwiggins, posted on Flickr)
***
Did you miss Hartford Courant reporter Kim Martineau's recent talk about the pursuit of notorious map thief E. Forbes Smiley? What about library technologist Michael Stephens' enumeration of the top trends in library technology for 2007?

These events, among others, are now available to the world through GSLIScast, a new podcasting service offered by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science. The podcasts can be accessed directly over the Web at http://gslis.simmons.edu/podcasts. They can also be downloaded for later use on an iPod, Zune, or other portable media device, and are accessible through Apple's iTunes music store.

The new service, operated by the GSLIS Technology Group and supported by a $2500 Staff Technology Support Grant from the Pottruck Technology Resource Center, is focused on expanding the audience for educational events, workshops, and lectures here at GSLIS, as well as exploring how new multimedia distribution technologies can support the educational mission of the school.

A key audience for the service are commuter students and students enrolled in the GSLIS West program at Mount Holyoke College who may be unable to attend events on the Boston campus. GSLIS alumni and others in the LIS field are also potential listeners of GSLIScast.

As part of the grant program, the GSLIS Technology Group will report on the project, assessing its overall success and making recommendations for others interested in implementing educational podcasting programs. We are evaluating methods of access for the hearing-impaired and looking at different transcription services as part of the project. Transcriptions are already available for some of the podcasts -- see, for example, Crimes of War, Crimes of Peace.

We welcome your feedback on the project -- please e-mail us at gsliscast@simmons.edu.

Best,

Linnea Johnson, David Dwiggins, Cindy Fisher, Terry Plum, and the GSLIS Technology Group Team

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 10:49 PM | Permalink

Kim Martineau, reporter for the Hartford Courant, gave an intriguing account of unthinkable crimes against rare maps in esteemed academic libraries. E. Forbes Smiley III stole upwards of 100 rare maps from a number of institutions before a stray x-acto blade on the floor next to his seat in the rare books room at Yale gave him away.

"I love covering crime as a reporter," said Martineau, "but you also are learning so much about American History." She noted a few responses from libraries in the wake of the devastating thefts, including libraries who are stepping up security measures in rare book rooms and increased digitization of collections. Stolen maps are still being recovered, the latest one of Yale's copy of the Cortes map of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.

It's good to know Kim's on the case, and we'd like to thank her for making the trip to Boston to share her experiences from the field.

See Flickr for photos of the event!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 10:30 PM | Permalink

In a well-attended event Thursday evening, technology blogger Michael Stephens offered his take on top technology trends and ways librarians and library students can participate, connect and converse. Stephens offered a mantra of sorts for librarians who are unsure how to deal with the rapidly changing online communities & culture:
1) Learn to Learn
2) Adapt to Change
3) Scan the Horizon

Stephens' Top Trends Included:
* Coversations:
These are happening with or without us, so librarians & libraries should find ways to participate.
* Convergence:
A recommended read: Convergence Culture: Where Old & New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins.
* Content
* We're human, let's be human on the web!
In Stephens' opinion, libraries should "encourage the heart," and he said that many patrons want to see the "face of the library" on their webpages. Image and video sharing sites can facilitate this kind of representation of staff & services.
* Redefining LIS jobs
This is in major flux at the moment. Your next job may not have a name yet!
* Open source sharing
If you're trying new technologies on for size, the advantage is that most of them are FREE. They come with the occasional glitches of being in eternal "beta," but it doesn't cost anything to give a technology a go and see if it flies in your community.
* Experience & play
This seems to be the best way to learn Web 2.0 technologies; spend some time with Flickr, look up librarians on YouTube, and mess with a wiki page if you're so inclined!

During a pre-presentation meet & greet in the GSLIS lounge, Stephens & students snacked and composed a live blog post while discussing a popular tag in the blogosphere as of late (I'll give you a hint; it has to do with this year's Newbery Award Winner, "The Higher Power of Lucky")

Two tags for Stephens' presentation might include: "flexible professionals" and "trendspotting." So get serious about playing with technology! Many thanks to ASIS&T for organizing Michael Stephen's presentation.
See some photos of the event from ALASC &
photos from ASIS&T.

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 12:03 PM | Permalink

ASIS&T has organized a great event this coming Thursday, February 22nd with top tech-blogger Michael Stephens. Meet & greet Stephens, author of the weblog "Tame the Web: Libraries and Technology", from 5-6 pm in the GSLIS student lounge. Learn more about Library 2.0 from Stephens at 6:30 pm in C-101 (the lecture hall in our main campus building).

Please join us for an entertaining & informative evening!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 11:00 PM | Permalink

If you missed our first general meeting on Tuesday the 13th, please join us for a lunch-time gathering in the GSLIS lounge, 12:30-1:15 on Thursday, February 15th. We'll gaze into a crystal ball of cataloging with faculty fortune-teller, Daniel Joudrey, who was a panelist discussing future of cataloging at the ALA midwinter conference in Seattle.

Now showing on YouTube: March of the Librarians. This 4-minute video offers a fascinating look at these complex & socially attuned creatures.

Happy Valentine's Day...safe commuting in all the slush!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 06:56 PM | Permalink

Maybe it's learning that there are only three people "working" for LibraryThing, or perhaps the "Unsuggester" won me over...but LibraryThing librarian Abby Blachly's presentation tonight started some wheels spinning in my mind as to how individuals as well as libraries of all sorts could put LibraryThing to work. Libraries could feature new books, coordinate online book-groups for homebound patrons, teens and thirty somethings may fancy adding a book cover mosaic to their MySpace pages...the possibilities, like the titles, seem endless.

LibraryThing won't be selling its soul to marketers any time soon, and Blachly emphasized the fact that while the ad-free site collect oodles of data about the tags & titles users have added to their free LT accounts, they don't ask for any information from individuals when an account is created. Abe Books supports LibraryThing in part, and will feature LibraryThing reviews for books on their site in the near future.

Whether you use LT to meticulously catalog your shelves or as a reading list, the user-friendly interface is updated according to user requests and needs. Blachly said that when LT gets enough requests for a new feature, they figure out how to make it work. Such a personal response & willingness to change (beta as a way of life) makes good sense in the world of social networking.

Blachly does some of her best work in her pajamas, working anywhere from 12 to 16 hours a day from home or running around the city and region presenting. Abby summed up her super-librarian abilities to work these hours in four words: "I love my job." We can all hope for the same! Many thanks to Abby for her presentation.

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 08:45 PM | Permalink

A few more tidbits from an informal e-interview with Abby Blachly, Librarian for LibraryThing (performing live @ Simmons College on Wednesday February 7th, 6 pm in L428)

* How long have you lived in the Boston/Cambridge area?
I first moved to Boston after graduating from Mount Holyoke College in 2002. I love Boston - it's a city, but small enough that you can recognize people on the street. I work from home, so I get to run by the Charles River at noon if I want, or spend the day working from a coffee shop. I love reading, clearly, and working for LibraryThing has done nothing to stop the bookcases from taking over our city-sized apartment.

Some of the top tags in my LibraryThing catalog are "american history", "cultural history", and "gender history" - which reflect the MA in history I did at Simmons while I was doing my MLS. My focus was on 20th century American women's history -- and I still think that someday, maybe when I grow up, I'll get my history PhD...

* Can you describe LibraryThing?
... a site where you can catalog your books using library-quality data, and then also connect with other people based on shared books and tastes.

* How would you describe what you do for LibraryThing?
Everything! LibraryThing is a small-business, so I'm the HR department, bookkeeper and accountant, customer service, public relations, marketing, and library data expert, to start. I answer questions from users, keep the FAQ and help pages as up to date as possible, brainstorm feature ideas and implementations, and help decode MARC data. We joke that my job description is "everything but the coding" but I'm supposed to be learning PHP and MySQL in my free time...

* What's the best part of your job?
Everyday there's something new.

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 09:58 PM | Permalink

Wednesday, February 7th
6 PM, Beatley Library, L428
"Life After GSLIS: Librarian for 'LibraryThing'"
Abby Blachly, Librarian for "LibraryThing", will demonstrate some of the
functions of this online catalog-your-own-collection phenomenon, and will also
talk about what she does for a living. Blachly earned her MS in LIS and MA in
History at Simmons. Visit Blachly's LibraryThing profile and peruse her
bookshelves .

Tuesday, February 13th
5:15 PM - 6 PM, GSLIS Student Lounge
ALA Student Chapter General Meeting

Thursday, February 15th
12:30 PM - 1:15 PM, GSLIS Student Lounge
ALA Student Chapter General Meeting

Monday, February 26th
6 PM, Faculty/Staff Room next to the Fens Cafe
"On the Library Crimes Beat"
A reporter for the Hartford Courant, Kim Martineau's recent assignments have
included coverage of the E. Forbes Smiley map theft case and other
library-related crimes. Join us to hear Martinueau share her experiences and
for a discussion with Simmons students about what can be learned from such
events. A link to one of Martineau's recent articles.

Posted by Joshua Turner Jackson at 08:31 PM | Permalink

The ALASC @ Simmons now has a Flickr page (joining the esteemed ranks of ASIS&T and SCoSAA). Representatives from Simmons student groups met & welcomed new spring semester students yesterday afternoon and we're looking forward to several events & general meetings in February.

Welcome back to class!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 07:32 PM | Permalink

Mark your calendars, LibraryThing is coming to Simmons College! Abby Blachly, the librarian from LibraryThing will speak with GSLIS students on Wednesday, February 7th at 6 pm. Abby's a Simmons alum (January 2005) who landed a job with LibraryThing when it became an official company. Will Richardson, edu-blogger extraordinaire, got hooked just lately and you should too!

Here's a snippet from a series of questions we asked Abby about her experiences working at LT. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!

* Can you describe Library Thing in a nutshell?
I think the shortest description I've ever given would be "social networking for bibliophiles". But if I could expand that to a slightly larger nutshell, I'd say it's a site where you can catalog your books using library-quality data, and then also connect with other people based on shared books and tastes. (Abby Blachly, Librarian for Library Thing)

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 05:56 PM | Permalink

We would like to inform the Simmons community of an important upcoming opportunity: to attend the ALA's annual convention in late June as a student-to-staff representative, with registration, housing and travel costs provided by ALA and Simmons College. More information and the application form are available here.

The 2007 conference will be held in Washington, D.C..

The deadline for applying is December 1, 2006.

For more about the student-to-staff program, please refer to ALA's site.

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The American Library Association Student Chapter @ Simmons College (ALASC) is pleased to announce a general call for officers, to be nominated by the end of business tomorrow, November 1 and selected by November 5. Descriptions of the various positions available may be found at this link.

If you would like to nominate yourself or a friend for an officer position, have any questions or would like more information, please contact either of the current ALASC co-chairs: Melissa Brumsted (brumsted@simmons.edu) or
Jeremy Dibbell (dibbell@simmons.edu).

Thank you for your nominations, we look forward to forming a governing body and moving forward with plans for the year!

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 10:46 PM | Permalink

The nominations are in! ALASC @ SImmons will be electing its officers for the 2006-2007 school year in the coming week. Nominees will be elected by general consensus by next Wednesday, November 8th. Stay tuned for a list of names & roles in the organization.

Remember, officers can't do much without members! We will be meeting as a group to begin planning several events of interest to the GSLIS community, and are always interested in hearing ideas, suggestions and feedback about potential speakers, events, displays and opportunities for collaboration with other groups. Everyone is invited to contribute their thoughts to this ongoing discussion.

Posted by Melissa Brumsted at 10:39 PM | Permalink