MSLIS Monday: The Conclusion



Oh the Places You’ll Go…

Arguably one of the best books ever and brought up often at this time of the year.

Today as this post posts, I will be attending convocation at Syracuse University, where I will receive my Master’s in Library and Information Science and a Certificate of Advanced Study in Cultural Heritage Preservation.

The past two years have flown by and I am amazed by all of the wonderful I people I have met, the conferences I have gone to, the classes I have taken, and projects I have completed.  The skills I have gained will serve me throughout life.

I cannot wait to see where the next stage of my life leads.

To paraphrase Dr. Seuss:

Today is my day.
I’m off to Great Places!
I’m off and away!
I have brains in my head.
I have feet in my shoes
I can steer myself
any direction I choose.
Today is my day!
My mountain is waiting.
So... time to get on my way!

MLIS Monday: Library of the Living Dead

One of my listserv's had a link to Library of the Living Dead: Your Guide to Miller Library at McPherson College. I cannot even begin to say how impressed I am by this guide.  It is a fun and interesting way to get students to learn about the library.  Great job to the librarians at Miller Library!

Careers in Genealogy-"Off the Chart" Thinking: My Take

This is the second in a week-long series of posts at GeneaBloggers that I giving my opinion on.

My bachelor's degree is in political science, but after graduation I started a career in retail management.  Though this wasn't my plan or what I planned to always do, it has taught me valuable skills.

When I began looking for a more permanent career, library science was recommended to me.  In May, I will join the large group of genealogists with an MLS.  Working in a library or archive will allow me to assist others with their genealogy and to bring history, in the form of primary source documents, to children.

I also am working toward doing what Thomas MacEntree calls the "Franken-career".  I would like to lecture, publish and work further with helping companies or genealogists market themselves through social media.  I also am interested in the idea of "curating".  I have never heard this idea before, but it is very appealing to me.  I love researching and trying new things and think I would enjoy disseminating them to fellow researchers.  I also would enjoy being in retail at expos and conferences.  I have more customer service experience than I know what to do this, so this would be a great job.

My dream combination genealogy and library job would be as genealogist (they call all of their librarians by this title) at the New England Historic Genealogy Society in Boston.  As they have begun promoting their New York collections, I keep hoping they will need a Western & Central New York specialist.  If so, I am ready!

MSLIS Monday: A Library Job!

I have recently accepted a job as a consulting archivist for the Jewish Heritage Center of Central New York.  Though part-time, it has, and will continue to, afford me an opportunity to use my archival training to organize their archives.  I will also be able to develop the collection and use my genealogical skills to assist visitors with their research.

It is tremendously exciting!  It is also hard to believe that in just over 1 month I will officially be a librarian!

In other news, I will be attending Librarian Day at the New England Regional Genealogical Conference Thursday and attending the rest of the conference over the weekend.  Will anyone else be attending?

MSLIS Monday: Erie Canal Museum

My last internship for my degree/CAS is at the Erie Canal Museum here in Syracuse.  I am working with a fellow classmate to catalog the photograph collection in PastPerfect.

It is a fascinating project, looking at all the photos, learning a new software (which I LOVE) and working on my cataloging skills.  We have gotten about 100 photos in so far and expect to add quite a few more over the next month and a half, which will help museum staff and researchers at the museum.

MSLIS Monday: My Last Semester

Can you believe I am in my second week of my last semester in graduate school?  I sure can't.  The past year and a half went so much faster than I ever imagined.

I am taking some awesome classes this semester, which is definitely the right way to finish.

• Library Planning, Marketing and Assessment: I think this will be the most important class I take in my collegiate career.


• Information Resources: Organization & Access: An overview on metadata, indexing and the like.


• Museum Development: This is for my CAS, but the skills are for all non-profits and the professor will allow me to use libraries as examples in the projects.  This will really help with my goal to become a library director one day.


• Internship: 2 credits worth.  I think I found a cool one and will give more information when it is firmed up:-)

So here I go again.  One more semester left of school, then I receive my Master's degree and get hooded.  How awesome is that?

MSLIS Monday: 3 Down, 1 to Go

I have just finished my third semester in graduate school for my MSLIS.  It is hard to believe how quickly I have gone from brand-new first-year, to nearly-done, job-hunter.

I really enjoyed my classes this semester.  I took Introduction to Cultural Heritage Preservation, Telecommunications and Information Policy and Life Histories and Ethnographies.  It was busy, to be sure, but I learned a lot and was surprised in many ways that the class I was least excited about became my favorite and the one I learned the most from.

IST 618, Survey of Telecommunications and Information Policy, if notorious for being despised by LIS majors.  It is required for our degree, yet no one ever wants to take it and complain continuously about having to do so.  After this semester, I understand and fully support the requirement and consider it one of the most important classes I have taken.

I took the class with Dr. Lee McKnight, who explained why information policy is so important using real life examples throughout class.  He often brought up policies in libraries and that impacted libraries, both in class and in our readings.  Additionally, our project was to create a case study and this allowed me to survey actual librarians about their internet usage policies, correlate the data, and create graphs and write a paper to explain our research's importance in relation to material my colleagues found in a literature review.  I would classify this project as the most important in my time at SU this far.

My Introduction to Cultural Heritage Preservation class showed me the importance of collaboration between libraries, archives and museums (LAMS).  My favorite parts were learning about social media and emerging technologies in preserving cultural heritage and looking into the part tourism plays in this topic, using information from the classes I have taken toward a tourism management degree, along with more recent research.

My Life Histories and Ethnographies class was not quite what I had expected, but I did read many fascinating ethnographies, wrote an autobiography and interviewed my father-in-law to write a life history on him.  Learning about well-regarded ethnographic writers and reading what they have written is helpful in my genealogical research as I start to write profiles on my ancestors.

Overall, it was a wonderful semester and I look forward to beginning my forth, and last, semester at the end of January.

MSLIS Monday - OCPL Archives Internship

I am currently at work on my newest internship, organizing the archive of the Onondaga County Public Library.  When I started, this was basically a hidden collection, the librarians knew it was there, but patrons did not and it was not organized or cataloged.  I have almost gone through the entire collection and there are fantastic items in there, like a letter from Laura Ingalls Wilder and the first public library of Syracuse.  Beginning this week, I will begin foldering and boxing the collection and then will create a finding aid.  My internship is scheduled through January.

MSLIS Monday: Archives Internship

I recently started my internship at the Archives of the Episcopal Diocese of Central New York.  My job was to create a website for them so that researchers know what information they hold.  You can see it here.  Now that it is nearly finished, I will assist with other projects they have.

It is amazing to hold the parish registers from the 1800s in my hands.  As a genealogist, I tend to use microfilms from the Family History Center, so to see the original, even without a connection to my family, is still thrilling.  The more I work in archives relating to genealogy and history, the more I want to do this for a living.

Class has Started

The winter break is over and it is time for me to start semester number 2.  I am only taking a one-credit course currently, titled Sustainable Libraries.  The professor, Steven Carr, is one of the first LEED accredited librarians, which should make for a very educational class.  This goes until 22 February.  After that, I am signed up for a second class, Services for Older Adults, which is also a one-credit, one month course.

On 27 February, I leave for Hamburg, Germany, where I will be studying at HAW Hamburg in their information science module from 1 March - 16 July.  I am tremendously excited about this opportunity, as the classes are very technology based and have practical, hands-on assignments.  I will also be studying basic German, which I hope to become conversational in by the time I leave.  In addition to taking classes, I have been using Mango which I love!

I got into Grad School and other stories...

It has been quite some time since I've posted an entry:-(  My boyfriend and I kept passing some illness back and forth for the past few weeks (the joys of living together).  We appear well again, so I'm back:-)

First, my exciting news that I got into grad school for my Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS)!  I am quite excited, if a bit overwhelmed, by this news.  It is one of the best programs in the country and offers a lot of archival and special collections classes, which I am looking forward too.

I have been trying to catch up on all of my Random Acts of Genealogical Kindess (ROAGK) that I received while we had about 3 feet of snow here.  I love doing this for people, as I get to see new cemeteries, with really interesting stones.  It is also nicebecause my boyfriend goes with me, which in a large section makes finding the stone much faster.  I was telling a friend about it and she wants to start going too, as she thinks cemeteries are fascinating.

One of the most rewarding parts of being a RAOGK volunteer has been the people who work in the cemetery offices.  I always had good luck when trying to find my relatives in cemeteries, often because the workers there were so amazed at seeing such a young person interested in their family history.  This still works to my advantage...  At the most recent cemetery I went to, the woman in the office copied the lot book, the file cards and the obituaries she had for me to give to the requester.  She thought they would like to have them.  She was the most friendly and helpful person I have met in a long time and thought ROAGK was a wonderful idea.

In other news, I have a Geni website and through it my family is going crazy over our history.  They are obsessed with the site and the information I have found and are helping me find new relatives and identify photographs.  I even was found by a third-cousin on Ancestry who also had a Geni site and we have now merged them and are working on the tree together.  It is such a fabulous way to get people interested.  The site does have some downsides, in my opinion, but I am working on getting around them and all in all it seems great to get the family together.  The only complaint they have given me is that it takes away from their facebook time;-)

Enough updates for now, I'll be posting the research I have done recently in the next few days.