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Welcome to the online supplement to InfoLink. A PDF version of the full newsletter is available for your printing convenience. At any time, please feel free to contact us at infolink@simmons.edu. Enjoy!

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Latest Issue: February 2008

In this issue of InfoLink, in honor of the Oscars we've gone on a hunt for all those star studded librarians, or librarians-to-be, in our midst. We also chatted it up with the new Interim Program Manager for Continuing Education, Kris Liberman, and the GSLIS Progressive Librarians Guild's very own Wendy Brown.

In InfoLink Online:

>>GSLIS Goes Hollywood: Extras!
>>More about Wendy Brown
>>More about Kris Liberman
>>An Interview with GSLIS alum Linda Demmers
>>GSLIS Folks on the Move
>>Additional Links from this Issue

GSLIS Goes Hollywood page top

Here are some great links worth checking out related to this months articles:

Media Education Foundation (MEF)
Media Education Foundation
60 Masonic Street
Northampton, Massachusetts 01060

Check out the website of Kembrew McLeod. McLeod wrote the book the film was based on.

Here is the six minute trailer for Freedom of Expression®: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property.

Want more librarian movies? Need help finding other movies featuring librarians? Check out Librarians in the Movies: An Annotated Filmography. This site is maintained by Martin Raish, the Library Director of the David O. McKay Library at Brigham Young University in Idaho. Its introduction calls it “an ongoing attempt to expand our collective memory, to find a more comprehensive and defensible basis for our acceptance or rejection of the ‘typical movie librarian’ – whatever we think he or she is.” The list contains about 550 movies “that in some significant or memorable way include a library or librarian.” For your inner cataloger, the films are assigned groups based on the degree to which librarians are mentioned (ranging from “clearly identified as a librarian” to “mentioned in passing”).

Here is the website for the movie The Hollywood Librarian that raised such a fuss last year.

Watch this riveting documentary on the strange yearly migration of the librarian. Watch close and you may even catch a glimpse of the elusive (but ever more prominent) "hipster librarian".




Interview with Wendy Brownpage top

What did you want to be as a kid?
In high school I really wanted to become a Latin teacher. Latin was just such an oddball subject to like, and my teachers were always the quirkiest people in the school. Every Ides of March the Latin club kids would dress up as Roman characters and have a funeral procession for Caesar. We would all wail and shout, “Caesar mortus est!”

What was your very first job?
Oh, this is so embarrassing! My first official job was at the McDonald’s down the street. My parents made me get a job, but I had no car, so it had to be within bike-riding distance of my neighborhood. I worked there for one day as a cashier and then ran screaming from the place, never to return for even my paycheck. I was already a vegetarian at this point in high school, but I am pretty sure that this one day sealed the deal.

What is the connection between who you are and what you do?
I really enjoy working with people and being in a community of learning. This passion is what led me into my previous teaching career and still guides my librarianship. I hope to get a job as an instruction librarian in a community college or public university so that I can combine my passions for teaching, librarianship, and community outreach.

What is your biggest challenge?
Keeping my focus on the day. Since I am working full time and going to class at night, I am going pretty slowly through the program. It is a challenge for me to stay present in the day and not focus solely on what life will be like once I get a professional position.

If you could have a totally different career, what would it be?
I was once a teacher and now I am a librarian, so I have thought about that question before. Just for fun, I would run a bakery/bookstore. I love baking bread these days, and the early morning hours are my favorite times of day.

What books you are reading right now?
Alton Brown: Gear for Your Kitchen
Deborah Madison: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
Jack Vance: Lyonesse
Greg Mortenson: Three Cups of Tea

The best thing about living in Jamaica Plain?
I love how green JP is. I live right by three wonderful parks: Franklin Park, the Arnold Arboretum, and my favorite, Forest Hills Cemetery. I live on the top floor, so every window I look out of has a view of beautiful trees. In the fall, our kitchen glows yellow from the bright oak outside.

The worst thing?
Not having a garden of my own. I grew up in a gardening family and I can't wait until I can inherit some of my grandmother's prized seeds.

Person you would most like to meet?
Utah Phillips. He is an old crazy storyteller. He tells stories about the old union days and community organizers, and sings old labor songs. His spirit and stories had, and still have, a huge influence on my politics and activism.

What is something you do to relax?
When I am not baking bread, I am playing board games. I am a total board game nerd. My all time favorite is Settlers of Catan. My boyfriend and I just started playing Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers. It is just the perfect thing to do when you are stuck inside on a cold winter day. I also love reading Anders Nilsen’s comics. He is just the most amazing artist!

A talent you covet?
I would love to be able to play guitar. My boyfriend is a great guitarist, and I wish that we could play songs together.

A fictional character you most identify with?
This is a really hard question. I would have to say an author that I identify with is Joyce Carol Oates. Her stories about the working-class families of upstate New York make me feel more connected to my Rochester roots.

Interview with Kris Libermanpage top

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, Penn., that had one of the earliest big, enclosed malls. I basically spent my high school years at the mall, but I guess that’s not something to brag about. (find out about the Hollywood actor that now lives in Kris' childhood home in the print version of InfoLink!)

How did you get interested in LIS?
I was one of those kids who loved my local public library and the librarians, so the idea was always in the back of my mind. I’d get stacks of books from the library and read every day after school. I also got interested in bookbinding and conservation after college, and that was another motivation to apply to GSLIS, though I ended up not following that path.

When did you graduate from Simmons?
I graduated from GSLIS in 1987. I really loved my time here. I was a part-time student, taking one class at a time, while I worked full-time: first at the Brookline Public Library and then at the Simmons School of Social Work (SSW) Library. The SSW used to be on Comm. Ave. in the Back Bay, so it was a fun area to be in. I enjoyed the practical nature of the program—being able to learn something in class and apply it immediately in a job setting.

What are your goals for the Continuing Education program?
I’d like the GSLIS CE program to serve as a complement to the other GSLIS programs and to provide lifelong learning opportunities for our alums and other library and information professionals.

What should students know about CE?
Current students receive 50% off the cost of a CE course. We offer a wide variety of courses, including reference services, school librarianship, technology, entrepreneurship, marketing, and more.

How did you use your MLS between graduating from GSLIS and returning to your current position?
After GSLIS I worked at Simmons for about three years and then wanted to try corporate libraries. I spent a year at Draper Labs and then seven years at Lotus Development. Lotus was a really fun place to work at that time, and I created a program where we consulted with librarians about using Lotus technology. I then went to Ernst & Young to work in its Center for Business Knowledge, then I went to two short-lived startups. Then I was at Fidelity for almost five years.

What was a pivotal experience in your life?
When the Sox won the World Series in 2004.

What is the biggest life lesson you’ve learned?
To try to enjoy my life as much as possible. I do think a positive attitude is everything, though it’s not always easy.

If you could have a totally different career, what would it be?
I would love to be a singer—I’m not saying I can sing, but I wish I could.

Something you do for fun or excitement?
I’m not a big excitement junkie—I like to read and to knit. Right now, I’m addicted to the HBO series Rome—my husband and I are about halfway through the 22 episodes. I like going to the movies too, but I’m really fussy about what I’ll see.

Name a sanctuary or favorite spot.
I love being home or at a really great, cozy restaurant.

Three books you would never want to be without?
Well, I’ll answer that by telling you my favorite author: Rosemary Sutcliff. She’s a children’s author that I’ve been reading since I was about 10 years old, and I continue to reread her books. If you’d like to give her a try, start with Eagle of the Ninth or Mark of the Horse Lord. Her writing is just beautiful, and her books are sophisticated enough for adults. I’m also a big mystery reader.

What is your most recent purchase?
Now that I’m in academia again, I’ve gotten very frugal.

Will you share a guilty pleasure of yours with us?
I do like a good potato chip.

GSLIS Folks on the Movepage top

GSLIS Professors Rong Tang and Sheila Denn have been awarded $15,000 in support of the proposal of their project "User Based Question Answering: An Exploratory Study of Community Generated Information Exchange in Yahoo! Answers" from the OCLC/ALISE Library and Information Science Research Grant Program (LISRGP). Professors Tang and Denn also received $15,000 award from Simmons College President's Fund for Faculty Excellence for the same project.

The project aims at investigating the recent development of user community-based question answering systems such as Yahoo! Answers from the point of view of democratization of information and user-generated content. Specifically, the study will involve analyzing the types of questions people ask, the kind of responses they receive, and the process by which the best answer to a question is chosen. The project will enhance our understanding of user community-mediated communication and information exchange. It will contribute to the advancement of discourse theories of question asking and answering, and the study results may have practical implications for reference and information services.

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