Admissions Blog by Cassie

Margaret Hedstrom in NYT

Our own Professor Margaret Hedstrom appeared in an article in the New York Times this week discussing digital preservation. Sound like interesting stuff? Considering taking SI's courses on digital preservation and web archiving.

Check it out: In Strong 1's and 0's, the Question is $

Behind on Email

‘Tis the season of admissions emails, campus visits, and Visiting Days!

Please forgive me if I do not respond to your email right away. I promise I will respond soon.

I really look forward to meeting everyone coming to Visiting Days this year. My advice, as I posted last year: wear comfortable shoes. This seems to be an important life lesson, which I have only recently mastered.

Alternative Spring Break

In case you haven't picked up on it, SI is really big on practical experience. (Check out my blog entry about my experience last year!) One of the best programs (in my opinion) is Alternative Spring Break. This is when tired and sick of winter grad students spend their spring break working for a non-profit organization. The placements are as varied as the interests at SI. This year students went to New York, Washington DC, and Chicago. ASB is a great way to gain more experience, learn new skills, network, and even have fun.

Check out:
Alternative Spring Break website
Megan's blog on her experience
Career Services Blog

Visiting Days - March 15-17, 2008

I have been getting lots of questions regarding the upcoming Visiting Days event. Here are some general thoughts on the matter for those of you debating on attending. I attended Visiting Days during my application process. I found it extremely valuable to introduce students to the institutional culture, programs, and people at SI. If you are unsure if SI is the right place for you, these 2-3 days can really help make up your mind.

Some of the highlights:
-Tours of campus, libraries, and local housing options
-Information about specializations directly from current students
-Social activities with admitted and current students around Ann Arbor
-Lunch with faculty in your specialization
-Info on career services, alumni presentations, financial aid info
-More socializing with admitted and current students
-Did I mention free and yummy meals?

We all look forward to meeting the next generation of SI students. Of course, if you can't make it for Visiting Days SI admissions is always happy to arrange individual campus visits.

US News Best Careers 2008

Fellow classmate Elizabeth Perry sent out an email this morning reminding us all that SI is a great place to start a career. Librarian, Usability/User Experience Specialist, Systems Analyst, Professor, and Management Consultant are all on the list.

Check out these positions and others on the list here.

Not in WorldCat

I came across an interesting blog the other day: Not in WorldCat.

The author searches the web for items for sale that are not cataloged in OCLC's WorldCat database. WorldCat is the largest shared cataloging resources with over 1 billion records and used by over 60,000 libraries around the world. Last year OCLC came out with the public version at
Worldcat.org.

Web Portfolios

Since starting at SI the great people in Career Services have stressed that all MSI students should have an online portfolio, including us archives and library folks.

Well, I must say I put this task off thinking it would be too much work and not worth the effort. I felt like I did not have enough experience to make a portfolio. Now that I am in my last semester I have finally put one together. You can check it out here.

It feels good to see my work experiences, skills I have gained from classes, and projects all in one place. I have some more ideas on how to structure my presentation more effectively and add information on additional projects. I'll be working on this in the upcoming weeks.

Did I mention that creating the portfolio was super easy? One of the benefits of a place like SI over more traditional library and archives programs is the exposure to technology and design. In today's world these skills are essential for all information professionals, including archivists and librarians.

One Million Books

The UM Libraries have just scanned their one millionth book. This is the first Google partnered library to reach the milestone. Want to know how many pages, terabytes, tons, or miles that is? Read more and check out process and staff pictures via Flickr at One Million Digitized Books.

Also check out University Librarian Paul Courant's blog.

Theft from NY State Archives

A sad story this week out of the New York State Archives. An archivist was caught selling documents from the archives on Ebay. Check out the New York Times article for background.

The outrage over the scandal proves the desire and need for archivists to continue managing historical papers and records and that ultimately archivists are accountable to the law and people. It gets people thinking about professional ethics, the trust instilled in archivists, and our duty to our communities. A running theme through archives courses is the need for documentation and transparency of the actions of archivists. By documenting our decisions and actions, we can help the next generation of archivists and users understand why and how materials were saved or destroyed. Creating more transparency could also help to safeguard against legal suits.

Application Deadline!

It's not too late to get in your application materials before February 1st. This is the deadline to be considered for financial scholarships for the MSI program. Don't forget that applicants can continue to apply to the program after this Friday. See the SI Applying web page for specifics.

If you are worried about a portion of your application, remember that the admissions committee takes a holistic approach to decisions. This means every part of your application will be considered in balance. Applicants will not be discarded only because one portion of the application may be lower that average.

13 Percent of Collection Misplaced

Materials Missing at Library of Congress

Mid Semester

I have fallen down on the job of keeping up with my blog entries!

For everyone that attended Connect SI- it was great to meet you! I hope the event helped to explain what we are all about here at SI. If you seem to have more questions than when you started, remember you can always email your friendly admissions staff!

This has been a busy semester and luckily I've made it to the half way point. I just finished up with two midterms (practical and written) in Design of Complex Websites, which led to a stressful week of finishing up programming assignments and figuring out how to fix all of the many errors one gets while writing code. I definitely feel that I am learning and gaining some programming and web design skills that will be useful in the future.

I'm doing a one credit internship this semester at the Special Collections Library on campus. I am processing a collection of an automobile designer. Most of the materials are from the 1920s-1940s. This collection is different from others I have processed as the majority of the materials are photographs and architectural drawings. This is giving me great experience with the preservation, arrangement, and description of visual materials.

This is the first week that it has truly felt like fall in Ann Arbor. The leaves are falling and the weather is crisp necessitating a light sweater. My favorite time of year!

Summer Review

It has been a long and great summer! I fell a bit behind on my updates so here's a quick recap.

The rest of my internship at the Newcomb Archives was fantastic. I learned a great deal on how to process a large collection in a short amount of time. I made inventories and recommendations for actions to take on some of the flooded materials and wrote a proposal for the archives to beginning collecting documents from grassroots women’s organizations formed to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I also sat in many meetings with the archivist as she was planning a variety of projects for the archives. It was very helpful to see and experience all of the tasks an archivist needs to accomplish when they are the only one on staff. In addition, I was able to get some sightseeing in and even feed marshmallows to alligators!

Summer job number two was at the Special Collections Library at UM. I worked as a project archivist for the Lincoln Highway Association Archive (1912-1940ish.) The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway in the country running from NYC to San Francisco. The LHA worked to promote and build the road. The founders believed in establishing the shortest route, but one that took drivers through picturesque areas and main streets throughout the country. This collection is one of the most requested from the Transportation Collection. It was processed in some form years ago, but very non user friendly and difficult for the reference archivist to locate materials quickly. My task was to re-process the collection to make access intuitive and easy. Many of the materials were very mundane such as meeting minutes, finances, press bulletins, and business correspondence. (Although, some were fun- such as the many maps of the routes) However, figuring out what the intellectual order would be the most efficient and logical was tons of fun. Sort of like puzzle pieces. I also completed a detailed finding aid (soon to be available online) and re-housed the materials to meet better preservation standards. You can check out over 3,000 digitized images from the LHA available at the Lincoln Highway Digital Image Collection.

The rest of my summer included some trips back to the East and West Coasts to visit family and friends. The summer was a nice mix of work and really the last chance to relax for quite a while. Stay tuned for the beginning of semester update!

Flash Floods!

I am writing from New Orleans where I started a short 3 week internship on Monday. Severe thunderstorms over the past 24 hours led to flash flooding throughout the city. The streets outside the archives were flooded with about a foot of water for most of the afternoon. (the water has since receded)

I'm working at the Newcomb Archives at the Newcomb College Center for the Education of Women at Tulane University. I found the position through networking with SI alums and luckily it comes with a stipend!

I'm processing a 60 box collection of Coralie Davis, a New Orleans native who attended Newcomb College in the 1940s and was very involved with the New Orleans social scene, society balls, and the U.S. Daughters of 1812. I've never processed a collection so large and am learning much about the process. The archives are also experimenting with the Archivist Toolkit, which has been good to see in practice instead of just theory. Also, I am really learning a great deal about disaster recovery. Talking about it in theory in class just does not compare to hearing first hand experiences.

The archives were flooded with 18 inches of water by Hurricane Katrina. Staff were not allowed near the building for 3 weeks as the collections stood in water in a building without power, and lots of mold growing. The disaster recovery company did not keep good records of what was sent out to be restored, so they are not completely sure if everything has returned. From what they know, they just got the last boxes back on the shelves last week. The walls of the library and archive were completely redone and the archives got new shelving and of course revamped their disaster plan.

It's going to be a fast three weeks! I've never been to New Orleans before and I'm looking forward to seeing the city this weekend. Hopefully I will find something just as wonderful for the rest of the summer.

Enjoy the weekend!

Housing in Ann Arbor

This entry is rather belated, but here goes:

Housing in Ann Arbor is not too hard to find since it is a college town. There are many housing options and it really all depends on your personal preferences. If you want to live alone, you are going to have to pay more money than if you have roommates. Personally, I moved to Michigan from New York and did not know anyone in the area at all. Living with other students (both SI'ers) was a good way to not feel homesick and to have others to socialize with at the beginning of the year. I was also lucky enough to have roommates who turned into great friends!

Another issue that will affect your price range is how close/far from campus you choose to live. The general rule is the closer to campus you are the higher your rent is. For reference, I currently live in an apartment in a house a block away from Main Street and 3 blocks west of the Farmer's Market. This is about a 20 minute walk to West Hall. My rent is lower than places that are only a 10 minute walk, but I enjoy the walk through downtown. Living by Main Street also exposes me to the rest that Ann Arbor has to offer.

Popular areas for graduate students are Kerrytown and the Old West Side. Kerrytown is North of the general downtown area and contains student apartments/houses. There are some undergrads, but the majority of the area is residential and quiet. The Old West Side has more single family homes and a little farther away from West Hall, but still a very nice area.

A good thing to keep in mind is the buses are free with your student ID (both campus buses as well as Ann Arbor city buses.) If you decide to live farther away or out of town, you can park your car in a number of commuter lots and jump on a bus to central campus. Next year I will be living in an apartment complex farther away from my current location. The rent is cheaper, the apartment much larger, and there is a city bus just steps away that stops a few blocks from West Hall.

Overall, just remember that there are many options to choose from. Also, if you have not found housing yet, no need to freak out. I did not find housing until the beginning of June and I know many other students who easily found suitable housing throughout the summer.

SI will also be setting up a new students online web forum in the next few weeks. Among other things, this will be a good way to get in contact with current and entering SI students to find potential roommates and housing opportunities.

Let me know if you have any housing specific questions!