Things Every New Librarianship Student Should Know…
July 1, 2009
Jason Hammond has a great, if a bit old, post on things new librarianship students should know over at his blog.
Unfortunately, many of them seem to be specific to Western students. I’d like really like to read something similar for McGill MLIS students, since that’s what I’ll be come September 1st, but I haven’t found anything as of yet. Maybe once I’m immersed in my studies at McGill, I’ll be able to write one of these of my own!
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JH’s post may be linked a little too much to his time at Western, but there’s still some good advice in there. Get ready to communicate and to network, big time. You’re going to have a blast – welcome to the club!
-ms
The student handbook is one place to start:
http://www.mcgill.ca/sis/programs/mlis/registration/handbook/
I’m also hoping to get some of the recent grads as well as the second-year students to contribute to our (new) wiki
http://wikisites.mcgill.ca/sis
(You need an active mcgill account to access it… not sure if you would have that yet)
The situation is also slightly complicated by the fact that the school is moving this summer up the hill to 3661 Peel, so a lot will be new in the fall.
If you have specific questions, feel free to get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to answer them.
–Ed
Thanks, Ed!
I’ve taken a look at the handbook already, but I’ll definitely review it in late August before the semester starts.
Since you’re in charge of IT, maybe you could help me out here: would you say that it’s necessary or very useful to have a laptop for the program? Also, are the applications used in our classes available for the Mac?
Just curious: how did you find my blog? I’m pretty sure it’s not indexed by Google yet, and I’m pretty new to all this, so I’m interested to know how people got here.
Thanks!
re: laptop –> I would say that it would be very useful to have a laptop for your studies, but not essential. It is primarily a matter of convenience. There are a lot of computers available on campus, both in the library as well as in SIS’ own IT Lab, but these are shared resources. You have to go to them, and you may have to wait for a computer to become available, especially during peak times. Since there is wireless access all over campus, most students find it easier to have a laptop, since all they need to do is find a place to sit and they can work.
As for using a Mac, I know there is at least one class GLIS 617 Info System Design which uses a Windows-only application. Having said that, I know of several students that have Mac laptops and have no problems. Since, any required applications are available on the lab PCs, they just do those assignments there and everything else, which is prob 98% of their work, on their Macs. ALso, McGill’s IT support group, while Windows-centric, is very experienced helping students with Macs, so there should be no problem there as well.
… and your blog is indexed by Google! I was testing Google’s updated blog search and did a search on ‘mcgill libraries’, I think, and came across your post.
btw, I’ve put together a page for SIS on Facebook, if you are interested
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Montreal-QC/McGill-School-of-Information-Studies/47216167954
We also have a twitter stream
http://twitter.com/mcgillsis
I’m hoping to get more SISer’s blogging, so its good to see someone already on board!
–Ed
Just noticed you were already a fan of SIS on FB… Sorry I missed that!
Hey there,
Thanks for the link. Yeah, the info is both a bit out-dated now and obviously very Western-specific. Not sure if you saw it but I collected all of my library school-related posts in one entry so that might give you some more useful tips and ideas.
Best of luck in library school!
Jason
PS – I found your blog because somebody had clicked on your link to my site so that showed up in my referral stats and I was able to follow this back to your blog. (I did something similar with an early blog post – I linked to a former co-worker’s blog and so she found my blog before I’d told a single person about it!)
PPS – I’ll leave the official answer for Ed but my take (at least a couple years ago) was that a laptop wasn’t necessary but was *very* useful. (Out of a cohort of ~40, I’d say there were about half a dozen who brought a laptop to every class and maybe 10 or 15 at the max in classes that were really technology focused or frankly, really boring and people would do other work/surf around.)
Hi Jason,
Yes, I’ve already creeped through your old entries on library school! They’re really great! I got a good laugh out of ‘The Twelve Types of Library School Students’. I think I’m a cross between the Academic, the Activist, the Aimless, and the Bookworm. Can I be more than one? Is that allowed?
Thanks for your thoughts on the laptop issue. I have 3.5-year-old desktop computer that runs perfectly and doesn’t need replacing, but I have the feeling that not having a laptop will become very frustrating. I completed an MA in Linguistics at the U of O, and I kept wishing I had one instead of relying on the computer labs (which were full, noisy, or closed) and hoping my PowerPoint presentations would run smoothly on the professor’s laptop when I had to give a talk.
How do you know your referral stats? Is that a common feature in blogging platforms on an application you installed on your blog?
Robyn
Hello,
I’m just curious how your experience has been so far at McGill. Currently I am in my sixth and final year of undergrad (yikes), and I am strongly considering applying to McGill’s MLIS program for next fall. While I am not fluent in French, I know enough to get by, so I am not too worried about adjusting to life in Montreal. Any information you can give me on your first impressions of the program and university would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
John
Sure, take as many types as apply – we probably all have a bit of each type in us to some degree! (Well, maybe not Business Librarian!)
My blog automatically came with stats which I get to via my Control Panel (not sure if this is automatic with WordPress or if you need additional plug-ins.) Probably your best option is to sign up with Google Analytics and put a small piece of code somewhere on the page template so it will load anytime someone hits any of your pages.
It tends to be focused on people doing ad campaigns but still gives a very in-depth look at who’s visiting your site, what they’re looking at, how long they’re staying and much more.
And if you can swing it at all, I think laptop is the way to go – a basic Windows machine can be had for under $500 these days I think.
Cheers!