Being an archivist means being equally comfortable in solitude as among a community. The navigation of these two realms takes on a different meaning online. As a member of the first-ever Simmons GSLIS online cohort, dedicated exclusively to the archival management concentration, I am learning how to be an archivist at the same time that I am learning my way around a world that exists solely inside my computer.
I write with this dispatch to introduce myself, tell you a little bit about the online cohort, and discuss how I have been adapting to life in a virtual classroom.
If it?weren’t?for with a colleague in Tonga, I may be able to claim unofficial credit as the online cohort’s most far-flung member. I am doing the program from San Francisco, and for my fall semester 438 internship I processed and wrote the finding aid for a collection at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. The online degree was not an option at the time I applied to Simmons, but sometimes being indecisive and deferring for a year can open up new opportunities: just before I needed to notify Simmons whether I would be showing up or not, I received the announcement about the online program, and I immediately solved the problem of how to go to Simmons, stay in San Francisco (sorry, Boston!), and keep my job all at the same time.
Going to school online (and 3,000 miles away from campus) presents a number of interesting challenges. Using the library. Attending office hours. Working on group projects. For most of my colleagues, this is our first experience with a full-time e-learning program. For Simmons, too, this is an experiment. As we set up our internships last semester, we were venturing beyond GSLIS’s established network. Remember, you represent Simmons! we were exhorted before the internships began. And while I was relieved to have the Simmons name backing me up as I walked into the Bancroft on my first day, I also thought: How can I represent a school I don’t actually go to?
And here we come to what is important about Simmons and unique about online education: learning to be a scholar and a professional and a citizen in an increasingly diffuse and digitized world. Although my 438 coursework prepared me for what to expect in my internship project, I still arrived on my first day with as many questions about the Simmons degree as my supervisors had. But I also came prepared to represent the current face of library school students–specifically GSLIS students–today. Students who are all over the country and beyond. Students who are doing internships at large research universities, in small archives, at museums, and on military bases. Students who are raising families and holding down jobs and finding their way, both personally and professionally. Students who are also learning how to manage time effectively, how to leverage e-learning platforms, how to use online collaboration tools, how to network virtually, how to build relationships with colleagues they may never meet face-to-face.
It is unfair to expect an online program to deliver the same experience as an on-campus one, and I am sometimes disappointed to miss the rich offerings available on campus, but as I begin my second semester, I am more aware now of how online learning is equipping me with an unexpected yet valuable set of skills and tools to survive and thrive in an ever-changing profession.