Late to the party, or just making an entrance?

Hi! I'm Susannah. I am in my final semester of the pro-track master's program in the School of Journalism. I don't really have a concentration, which often confounds my professors, but pigeonholing is boring.

I graduated from UW in 2002 with a BA in music (voice performance). After a variety of jobs and experiences, I settled down in University Communications (the press release people, among other things) in early 2005 before starting grad school in the fall of 2007. I stuck around at UComm and currently have a PAship writing for Wisconsin Week and other releases. I also work part-time at a small PR agency, where we find about 18,652 different ways to say, "____ County has the most amazing forests/small towns/lakes/antiquing/country festivals/snowmobiling you've ever seen!" I would like to stay in the wonderful, horrible world of university or governmental media relations after graduating, but at this point I'll take anything.

In my spare time (or, you know, during a class discussion...), I enjoy knitting. I co-moderate a large worldwide community of knitters on LiveJournal, and I usually spend way more time writing about knitting than actually doing it. On Friday nights, you can typically find me at a Badger hockey game. I also sing, including subbing as a soloist in a local church and doing summer concerts with the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, among other groups. Oh, and I am also a karaoke and Rock Band fiend, specializing in "Ballroom Blitz" and "Call Me."

Sharon S. Introduction

Greetings everyone -
I’m in my final class to complete the Master’s in Library Science. I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania and got my undergrad in Anthropology, English and Women's Studies from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA. Following that, I went to Washington, DC, where I got a Master’s in public policy and women’s studies at George Washington University and also worked full-time in GWU’s main library for four years.
Then I spent the next eight years working for a non-profit organization in DC that ran conferences, seminars and internships for women college students about policy and politics. In 1999, my partner and I moved to Wisconsin. I worked for a K-12 library for a while and then part-time at a YMCA when my kids were little. Four years ago, I started the SLIS program part-time. I live in Watertown (about an hour northeast of Madison), with my partner (he teaches high school English) and our two daughters, ages 5 and 8. I also work part-time at the Robinson Map Library at UW doing metadata and cataloging. The picture is me and my daughters at the Milwaukee zoo.

Introduction-Ellen

Hello all!

I am a special student applying to be in SLIS for the fall. I started my graduate career at UW Madison in 2003 in Ethnomusicology, which is essentially studying music within the context from which it is created or used. I received my master's in 2005. I began the journey towards my Ph.D. in the same field in 2006, with a minor in LACIS, and got pretty far until we all decided that I was better suited elswhere. I want to work more closely with public arts and public institutions than in academia, which is what a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology would presume.

So, I looked into Folklore and related programs, but realized that hey, I've been working in a library for five years, I work in archives, I enjoy researching for articles and hard to find books, so here I am, going for SLIS degree. Hopefully. As an added bonus, I've already taken numerous courses that are cross-listed with SLIS, so it was a logical leap.

I have numerous research interests, including music of Andean migrants in the Upper Midwest, Irish music, migrant communities, the use of technology in music and in libraries, audio preservation, and audio streaming. I've been working in Mills Music Library for over five years and also work with the Oral History Program at the UW-Archives. I believe oral histories and ethnographic fieldwork are neglected by academia as a whole (not necessarily in folklore, anthropology, and ethnomusicology). So much can be gained by talking to people.

[Intro] Jen Moore

Hi, I'm Jen. (Hi, Jen!) I'm in my first year in SLIS; before I went back to school I worked a menial, soul-crushing job for two years, and before that I got my degree in anthropology from Beloit College. (I still haven't ruled out higher education in anthropology, but I nixed it for now because field work scares me.) I wrote a senior thesis on the relationships of the Livejournal fan community for Stargate: Atlantis (and it killed any love for that show I might have had left).

Obviously I'm tremendously interested in how we use the Internet to communicate, build communities, and shape our relationships. I'm particularly interested in the ways that the personas we wear online do (and don't) break down traditional categories like race and gender, socioeconomic status, physical and mental ability, and so on ad infinitum. Can you really be someone totally different online than you are in person?

In that vein, it took me upwards of half an hour to give myself access to this blog. Due to a bit of technological inattentiveness on my part when Blogger first associated itself with Google, I ended up with blogs attached to this Google account (you know, the one with my real name on it) when they should have gone onto another, because I do blog about things I would rather not have associated with my professional career. I, for one, am certainly trying to maintain a divide between one part of my online life and another.

Introduction [Sara A.]

Hello. I'm Sara, this is my second semester taking classes as a special student, have applied for SLIS grad program fall of 2009. I moved to Madison about a year and a half ago from Milwaukee.

My undergrad is from UW-Milwaukee in Information Science. While a student (and for a bit afterward/before) I was also a bookseller, 8 years total. After graduation I worked in a small bindery doing antique book/document restoration/preservation. Before moving to Madison I worked at a large hospital doing medical records management.

Currently I work at the Madison central library. My main jobs right now are the Internet/Computer Sign-Up/Help Desk and Interlibrary Loan processing (which I actually like). I have also worked quite a bit in technical services. I volunteer in the preservation lab at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and will most likely be starting at LTE position there shortly.

I have a variety of library interests but my main interest is preservation and access to antique/rare/historically valuable materials. Specifically creating digital systems and records of fragile materials to prevent loss, but also long term storage, repair, and care. I really enjoy the "crafting" part of book and document repair. Does it seem like I should be getting a conservation degree? Yeah, sorta, but I am also very interested in other aspects of librarianship (and many other things as well, including social justice, public education, environmental issues, information access etc etc etc).

In my non-school/career life some of the things I enjoy are reading (duh), cats, vegan cooking (I'm not strict, but all my cooking is), the Internet, crafting (mostly knitting & embroidery), archery, bookbinding, politics, and tea.

Shauna M. (Introduction)

Hi there. I'm a first-year Master's student at SLIS. I'm still solidifying my areas of research interest, but I enjoy examining issues surrounding digital divides, games, learning and society, LGBTQ issues, tribal libraries, and visual culture.

Prior to coming to SLIS, I was a Reading Specialist in Portland, OR. During the academic year, I taught elementary-aged children at two Title I schools. The funding for my program was geared towards servicing the needs of youth of color and youth from families living below the poverty line. I miss teaching and having the rare opportunity to provide individualized instruction to my students. It was an extremely difficult situation to leave my job and pursue a Master's degree.

That said, grad school has consumed my life. When I'm not on campus, you can find me drinking copious amounts of coffee at Barriques while working on homework. I enjoy crafting, playing video games (mainly RPGs and Strategy/RPGs), reading, making art, thrifting, spending time in the woods, among other things. I also like hanging out with my nearly toothless feline friend, Muppet (aka. Muppettron 2000).

[Intro] Sarah R.

Greetings. I am a second-year Master's student in SLIS. My areas of academic interest include:

The Information Society and its sociocultural, economic and ethical implications. Issues of digital divides, Internet/networked culture, the nature of digital information, information transmission and dissemination,information as commodity, information as currency. Digital technology and Internet policy development. Open source movements. Information organization and access. Findability. Fair use and copyright. Information and/as control. Games, gaming and society. Machine-assisted information search, ranking and retrieval. Undergraduate LIS education. History of technology.

If you're wondering if that might be cut and pasted directly from my CV, you'd be right.

Prior returning to academia to pursue my Master's degree, I had a decade-long career in academic IT, the majority of which was undertaken at this place. I was a TA for LIS 201, and am presently TAing for LIS 202.

I used to have hobbies and outside interests, but I've mostly forgotten them since being in school. I like road biking when the tundra thaws. I am too lazy to go to yoga but I like it. I played Fable 2 as much as possible over break, and I think it's the first time I have ever, ever, ever "finished" a game (as much as you can finish a game of this nature) in my life.

Getting ready for Spring 2009

Hi folks. I'm reworking our "digital divides and differences" class for the new semester (as usual) so check back once classes start. This year we have a "One Laptop Per Child" machine to play with, and I'm going to build in some interesting wiki-based writing as well.