Digital projects and preservation require a variety of high-level skill sets, a lot of continuing education, and much expensive equipment. If an archive's job is to preserve and provide access to content donated by the public, to maintain that content because it is a snapshot in time of a particular cultural identity, and to provide access to as wide an audience as possible, digitization of an archive's contents makes good sense. An isolated archive that is a hub of a region can hold artifacts from towns and individuals for surrounding miles; unfortunately, it does not necessarily also hold the skill set, the budget, or the recognition of a need for education.
In cases where an archive is isolated, there are a few possibilities that can prevent under-representation of an isolated region's cultural identity:
(I don't include the care-taking approach here because that is the best way for an archive to become under-represented in the digital age.)
-Collaboration: Pooling all resources is probably the smartest way to prevent under-representation of a cultural identity. Collaboration between larger and smaller institutions are cheap, fast, and easy ways to get funding, talent, and publicity.
-New Skills Training: An organization can actively pursue good, inexpensive training from various places, and a retrenching of skills combined with new technological knowledge fosters recognition that a wider world--and a resultant future--exist along with a need that one's collection should be recognized in that wider world.
-Intra-institution skill harvesting: I just attended a digital preservation workshop, and Nancy McGovern, one of the educators, suggested that institutions seek skills by posting skill set needs on an intranet and that this could result in surprising developments.
-Speak to the public: If the public built the archive through donations, educating local populace about the need for publicity of a collection could result in local contribution of the needs of a facility.
These are just a few potential solutions that I'm kicking around, but as I look at them, I see that they all involve some form of collaboration or another. In this economy, a denial of a need for collaboration borders on stupidity at the individual level, and on gross negligence when one considers that the eye-on-the-prize goal is representing and preserving a culture's identity to the greatest extent. Archives in isolated regions might not realize how isolated they are until they try to reach out but don't have the abilities to do so.
I often hear people complain about how the East and West Coasts and big cities are the only places where television shows are set; I think it's a scary prospect to consider 20 years into the future to imagine what will be represented (based on current, good digital preservation planning)--and the holes left by cultures that would have been under-represented. If isolated institutions isolate themselves further through adamant refusal not to collaborate or assign appropriate resources and skills now, history teachers in 20 years might have trouble showing electronic versions of hand-drawn maps of those regions from 150 years prior to that.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Keeping Up with Your Homework, and Why It's Important
Although I have worked in technology for 14 years--from high school, through college, through grad school, through full-time employment--my educational background, as well as most of my interests, have centered around reading. All my degrees are in one breed of English--creative writing, medieval British literature, and now Technical communication/rhetoric. Like a duck to water, then, I read stuff when I need to learn about it, in digitization and technology. If I need to learn about digital repository trustworthiness, I dig it out of Google--and read it. If I need to know about World of Warcraft Cataclysm and when it comes out--I read it.
Either way, in my opinion, the world is at one's fingertips in the age of the Internet. We can find information about anything, and we can read about it. I consider it the height of irresponsibility--gross negligence, really--if someone trained in a discipline and working in that discipline does not also pursue as much information from the Web as s/he can. I was speaking with a librarian friend the other day about the Trusted Digital Repositories report and checklist because I'm preparing to attend a workshop for which these two things were requested reading. Now, these are things that I've encountered a few times before--first because I read about this information, and then in discussion with other librarians.
I have been repeatedly stunned, however, by the surprise in librarians' faces when I say, "This information is online." I will often receive links from them that contain reports from the early 2000's, and they send this to me as if this would be new information, because it was new to them.
I expressed this, in our conversation about the trusted digital repositories, to my librarian friend, who is also involved with digital initiatives, and he said that it's very common for librarians not to have read up on what they're practicing. I'm shocked by this. While I recognize that my background in various fields of English studies probably advantages me in literacy adaptability and critical thinking skills over, say, someone who is in Biomechanics, I have a lot of trouble understanding why a librarian would not pursue as much literature as is available to learn more about what is a fascinatingly evolving field.
So, if you're a librarian, and you don't read--get off your hiny and get to work. Start reading. What you learned from your MLS studies is going to expire--no matter what, it WILL expire, and you'd better be equipped with all new information you can find--even if it's free, Googled info.
(Thank you, Google, for your Palpatinian influences on organization in structure.)
Either way, in my opinion, the world is at one's fingertips in the age of the Internet. We can find information about anything, and we can read about it. I consider it the height of irresponsibility--gross negligence, really--if someone trained in a discipline and working in that discipline does not also pursue as much information from the Web as s/he can. I was speaking with a librarian friend the other day about the Trusted Digital Repositories report and checklist because I'm preparing to attend a workshop for which these two things were requested reading. Now, these are things that I've encountered a few times before--first because I read about this information, and then in discussion with other librarians.
I have been repeatedly stunned, however, by the surprise in librarians' faces when I say, "This information is online." I will often receive links from them that contain reports from the early 2000's, and they send this to me as if this would be new information, because it was new to them.
I expressed this, in our conversation about the trusted digital repositories, to my librarian friend, who is also involved with digital initiatives, and he said that it's very common for librarians not to have read up on what they're practicing. I'm shocked by this. While I recognize that my background in various fields of English studies probably advantages me in literacy adaptability and critical thinking skills over, say, someone who is in Biomechanics, I have a lot of trouble understanding why a librarian would not pursue as much literature as is available to learn more about what is a fascinatingly evolving field.
So, if you're a librarian, and you don't read--get off your hiny and get to work. Start reading. What you learned from your MLS studies is going to expire--no matter what, it WILL expire, and you'd better be equipped with all new information you can find--even if it's free, Googled info.
(Thank you, Google, for your Palpatinian influences on organization in structure.)
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Wikis, Blogs, Articles, Peer-Review Processes
When I was in a meeting today, someone asked for proof that another person is an expert in his field; he requested that this proof appear in the form of a blog post, a wiki, or some sort of other non-peer-review format.
This got me to thinking about the credence that academia has come to attach to Web 2.0 technologies. Another friend of mine recently published an article on Code4Lib (Jason Thomale, google his name; he's brilliant); this created a stir in the metadata, cataloging, and coding realm, much of which was displayed in Web 2.0 technologies, and this all has resulted in professional acclaim for him.
Having grown up with the academic attitude of publish or perish, where peer-reviewed articles are the only valid publication means by which tenure may be judged, I am growing to enjoy this progressive trend.
There are obvious questions.
How do we trust information that is randomly posted online, with no vetting process, and can unvetted information be cited with the same weight and merit as peer-reviewed publications?
I am reminded of the Wikipedia incident in which a man representing himself as a PhD had posted assorted history or art (I can't remember which) information; the public was stunned when it developed that this man was simply an amusing amateur. Was his information any less valid because he had misrepresented his identity? If I remember correctly--and shame on me for not looking this up prior to blogging about it--his information indeed was accurate, contained few errors.
Identity and reputation online are built, and then the real world intrudes. If the real world doesn't jive properly with the online identity one has created, one can find oneself cyber-culturally snubbed. I've discussed online identity manipulation before, but what about online reputation building? Reputation gives credence to what one publishes online; since reputation is the most important currency in the online realm of cyberculture and Web 2.0, the aura of a good reputation can credit one's words more strongly than it can in peer-review publishing circles.
Audience, reputation, and online publishing.
This got me to thinking about the credence that academia has come to attach to Web 2.0 technologies. Another friend of mine recently published an article on Code4Lib (Jason Thomale, google his name; he's brilliant); this created a stir in the metadata, cataloging, and coding realm, much of which was displayed in Web 2.0 technologies, and this all has resulted in professional acclaim for him.
Having grown up with the academic attitude of publish or perish, where peer-reviewed articles are the only valid publication means by which tenure may be judged, I am growing to enjoy this progressive trend.
There are obvious questions.
How do we trust information that is randomly posted online, with no vetting process, and can unvetted information be cited with the same weight and merit as peer-reviewed publications?
I am reminded of the Wikipedia incident in which a man representing himself as a PhD had posted assorted history or art (I can't remember which) information; the public was stunned when it developed that this man was simply an amusing amateur. Was his information any less valid because he had misrepresented his identity? If I remember correctly--and shame on me for not looking this up prior to blogging about it--his information indeed was accurate, contained few errors.
Identity and reputation online are built, and then the real world intrudes. If the real world doesn't jive properly with the online identity one has created, one can find oneself cyber-culturally snubbed. I've discussed online identity manipulation before, but what about online reputation building? Reputation gives credence to what one publishes online; since reputation is the most important currency in the online realm of cyberculture and Web 2.0, the aura of a good reputation can credit one's words more strongly than it can in peer-review publishing circles.
Audience, reputation, and online publishing.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Speaking of Discipline(s)
I am currently pursuing a PhD in Technical Communication and Rhetoric. What in the world does that mean?
Technical communication is the umbrella under which technical writing falls. Technical writing itself fills a very recent gap that opened during the mid- to late-1800s; this gap grew even larger with rapid technological innovations. These new technologies led to a need for people to be able to communicate how to work with them. Engineers aren't writers; writers aren't engineers. There needed to be some sort of bridge-people who could liaison between technology, engineers' information, and the regular person.
Technical communication became a full-blown field of study with the availability of graduate degrees, with the inclusion of critical theory into the discipline, and with the growing need for research rigor. (How, for instance, do I know that my documentation about the development of a server is functional without testing it on other people? That would require research.)
With the .net boom, technical communication has enjoyed a heyday--so many people who use computers and the Internet need to know how to do specific functions. So much information can be tracked about what people are doing as they interface with technology. These are things that a technical communicator can study, interpret, and convey.
Metadata. Where does metadata fit in?
At the moment, the field of technical communication conflates social tagging with metadata. I have read a lot about technical communicators' conception of metadata, and I've discussed it with other technical communicators, and everyone thinks that social tagging=metadata. They don't realize a few things.
Controlled vocabulary.
Authority.
The role of metadata in digital preservation.
Digital preservation. (Where will all this stuff we've written be in 10 years? 20 years?)
Right now, I plan to put these pieces together so that disciplines besides Library Science can understand how metadata, digital preservation, Web surfing, and social inter-function.
Technical communication is the umbrella under which technical writing falls. Technical writing itself fills a very recent gap that opened during the mid- to late-1800s; this gap grew even larger with rapid technological innovations. These new technologies led to a need for people to be able to communicate how to work with them. Engineers aren't writers; writers aren't engineers. There needed to be some sort of bridge-people who could liaison between technology, engineers' information, and the regular person.
Technical communication became a full-blown field of study with the availability of graduate degrees, with the inclusion of critical theory into the discipline, and with the growing need for research rigor. (How, for instance, do I know that my documentation about the development of a server is functional without testing it on other people? That would require research.)
With the .net boom, technical communication has enjoyed a heyday--so many people who use computers and the Internet need to know how to do specific functions. So much information can be tracked about what people are doing as they interface with technology. These are things that a technical communicator can study, interpret, and convey.
Metadata. Where does metadata fit in?
At the moment, the field of technical communication conflates social tagging with metadata. I have read a lot about technical communicators' conception of metadata, and I've discussed it with other technical communicators, and everyone thinks that social tagging=metadata. They don't realize a few things.
Controlled vocabulary.
Authority.
The role of metadata in digital preservation.
Digital preservation. (Where will all this stuff we've written be in 10 years? 20 years?)
Right now, I plan to put these pieces together so that disciplines besides Library Science can understand how metadata, digital preservation, Web surfing, and social inter-function.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
What is digital preservation?
Question: What is digital preservation?
A) Digital preservation is the process by which a bitstream (file, piece of data, etc.) is saved for prosperity by backing it up onto tape media and placing that tape into a basement.
B) Digital preservation is a series of steps and checks to ensure that descriptive information (metadata anyone?) accompanies a bitstream, and that the master file is continually verified to ensure integrity into an approximate number of years until integrity changes, and that access version and master file are completely separate.
C) Digital preservation thinks toward how a file can be maintained for the next 100-200 years.
Well, of course the longest answer is the correct answer. I'm researching curation micro-services right now, and if you're curious about a much more precise definition of digital preservation, Dorothea Salo and her gang at Sciencetopia know so much more about it than I do--and I think they're much more professional in how they define it.
Either way, the idea is that digital preservation isn't just "let's back up a file." While yes, file backup is the most basic level of preservation--the first step--it is by no means the last. The entire goal of digital preservation is to create a series of steps that commit, dedicate some of your resources for a certain amount of time, toward the goal of ensuring file (and all accompanying information about that file) integrity until a new and improved (!) technology comes out. Sometimes one can say, "I will do this for one year until I know more about this process," and sometimes one can say, "I commit myself and my available resources--personnel, hardware, software environment--for at least 5 years because I know this is the most applicable method for my organization."
There are many librarians out there who can express all of this in much better language than I can, and they can also explain to you what things like reference requests for master files means, can define the repository concept for you, and can elaborate on technical metadata versus descriptive metadata. I am not going to explain checksum scripting or the issues with tying information together into a database.
Digital preservation is a commitment to a series of steps. This is all I want to get across here. Perhaps later, if you, dear reader, are very, very good, I'll discuss the role of metadata in digital preservation.
A) Digital preservation is the process by which a bitstream (file, piece of data, etc.) is saved for prosperity by backing it up onto tape media and placing that tape into a basement.
B) Digital preservation is a series of steps and checks to ensure that descriptive information (metadata anyone?) accompanies a bitstream, and that the master file is continually verified to ensure integrity into an approximate number of years until integrity changes, and that access version and master file are completely separate.
C) Digital preservation thinks toward how a file can be maintained for the next 100-200 years.
Well, of course the longest answer is the correct answer. I'm researching curation micro-services right now, and if you're curious about a much more precise definition of digital preservation, Dorothea Salo and her gang at Sciencetopia know so much more about it than I do--and I think they're much more professional in how they define it.
Either way, the idea is that digital preservation isn't just "let's back up a file." While yes, file backup is the most basic level of preservation--the first step--it is by no means the last. The entire goal of digital preservation is to create a series of steps that commit, dedicate some of your resources for a certain amount of time, toward the goal of ensuring file (and all accompanying information about that file) integrity until a new and improved (!) technology comes out. Sometimes one can say, "I will do this for one year until I know more about this process," and sometimes one can say, "I commit myself and my available resources--personnel, hardware, software environment--for at least 5 years because I know this is the most applicable method for my organization."
There are many librarians out there who can express all of this in much better language than I can, and they can also explain to you what things like reference requests for master files means, can define the repository concept for you, and can elaborate on technical metadata versus descriptive metadata. I am not going to explain checksum scripting or the issues with tying information together into a database.
Digital preservation is a commitment to a series of steps. This is all I want to get across here. Perhaps later, if you, dear reader, are very, very good, I'll discuss the role of metadata in digital preservation.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
If you run a Windows machine, disable the server service
The Qakbot worm is out there, and it's doing a lot of damage on affected machines.
If you run a Windows system, be sure to disable the server service.
Instructions can be found here, at this person's blog. (I do not know this person, but the instructions seem pretty good.)
I promise you will have relatively few security issues if you disable the server service. Also consider disabling the remote registry service and the computer browser service. Indexing service will improve your performance somewhat, though that's not a huge problem on machines these days.
Server service=Bad. Disable it.
I am not promising it will fix all your problems--you're still human, and you'll still make dumb choices as you surf the web. The disabled server service is just a good preventative measure for instances where you can't necessarily predict the security of the web, even if you're on sites as "innocent" as Facebook or Google.
If you run a Windows system, be sure to disable the server service.
Instructions can be found here, at this person's blog. (I do not know this person, but the instructions seem pretty good.)
I promise you will have relatively few security issues if you disable the server service. Also consider disabling the remote registry service and the computer browser service. Indexing service will improve your performance somewhat, though that's not a huge problem on machines these days.
Server service=Bad. Disable it.
I am not promising it will fix all your problems--you're still human, and you'll still make dumb choices as you surf the web. The disabled server service is just a good preventative measure for instances where you can't necessarily predict the security of the web, even if you're on sites as "innocent" as Facebook or Google.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Focusing
If I'm going to turn the scope onto usability testing and meta-information (metadata, information architecture, the "belly of the beast," so to speak), then I need to do a couple of things.
First I must answer, what does usability testing measure.
Second, I must define how metadata functions in the user experience.
Third, I must make a case for why metadata functionality should play a role in the user experience; for instance, if a user is going to search directly for a single item in a website, then why would s/he need to understand the navigability of the site itself?
Does this affect arrangement of finding aids on archival websites? How should arrangement of finding aids be affected, versus should we bother with that?
Finally, I'll need to shape the definition of usability testing to also encompass metadata usability.
First I must answer, what does usability testing measure.
Second, I must define how metadata functions in the user experience.
Third, I must make a case for why metadata functionality should play a role in the user experience; for instance, if a user is going to search directly for a single item in a website, then why would s/he need to understand the navigability of the site itself?
Does this affect arrangement of finding aids on archival websites? How should arrangement of finding aids be affected, versus should we bother with that?
Finally, I'll need to shape the definition of usability testing to also encompass metadata usability.
Friday, May 21, 2010
What does usability test?
Usability, for the purposes of my research interests, measures the functionality of software or a website for people to achieve the purposes for which it was intended and created. Usability tests how graphics and text interact on the image of the page; it tests whether the right words attach to the correct kind of link; it measures how effective specific text is.
Usability testing is not, however, interested in meta-information. I very deliberately choose to call this "meta-information" because I'm approaching the original idea of "meta," and I want to separate "metadata" and all its connotations from this, for right now. Meta-narrative, for instance, is the narrative outside a text that elucidates the text. Metaphysics deals with transcendence from science.
Meta-DATA deals with the outside data, that yes, is descriptive to a website, but that is also representative of a website as a whole; meta-DATA is "beyond" the site; meta-DATA is NOT the site; and in fact, META-data is that which pulls users into a site, though they never actually SEE the means by which they are pulled (metadata).
I've talked to a lot of metadata librarians who keep telling me--whom I wouldn't blame of they get slightly annoyed at my questioning--"Metadata is just a tool." (And I say this fondly because I feel friendship and gratitude for all my metadata librarian friends. I've had such fascinating conversations with them, and their patience is something for which I also have undying gratitude.)
While I agree, metadata is a tool, I also agree that my car is only a tool, a means by which I drove from Lubbock to Austin this past week. As I drove, I stopped and took photographs of windmills between Fluvana and Sweetwater; I pulled off to look at cemeteries when they were marked; after arriving in Austin, I ventured out to Barton Springs one evening and sat on a boulder to watch the rain as it fell in the water.
Let's look at the verbs that the tool, my car, allowed me to use here: "to drive" (in a car), "to stop" (in a car); "to pull off," "to arrive," "to venture." That car is one heck of a tool. Albeit, it is a tool, but it is the tool by which I was able to explore a lot.
I assert that metadata is similarly powerful. Perhaps metadata is only a tool, but I argue that it is the highway by which we access information.* If usability tests structure, functionality, layout, even information architecture of a website, should it not also test usability of the meta-information attached to a website?** Also, while libraries and archives, in digitization, recognize that metadata is important and useful, industry has not started to recognize this--and I do wonder if units of digitization actually do usability testing on the metadata itself. I've heard of libraries running usability tests on their website, but I have only heard of libraries putting together focus groups for search engine ranking improvement--rather than use testing of metadata itself. Even more, metadata is also a set of decisions created by a specific person or persons to limn how the website should be located by/present itself users. It's a powerful and deliberate decision set that brings a person from Chechnya to a website in Texas--perhaps just a tool, but a strong tool nonetheless.
(I had a long talk today with Dr. Still, my dissertation director, and this was what we went over.)
*(Do not mix my car metaphor with the highway metaphor. It's a dangerous thing to get caught in Ana's metaphor land.)
**Writing an article on this right now. Hope to send it out for publication soon.
Usability testing is not, however, interested in meta-information. I very deliberately choose to call this "meta-information" because I'm approaching the original idea of "meta," and I want to separate "metadata" and all its connotations from this, for right now. Meta-narrative, for instance, is the narrative outside a text that elucidates the text. Metaphysics deals with transcendence from science.
Meta-DATA deals with the outside data, that yes, is descriptive to a website, but that is also representative of a website as a whole; meta-DATA is "beyond" the site; meta-DATA is NOT the site; and in fact, META-data is that which pulls users into a site, though they never actually SEE the means by which they are pulled (metadata).
I've talked to a lot of metadata librarians who keep telling me--whom I wouldn't blame of they get slightly annoyed at my questioning--"Metadata is just a tool." (And I say this fondly because I feel friendship and gratitude for all my metadata librarian friends. I've had such fascinating conversations with them, and their patience is something for which I also have undying gratitude.)
While I agree, metadata is a tool, I also agree that my car is only a tool, a means by which I drove from Lubbock to Austin this past week. As I drove, I stopped and took photographs of windmills between Fluvana and Sweetwater; I pulled off to look at cemeteries when they were marked; after arriving in Austin, I ventured out to Barton Springs one evening and sat on a boulder to watch the rain as it fell in the water.
Let's look at the verbs that the tool, my car, allowed me to use here: "to drive" (in a car), "to stop" (in a car); "to pull off," "to arrive," "to venture." That car is one heck of a tool. Albeit, it is a tool, but it is the tool by which I was able to explore a lot.
I assert that metadata is similarly powerful. Perhaps metadata is only a tool, but I argue that it is the highway by which we access information.* If usability tests structure, functionality, layout, even information architecture of a website, should it not also test usability of the meta-information attached to a website?** Also, while libraries and archives, in digitization, recognize that metadata is important and useful, industry has not started to recognize this--and I do wonder if units of digitization actually do usability testing on the metadata itself. I've heard of libraries running usability tests on their website, but I have only heard of libraries putting together focus groups for search engine ranking improvement--rather than use testing of metadata itself. Even more, metadata is also a set of decisions created by a specific person or persons to limn how the website should be located by/present itself users. It's a powerful and deliberate decision set that brings a person from Chechnya to a website in Texas--perhaps just a tool, but a strong tool nonetheless.
(I had a long talk today with Dr. Still, my dissertation director, and this was what we went over.)
*(Do not mix my car metaphor with the highway metaphor. It's a dangerous thing to get caught in Ana's metaphor land.)
**Writing an article on this right now. Hope to send it out for publication soon.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
What's the difference between an archive and a library?
I have so much to learn. In addition I have so much to learn about archives, libraries, technology, digital project management, digital collection curation, managing people to manage systems, improving efficiency while maintaining standards, creating a name for my institution in preparation for a Web 3.0 environment (which is emerging right in front of our eyes).
Okay, so, in short, I have a lot to learn.
I would like to start an interrogation at one question: What is the difference between archive and library?
There are more than one, so change that verb to "are" and since the subject should agree, make "difference" plural.
1) Library houses copies of data, to be handled, sneezed on, and generally mistreated; archive houses unique materials, to be handled in a controlled environment where sneezing is prevented and mistreatment frowned upon.
Unique materials. Copies of materials.
In learning about managing digital archival projects (special collections), I've been trying to piece together information from archivists, librarians, IT people, technical communicators, and researchers. And I have come up with two things:
A) It is important to make digital avatars of archival materials because this is the only way people might be able to access these materials. (And thus the materials should appear as similar as possible to the original.)
B) It is important to keep people's hands off the original materials. (For very practical, obvious reasons.)
2) In library, what gets scanned is often making a copy of a copy; while this is very important for research availability, the information scanned isn't really something that it is readily apparent must be preserved. In archive, the exact opposite is true--scanning and metadata are tied together, packaged up, and preserved whole, entirely with the goal in mind that this eventually might be the only extant copy of the item.
2B) Then, if library successfully does its job, would no items ever have to go into archive again? (Just a curiosity.)
3) Archive and Library metadata are very different. (Derr...)
4) Sometimes Library and Archive don't communicate or see eye-to-eye with one another in terms of digital practice. Or, sometimes library A will see eye-to-eye with archive B, while archive A and library B say this should not be the case.
What other differences and similarities can we come up with here?
I'm mulling over this one.
Okay, so, in short, I have a lot to learn.
I would like to start an interrogation at one question: What is the difference between archive and library?
There are more than one, so change that verb to "are" and since the subject should agree, make "difference" plural.
1) Library houses copies of data, to be handled, sneezed on, and generally mistreated; archive houses unique materials, to be handled in a controlled environment where sneezing is prevented and mistreatment frowned upon.
Unique materials. Copies of materials.
In learning about managing digital archival projects (special collections), I've been trying to piece together information from archivists, librarians, IT people, technical communicators, and researchers. And I have come up with two things:
A) It is important to make digital avatars of archival materials because this is the only way people might be able to access these materials. (And thus the materials should appear as similar as possible to the original.)
B) It is important to keep people's hands off the original materials. (For very practical, obvious reasons.)
2) In library, what gets scanned is often making a copy of a copy; while this is very important for research availability, the information scanned isn't really something that it is readily apparent must be preserved. In archive, the exact opposite is true--scanning and metadata are tied together, packaged up, and preserved whole, entirely with the goal in mind that this eventually might be the only extant copy of the item.
2B) Then, if library successfully does its job, would no items ever have to go into archive again? (Just a curiosity.)
3) Archive and Library metadata are very different. (Derr...)
4) Sometimes Library and Archive don't communicate or see eye-to-eye with one another in terms of digital practice. Or, sometimes library A will see eye-to-eye with archive B, while archive A and library B say this should not be the case.
What other differences and similarities can we come up with here?
I'm mulling over this one.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
It takes a lot of people, though maybe it shouldn't be all cooks in the digital kitchen
The more I read about digital project management, the more I learn about how many people it takes to do things the Right Way. The Right Way requires a lot of people who specialize in very specific tasks, things that might be almost too narrow in the view of other professions. The Internet and digital project theory are changing so rapidly that I'm often overwhelmed at how much I have to learn about and attempt to put into practice.
In a way, one might ask the question, "Do you want to be changed, or be a force of change?" Or, Gandhi more applicably, "Be the change you see in the world." (I think.)
In a way, one might ask the question, "Do you want to be changed, or be a force of change?" Or, Gandhi more applicably, "Be the change you see in the world." (I think.)
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Web 3.0, Facebook, Privacy, Identity Control
URL: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/zuckerberg-privacy-stance_n_556679.html
As this article points out, don't post anything on Facebook that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading.
In fact, I always consider the issue as, don't write anything on the Internet that would make you upset to have publicly distributed to the people most concerned with the topic you've written about. (What does this mean?)
This has a lot to do with identity control--online PR, so to speak.
While yes, we all write things in anger to our nearest and dearest, I always try to remind myself that unless it's an argument that I can rationally and logically support, I probably shouldn't put it online, whether in an email, or Facebook, or a blog. Because, really, there is no surety of privacy on the Internet, and this is only going to get worse. Although I'm a huge proponent of common sense, I recognize that a lot of things get put onto the Internet that violate common sense. Instead, I deviate farther from common sense and closer to pragmatism. If I said to my dearest friend in the world something that I would probably not have said to my boss, it should be something that is at least clear-sighted, about which I could say, "Well, this is true." (Now, I should also say, I think very highly of my boss, and I'm not just saying that because she sometimes reads my blog.)
Two things people need to stop conflating are security and privacy. Take your house, for example--just because you have deadbolts bolted and doorknobs locked, there is nothing to stop the peeping Tom (or Tina) across the street from watching you through an un-curtained window as you change clothes; similarly, you can have plenty of security to protect credit card payments to your electric company, but you're not about to stop anyone from knowing that you've gone to Sprocket's Electric website to pay your electricity bill.
As I told my friend Catherine (friend for 4.3 billion years) in an email--Facebook is actually behind on their privacy settings. I have repeatedly been surprised by how hesitant they are to get their feet wet. I'm not saying I like this lack of privacy; simply, there isn't a whole lot that anyone can do about it, and Facebook was a slightly later sell-out than I would have guessed.
For instance, take the Skittles-Twitter experiment. (Where Wrigley Candy Co. tracked everyone's tweets, and any tweet in which the word "Skittle" had been used was posted onto the Skittles website.) It's not like these abilities don't exist; it's simply a question of, who is going to take the initial heat/hate for doing it first--because, realistically speaking, the people who take the hate/heat (yup, deliberate there) are going to wind up being more advanced.
And yes, I love Google--I'd have loved Palpatine, too, yes--and guess what...they've been doing an awful lot already that you don't know about. So, look at the Facebook implications and be grateful that they're being (more) upfront about it. Web 3.0 is here, and it's not going away. Capitalism is driving it. And I think, eventually, we're going to see more corporate involvement in the writing of laws to accommodate for the digital environment.
Question is: Is the digital environment as real as the "real world?"
Answer: Hard to say. For instance, in grad school we used to have a professor who said that indeed, the digital environment -was- just as real, and he taught his classes over a webcam--which, for the early 2000s, was a very innovative idea. But we'd always threaten to wire the laptop on which he taught into the bathroom, just so we could roll him around on the laptop cart and hear him say, "Where are you taking me?"
Ah, pragmatism. I love you.
As this article points out, don't post anything on Facebook that you wouldn't mind the whole world reading.
In fact, I always consider the issue as, don't write anything on the Internet that would make you upset to have publicly distributed to the people most concerned with the topic you've written about. (What does this mean?)
This has a lot to do with identity control--online PR, so to speak.
While yes, we all write things in anger to our nearest and dearest, I always try to remind myself that unless it's an argument that I can rationally and logically support, I probably shouldn't put it online, whether in an email, or Facebook, or a blog. Because, really, there is no surety of privacy on the Internet, and this is only going to get worse. Although I'm a huge proponent of common sense, I recognize that a lot of things get put onto the Internet that violate common sense. Instead, I deviate farther from common sense and closer to pragmatism. If I said to my dearest friend in the world something that I would probably not have said to my boss, it should be something that is at least clear-sighted, about which I could say, "Well, this is true." (Now, I should also say, I think very highly of my boss, and I'm not just saying that because she sometimes reads my blog.)
Two things people need to stop conflating are security and privacy. Take your house, for example--just because you have deadbolts bolted and doorknobs locked, there is nothing to stop the peeping Tom (or Tina) across the street from watching you through an un-curtained window as you change clothes; similarly, you can have plenty of security to protect credit card payments to your electric company, but you're not about to stop anyone from knowing that you've gone to Sprocket's Electric website to pay your electricity bill.
As I told my friend Catherine (friend for 4.3 billion years) in an email--Facebook is actually behind on their privacy settings. I have repeatedly been surprised by how hesitant they are to get their feet wet. I'm not saying I like this lack of privacy; simply, there isn't a whole lot that anyone can do about it, and Facebook was a slightly later sell-out than I would have guessed.
For instance, take the Skittles-Twitter experiment. (Where Wrigley Candy Co. tracked everyone's tweets, and any tweet in which the word "Skittle" had been used was posted onto the Skittles website.) It's not like these abilities don't exist; it's simply a question of, who is going to take the initial heat/hate for doing it first--because, realistically speaking, the people who take the hate/heat (yup, deliberate there) are going to wind up being more advanced.
And yes, I love Google--I'd have loved Palpatine, too, yes--and guess what...they've been doing an awful lot already that you don't know about. So, look at the Facebook implications and be grateful that they're being (more) upfront about it. Web 3.0 is here, and it's not going away. Capitalism is driving it. And I think, eventually, we're going to see more corporate involvement in the writing of laws to accommodate for the digital environment.
Question is: Is the digital environment as real as the "real world?"
Answer: Hard to say. For instance, in grad school we used to have a professor who said that indeed, the digital environment -was- just as real, and he taught his classes over a webcam--which, for the early 2000s, was a very innovative idea. But we'd always threaten to wire the laptop on which he taught into the bathroom, just so we could roll him around on the laptop cart and hear him say, "Where are you taking me?"
Ah, pragmatism. I love you.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Mixed Reviews, Creating your Online Identity, and Follow-ups
Apparently, I have a couple of friends who cyberstalk me, particularly through this blog. (They're close friends, one of whom I've known for 20 years, so they have full cyberstalking rights.) But I got mixed reviews from them, in person, about my previous post about confidence/competence/self-assuredness. So I should ask my dear friends who cyberstalk me (you know who you are): While I do appreciate your comments in person as we're eating lunch, I have to ask, nay beg, even, that you post comments here, too. (Carol is very good at this. Thank you, Carol!)
AND this brings us to our next topic: Online Identity Creation.
Recently, I've been conducting informal research on how people present themselves online. While word-of-mouth is one way to build a reputation, another way is to deliberately shape online one's identity in whatever light one wishes to do so. For instance, someone who wants to find "Ana Krahmer" online, can pretty easily verify where I work, what I do in my job, and what topics of discussion interest me. But, out of all this information, in reality, the only thing that is verifiable is where I work because I'm listed in the staff directory there. My worlds sometimes merge, as I describe in the first paragraph, where a close friend will poke around my blog out of curiosity about what I'm discussing, but sometimes, I'll get an email inquiry about something I've discussed in the blog. But what I find interesting is, I have never received questions in email based off of the staff directory at work.
I don't really know what that says, beyond that you have to be very deliberate about what goes up online about yourself. Do you want to set out to establish yourself as a software developer? A system engineer? A graphic designer? Then make for darned sure that everything on the Internet that pertains to you relates, also, in some way to how you want your identity to be represented.
I mean, I don't care if people know that I consume any kind of book as some people consume candy, or that I can be a complete grammar snob, but these aren't things I'm really developing my online identity around. And, although I'm using myself as the example for this discussion, this topic arose from talking to another friend who has done a great job of professional self-promotion through his career interests; it's in fact a very skillful use of Web 2.0 and 3.0.
AND this brings us to our next topic: Online Identity Creation.
Recently, I've been conducting informal research on how people present themselves online. While word-of-mouth is one way to build a reputation, another way is to deliberately shape online one's identity in whatever light one wishes to do so. For instance, someone who wants to find "Ana Krahmer" online, can pretty easily verify where I work, what I do in my job, and what topics of discussion interest me. But, out of all this information, in reality, the only thing that is verifiable is where I work because I'm listed in the staff directory there. My worlds sometimes merge, as I describe in the first paragraph, where a close friend will poke around my blog out of curiosity about what I'm discussing, but sometimes, I'll get an email inquiry about something I've discussed in the blog. But what I find interesting is, I have never received questions in email based off of the staff directory at work.
I don't really know what that says, beyond that you have to be very deliberate about what goes up online about yourself. Do you want to set out to establish yourself as a software developer? A system engineer? A graphic designer? Then make for darned sure that everything on the Internet that pertains to you relates, also, in some way to how you want your identity to be represented.
I mean, I don't care if people know that I consume any kind of book as some people consume candy, or that I can be a complete grammar snob, but these aren't things I'm really developing my online identity around. And, although I'm using myself as the example for this discussion, this topic arose from talking to another friend who has done a great job of professional self-promotion through his career interests; it's in fact a very skillful use of Web 2.0 and 3.0.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Women in Male-Dominated Professions?
I'm not sure if this is something all women do, or if I just have a lack of confidence in my own abilities--or if this is something that I'll slowly grow out of. (This isn't to say I'm a spring chicken; rather, I'm saying that I'm not as young as I used to be nor as old as I hope to one day achieve.)
But I have a constant lack of confidence in my abilities. I don't think that what I'm doing is "good enough"; instead I think what I'm doing is, in fact, barely enough. I've had friends point this out to me. I recently asked a friend about a professor whose course I will be taking over the summer, saying to him that I'm terrified of screwing it up, that I'm really afraid I won't be good enough to do well in the course.
He replied to me, "Whatever academic failings you seem to think you have, you don't. You'll do just fine." Which was a very nice way of him to point out my tremendous lack of confidence.
And then, recently, I was given tremendous compliments by two different people, neither of whom knows the other, but both of whom seem to think well of me. They both admire what I do, and the compliments are those that I can't just shake off as meaningless. I have a lot, a ton of respect for these two people, and all I can do when they express their compliments is panic, worried that I'll disappoint them.
Is this all women? I was recently speaking to Carol, of CarolsLib fame, with whom I'd also had the humor discussion. She said that she always focuses on the negative in her workshop evaluations, that if there is one thing that is negative, she wonders what the problem was. Do men do this? I've got a lot of male friends, and although they have their confidence shaken on a regular basis, it seems as if they started from a high point of confidence, and if it has been shaken, it drops. It seems like women, or at least I, build confidence from the ground up; I sort of feel like I'm working from the base of nothing, and I have to make something out of nothing. (Which sounds negative, I know, but it really does produce good professional results.)
Is this all women who work in male-dominated professions? I'm not sure. It actually may be. Is there an endemic sense in women who work in these professions that screams at them, "I don't belong here." I know that there have been times when I've discussed complex technological issues (often BSD or Linux-related) with people, and it's taken them a few minutes to realize that I really do know what I'm talking about. It's not only men who commit this error, and maybe it's because I use flowery, grammatically-correct language to discuss things, but I do know that there is doubt at first--usually easily dispelled.
And it could just be that, since I grew up in a family where, when I received a 98 on an essay, my mother would ask, "Why wasn't it 100%?" I'm just constantly in search of improvement, of perfection. While it's something that hurt my feelings at the time, I do believe that my mother really improved my job performance and the quality of what I put my mind to.
But I have a constant lack of confidence in my abilities. I don't think that what I'm doing is "good enough"; instead I think what I'm doing is, in fact, barely enough. I've had friends point this out to me. I recently asked a friend about a professor whose course I will be taking over the summer, saying to him that I'm terrified of screwing it up, that I'm really afraid I won't be good enough to do well in the course.
He replied to me, "Whatever academic failings you seem to think you have, you don't. You'll do just fine." Which was a very nice way of him to point out my tremendous lack of confidence.
And then, recently, I was given tremendous compliments by two different people, neither of whom knows the other, but both of whom seem to think well of me. They both admire what I do, and the compliments are those that I can't just shake off as meaningless. I have a lot, a ton of respect for these two people, and all I can do when they express their compliments is panic, worried that I'll disappoint them.
Is this all women? I was recently speaking to Carol, of CarolsLib fame, with whom I'd also had the humor discussion. She said that she always focuses on the negative in her workshop evaluations, that if there is one thing that is negative, she wonders what the problem was. Do men do this? I've got a lot of male friends, and although they have their confidence shaken on a regular basis, it seems as if they started from a high point of confidence, and if it has been shaken, it drops. It seems like women, or at least I, build confidence from the ground up; I sort of feel like I'm working from the base of nothing, and I have to make something out of nothing. (Which sounds negative, I know, but it really does produce good professional results.)
Is this all women who work in male-dominated professions? I'm not sure. It actually may be. Is there an endemic sense in women who work in these professions that screams at them, "I don't belong here." I know that there have been times when I've discussed complex technological issues (often BSD or Linux-related) with people, and it's taken them a few minutes to realize that I really do know what I'm talking about. It's not only men who commit this error, and maybe it's because I use flowery, grammatically-correct language to discuss things, but I do know that there is doubt at first--usually easily dispelled.
And it could just be that, since I grew up in a family where, when I received a 98 on an essay, my mother would ask, "Why wasn't it 100%?" I'm just constantly in search of improvement, of perfection. While it's something that hurt my feelings at the time, I do believe that my mother really improved my job performance and the quality of what I put my mind to.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Where does humor fit into professional behavior?
Over the past few days, I've communicated and worked with a variety of people, each of whom has a different sense of humor. The work I've done with these folks has been serious work; the subject matters we discuss have been important, significant issues; the people's responses and demonstration to humor has been different each time.
I don't know where wit figures into work, but I find it to be interesting. On one project this week, I've been working with the woman who is a little younger than I am, who has a very deadpan demeanor, who told my boss and me the funniest story I've heard in a long time--without cracking a smile.
And then there's the person I find it fun to offset because I think he takes things too seriously though I also think he delights in the silliness. Though what we have been discussing is of great importance, sometimes I find a good opportunity to make a joke--sometimes, it's understood, other times not so much. (Of course, I do have a weird sense of humor--another friend of mine likes to apologize when I make jokes with, "Not everyone 'gets' Ana." Of course, he works for the State senate, so it could be that he has trouble with humor in general.)
Next is the person who gets angry if you laugh at something she says or does; even if it is endearingly funny, she takes it personally if you laugh.
There's the other friend who likes to say that the line is where he knows he needs to step across. Although he's never personally insulting in his humor, he can be quite...graphic...in it.
But how does humor work in the workplace? As a tool, it is useful in meetings to make an audience comfortable; at workshops or conferences--amongst a group of strangers--it helps you get to know other people and vice versa. In blogging online, it keeps your audience interested in what you're discussing, or it keeps your audience from growing too bored. It is helpful when you're trying to understand your professional relations, including what motivates them, what they find important, and where boundaries lie. A lot of the most charismatic people in history demonstrated an appropriate balance between wit and intelligence, between professionalism and levity. In some ways, I'd even argue that good humor should count as highly as a job qualification as, say, the ability to communicate effectively. Because, honestly, I've never worked in a job where I didn't use my sense of humor as a tool toward either cutting to the heart of a situation or understanding the people I was working with--and even toward improving team work and team investment on a project.
Of course, humor is also an adaptive instinct.
I don't know where wit figures into work, but I find it to be interesting. On one project this week, I've been working with the woman who is a little younger than I am, who has a very deadpan demeanor, who told my boss and me the funniest story I've heard in a long time--without cracking a smile.
And then there's the person I find it fun to offset because I think he takes things too seriously though I also think he delights in the silliness. Though what we have been discussing is of great importance, sometimes I find a good opportunity to make a joke--sometimes, it's understood, other times not so much. (Of course, I do have a weird sense of humor--another friend of mine likes to apologize when I make jokes with, "Not everyone 'gets' Ana." Of course, he works for the State senate, so it could be that he has trouble with humor in general.)
Next is the person who gets angry if you laugh at something she says or does; even if it is endearingly funny, she takes it personally if you laugh.
There's the other friend who likes to say that the line is where he knows he needs to step across. Although he's never personally insulting in his humor, he can be quite...graphic...in it.
But how does humor work in the workplace? As a tool, it is useful in meetings to make an audience comfortable; at workshops or conferences--amongst a group of strangers--it helps you get to know other people and vice versa. In blogging online, it keeps your audience interested in what you're discussing, or it keeps your audience from growing too bored. It is helpful when you're trying to understand your professional relations, including what motivates them, what they find important, and where boundaries lie. A lot of the most charismatic people in history demonstrated an appropriate balance between wit and intelligence, between professionalism and levity. In some ways, I'd even argue that good humor should count as highly as a job qualification as, say, the ability to communicate effectively. Because, honestly, I've never worked in a job where I didn't use my sense of humor as a tool toward either cutting to the heart of a situation or understanding the people I was working with--and even toward improving team work and team investment on a project.
Of course, humor is also an adaptive instinct.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Web 3.0, Collaboration, and Metadata?
Web 2.0 is fading, Google is the core of Web 2.0. If you consider where the predictive web is going to take us next, consider how we get online. Something like 70% (this is my rough guess from memory, not a certain, assured percentage) of users access the Internet on mobile devices. How often on a mobile device is something like Google used? How often on a mobile device would it be more useful, more applicable to medium of web access, for necessary information to be provided to a person on his/her device, without use of Google? For example if Jane Doe is walking down a sidewalk in Minnesota, heading toward a coffee shop, it would make perfect sense for her GPS to locate where she is, and then to offer ads for coffee that is sold in that shop. (Then also to offer ads for new releases of books that are sold say, in the shop next door.) This is Web 3.0, and this type of thing is already starting.
Metadata, then, becomes critical, and providing metadata in as many formats as possible is critical. Keeping metadata librarian knowledge as current as possible is also important, primarily so that the metadata librarian (or cataloger, or even the simple web developer) can add new formats in which to provide metadata. Also, all of this metadata must somehow return back to the sender, so to speak--how/where does a consumer of information find the physical object for which s/he has seen the digital avatar?
Where does a technical communicator come into the game? Technical communicators specialize in recognizing communication gaps and barriers. TC also is a top field in usability test design.
Metadata, then, becomes critical, and providing metadata in as many formats as possible is critical. Keeping metadata librarian knowledge as current as possible is also important, primarily so that the metadata librarian (or cataloger, or even the simple web developer) can add new formats in which to provide metadata. Also, all of this metadata must somehow return back to the sender, so to speak--how/where does a consumer of information find the physical object for which s/he has seen the digital avatar?
Where does a technical communicator come into the game? Technical communicators specialize in recognizing communication gaps and barriers. TC also is a top field in usability test design.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Metadata at the Core of Web 3.0
About a month ago, I met with my dissertation committee for my first year review in the Technical Communication and Rhetoric PhD program. When they asked me what topics of research interest me, I responded with two things, the first a "first" choice, and the second as a secondary research field.
The first: A study of how the capitalist economic system and Western legal systems will have to change to accommodate a Web 3.0 world. The committee expressed boredom and skepticism with this topic.
The second: A study of how metadata affects consumption of digital materials; more important, an examination into how metadata will not only be key to what shapes Web 3.0, but also about how different disciplines should combine to improve metadata creation practices. One of the committee members jumped out of her chair in excitement, proclaiming, "THAT'S web 3.0!"
So the second topic it is.
It's taken me a month to write about this because I've been thinking it over. I'm reading up on information architecture, and I'd like to know why metadata to a cataloger is so much more important than, say, metadata to a web designer, when, in reality, it should be of utmost importance to both.
And usability and metadata. My dissertation director has mentioned a few times now about how he'd like to conduct some sort of usability study on metadata. How should that be shaped? Where does usability fit into metadata, aside from the obvious, "I was able to find it, therefore it's usable."
But what makes me think of all this now is that I often hear people discuss how there are no metadata standards, or few metadata standards, or the standards aren't very good, or how there need to be grant-funded programs to create metadata standards. What exists right now? Why is it broken? What do we do to fix it? Who should write it to begin with--and who should be fixing what exists? How do we go about preserving it? These are important questions to ask because, if standards is a state- and nation-wide issue, then obviously, the metadata we're seeing right now isn't sufficient. What more must be done?
Thank you, Carol, for making me type some of these questions up here.
The first: A study of how the capitalist economic system and Western legal systems will have to change to accommodate a Web 3.0 world. The committee expressed boredom and skepticism with this topic.
The second: A study of how metadata affects consumption of digital materials; more important, an examination into how metadata will not only be key to what shapes Web 3.0, but also about how different disciplines should combine to improve metadata creation practices. One of the committee members jumped out of her chair in excitement, proclaiming, "THAT'S web 3.0!"
So the second topic it is.
It's taken me a month to write about this because I've been thinking it over. I'm reading up on information architecture, and I'd like to know why metadata to a cataloger is so much more important than, say, metadata to a web designer, when, in reality, it should be of utmost importance to both.
And usability and metadata. My dissertation director has mentioned a few times now about how he'd like to conduct some sort of usability study on metadata. How should that be shaped? Where does usability fit into metadata, aside from the obvious, "I was able to find it, therefore it's usable."
But what makes me think of all this now is that I often hear people discuss how there are no metadata standards, or few metadata standards, or the standards aren't very good, or how there need to be grant-funded programs to create metadata standards. What exists right now? Why is it broken? What do we do to fix it? Who should write it to begin with--and who should be fixing what exists? How do we go about preserving it? These are important questions to ask because, if standards is a state- and nation-wide issue, then obviously, the metadata we're seeing right now isn't sufficient. What more must be done?
Thank you, Carol, for making me type some of these questions up here.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
For What It's Worth
As I discussed Liz Bishoff's article, I got to thinking about how good teamwork at an institution-level contributes to digitization. Every person at an institution is a stakeholder in digitization, whether s/he is the subject matter expert (SME), the metadata librarian, the digitization coordinator, the student assistant who scans, or the colleague of any of these people. Each person has a role to play.
It is important for each member of a team to recognize his/her role.
I have begun creating workflows for each unit that will be participating in the digitization process. (I got this process started with Dr. Warner, and now I've kind of taken it and run.) These are very basic checklists that give stakeholders a place to say, "I've done this part of the the project."
Here is the digital department workflow:
Workflow Checksheet for TTU SWC/SCL Digitization Projects
1. __________ Select item
a. Name of item ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. __________ Notify Digitization Staff member and Student Assistant
3. __________ Raw scans done
4. __________ Quality control (Student Assistant)
5. __________ Quality control (Digitization Staff Member)
6. __________ Quality control (Subject Matter Expert)
7. __________ OCR
a. Deskew ______
b. Resize ______
8. __________ Subject Matter Expert and Cataloger notified that metadata needs to be added.
9. __________ Cataloger adds metadata.
10. __________ Item ready to upload.
11. __________ Upload complete
This is very, very basic stuff. Not anything earth-shaking. But I've started creating things like this to assist with project management, to keep the ball rolling, so to speak. This way, any time an object is first scanned, for instance, a checksheet travels with the object at every step.
Another issue in teamwork that is less obvious, but just as critical, is communication. It is important that teams overcome any sort of personality disputes, and in particular that members in teams avoid backstabbing other members to the rest of the team; this can be just as detrimental to the process as not having all members involved. In a way, I'd argue that it's even worse because, once all members are ostensibly working as a team, and then one member starts Stabby McBackstabbersonning another member to the entire team, the whole team risks becoming defunct. This is, in essence, a communication problem, and these types of communication problems can be headed off when someone clearly expresses an intent to work professionally with each member of the group--no matter what--and when the rest of the group can at least recognize that and stifle backstabbing behavior of one or two members of the team.
I think of this example because I remember a conversation with a friend who now teaches out at Central Florida. (Buy her book; she's a famous author http://www.amazon.com/Hilltop-Native-Storiers-American-Narratives/dp/0803226349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268863629&sr=8-1) We were talking about classroom dynamics and misbehaving students in class. She said that what she tries to do is to be a good enough leader to her students that the other students recognize bad behavior in a rowdy student to the point where they, rather than she, will correct the student's behavior. If a digitization team has a strong enough leader, that person can at least rely on the team to guide squeaky wheels along. In part I think it has to do with a leader recognizing that each person, no matter his/her behavior, has a skillset to contribute to digital projects; in addition to preventing the team leader from becoming overly frustrated or upset, it also gives other team members a sense of purpose and self-worth--to the point of defending the team as a whole when the squeaky wheel makes inaccurate statements about the project, the team, or the leader.
Observations on how people communicate.
It is important for each member of a team to recognize his/her role.
I have begun creating workflows for each unit that will be participating in the digitization process. (I got this process started with Dr. Warner, and now I've kind of taken it and run.) These are very basic checklists that give stakeholders a place to say, "I've done this part of the the project."
Here is the digital department workflow:
Workflow Checksheet for TTU SWC/SCL Digitization Projects
1. __________ Select item
a. Name of item ________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2. __________ Notify Digitization Staff member and Student Assistant
3. __________ Raw scans done
4. __________ Quality control (Student Assistant)
5. __________ Quality control (Digitization Staff Member)
6. __________ Quality control (Subject Matter Expert)
7. __________ OCR
a. Deskew ______
b. Resize ______
8. __________ Subject Matter Expert and Cataloger notified that metadata needs to be added.
9. __________ Cataloger adds metadata.
10. __________ Item ready to upload.
11. __________ Upload complete
This is very, very basic stuff. Not anything earth-shaking. But I've started creating things like this to assist with project management, to keep the ball rolling, so to speak. This way, any time an object is first scanned, for instance, a checksheet travels with the object at every step.
Another issue in teamwork that is less obvious, but just as critical, is communication. It is important that teams overcome any sort of personality disputes, and in particular that members in teams avoid backstabbing other members to the rest of the team; this can be just as detrimental to the process as not having all members involved. In a way, I'd argue that it's even worse because, once all members are ostensibly working as a team, and then one member starts Stabby McBackstabbersonning another member to the entire team, the whole team risks becoming defunct. This is, in essence, a communication problem, and these types of communication problems can be headed off when someone clearly expresses an intent to work professionally with each member of the group--no matter what--and when the rest of the group can at least recognize that and stifle backstabbing behavior of one or two members of the team.
I think of this example because I remember a conversation with a friend who now teaches out at Central Florida. (Buy her book; she's a famous author http://www.amazon.com/Hilltop-Native-Storiers-American-Narratives/dp/0803226349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268863629&sr=8-1) We were talking about classroom dynamics and misbehaving students in class. She said that what she tries to do is to be a good enough leader to her students that the other students recognize bad behavior in a rowdy student to the point where they, rather than she, will correct the student's behavior. If a digitization team has a strong enough leader, that person can at least rely on the team to guide squeaky wheels along. In part I think it has to do with a leader recognizing that each person, no matter his/her behavior, has a skillset to contribute to digital projects; in addition to preventing the team leader from becoming overly frustrated or upset, it also gives other team members a sense of purpose and self-worth--to the point of defending the team as a whole when the squeaky wheel makes inaccurate statements about the project, the team, or the leader.
Observations on how people communicate.
Sometimes, the world is a cool place to live in becuase of folks like this
URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/16/jobcentre_jedi/
Really, just read the article. It's fabulous.
Really, just read the article. It's fabulous.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Carol's Blog, "Metadata, Cataloging, and Various Librarian-Like Stuff"
URL: http://carolslib.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/metadata-shemtadata/ (Linked in title.)
My friend Carol, who works at a library services company training folks to learn how to create and work with metadata, has started her own blog about metadata and cataloging. In addition Carol is my fiercest Scrabble competitor. She regularly beats me, in fact.
But, aside from Scrabble, Carol has some important ideas to get across about metadata. I've enjoyed reading through her blog so far.
My friend Carol, who works at a library services company training folks to learn how to create and work with metadata, has started her own blog about metadata and cataloging. In addition Carol is my fiercest Scrabble competitor. She regularly beats me, in fact.
But, aside from Scrabble, Carol has some important ideas to get across about metadata. I've enjoyed reading through her blog so far.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
"These aren't the droids you're looking for."
Except to brag about what a great week and a weekend it's been, there is little of value in this post. I just housed two of my closest friends and their three year old all week, and we had a ton of fun; my feline, Wulfram, is inconsolable that the child has left. I think three year olds are the most charming energy vampires in existence.
After cleaning house and doing laundry, I got to conclude the week with building a new computer--for myself, have needed a new desktop for a while; planting rose bushes (I'm attempting to start a rose garden); and making buttery buttermilk biscuits. It's spring, finally! Also, unless we get a late hard freeze, I should have peaches this year. (Playing in the yard is so buzz-worthy!)
It's been a great opportunity to put my brain into a cabinet and tell it to stop thinking. Well, there was a little trouble with installing the AMD CPU, but once I had the correctly-sized screws, the brain went back into the cabinet.
As I was digging the hole for the rosebushes, I kept trying to think of something profoundly Zen that connected building a computer, making biscuits, and planting, but all I could think of was a song by Chris Sand, Sandman, the Rappin' Cowboy, "Holedigger." "Diggin' holes don't pay the bills. I guess I do it for the thrills." (Here's a link to his site, though "Holedigger" isn't among the listed songs.) His best, most fun album hands-down is the one on which "Holedigger" appears.
Soon, pretty flowers will be appearing--purple and coral.
Also soon, I will return to server and software posts.
After cleaning house and doing laundry, I got to conclude the week with building a new computer--for myself, have needed a new desktop for a while; planting rose bushes (I'm attempting to start a rose garden); and making buttery buttermilk biscuits. It's spring, finally! Also, unless we get a late hard freeze, I should have peaches this year. (Playing in the yard is so buzz-worthy!)
It's been a great opportunity to put my brain into a cabinet and tell it to stop thinking. Well, there was a little trouble with installing the AMD CPU, but once I had the correctly-sized screws, the brain went back into the cabinet.
As I was digging the hole for the rosebushes, I kept trying to think of something profoundly Zen that connected building a computer, making biscuits, and planting, but all I could think of was a song by Chris Sand, Sandman, the Rappin' Cowboy, "Holedigger." "Diggin' holes don't pay the bills. I guess I do it for the thrills." (Here's a link to his site, though "Holedigger" isn't among the listed songs.) His best, most fun album hands-down is the one on which "Holedigger" appears.
Soon, pretty flowers will be appearing--purple and coral.
Also soon, I will return to server and software posts.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Collaboration or collaborators?
Interesting article from the Winter 2009 Texas Library Journal, "Seven Keys to Sustainable Digital Collaboratives," by Liz Bishoff
http://www.txla.org/CE/Collaboration/Bishoff.pdf
Quoting from the article, "Collaboration virtually unifies
content that is distributed across multiple owners, allows
organizations to capitalize on strengths of diverse organizations,
and takes advantage of economies of scale. As a result, many
funders will give preference to collaborative to proposals where
all other things are equal."
Very true. Very interesting. Looking at the big picture, I can bluntly and with complete veracity state that, if collaboration doesn't occur in digitization, we're going to lose major portions of our cultural heritage. This brings us back to my earlier question of what would I have saved had it been the year 764. Fortunately, there's no imperative to make that decision--but it might be a good idea to recognize that we have a lot of resources, both technological, human, and artifactual, that must be incorporated and considered in digitization.
(Which Bishoff seems to be highlighting, though it is only a highlight.)
As I've been observing digital collaboration, I am an outsider coming from an IT and technical communication background; I'm trying to "break into" the field, though my main purposes in doing so is to recognize how communication needs to be improved, how workflow should be developed and managed, and where skillsets currently are being wasted. In some ways, I'd even argue that so many digital collaboratives fail not because the resources were lacking, but because no one recognized they existed or could figure out how to engage them. And there is the angle of politics in academia.
The most important step in collaboration is getting all participants to recognize that the final product is most important; the other reason most collaboratives fail (not just in digitization but in any sort of team effort) is that individuals are too busy competing to recognize that the integrity of the end product is the only thing that is important. In digitization, the reason the integrity is important is because the end product is what we pass on to our heirs. If we collaborate well, we'll leave a strong cultural history for future generations, and if we collaborate poorly, well, what will future generations think?
http://www.txla.org/CE/Collaboration/Bishoff.pdf
Quoting from the article, "Collaboration virtually unifies
content that is distributed across multiple owners, allows
organizations to capitalize on strengths of diverse organizations,
and takes advantage of economies of scale. As a result, many
funders will give preference to collaborative to proposals where
all other things are equal."
Very true. Very interesting. Looking at the big picture, I can bluntly and with complete veracity state that, if collaboration doesn't occur in digitization, we're going to lose major portions of our cultural heritage. This brings us back to my earlier question of what would I have saved had it been the year 764. Fortunately, there's no imperative to make that decision--but it might be a good idea to recognize that we have a lot of resources, both technological, human, and artifactual, that must be incorporated and considered in digitization.
(Which Bishoff seems to be highlighting, though it is only a highlight.)
As I've been observing digital collaboration, I am an outsider coming from an IT and technical communication background; I'm trying to "break into" the field, though my main purposes in doing so is to recognize how communication needs to be improved, how workflow should be developed and managed, and where skillsets currently are being wasted. In some ways, I'd even argue that so many digital collaboratives fail not because the resources were lacking, but because no one recognized they existed or could figure out how to engage them. And there is the angle of politics in academia.
The most important step in collaboration is getting all participants to recognize that the final product is most important; the other reason most collaboratives fail (not just in digitization but in any sort of team effort) is that individuals are too busy competing to recognize that the integrity of the end product is the only thing that is important. In digitization, the reason the integrity is important is because the end product is what we pass on to our heirs. If we collaborate well, we'll leave a strong cultural history for future generations, and if we collaborate poorly, well, what will future generations think?
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Time to Pay for that (free) TC Degree
I've spent the past few days researching grant opportunities and extant partnerships amongst institutions in the State of Texas. Now I need to apply this work toward applying for a grant. I plan to focus on getting funded digitization for a small-sized project, something that appears to be unique amongst current Texas digital collections; it is also a collection that both the subject matter expert and I believe will draw a wide teaching audience.
The field of technical communication and rhetoric is apparently known for producing students who are good at writing grants. Since I have not had the opportunity to take the TC grant-writing course at my university, I will have to be creative and persuasive in my argumentation, and I will have to try to write a document that is free of flaws and written with strong elocution.
In short, I'll try to write good. I'm excited. The research I've done on extant partnerships and grant recipients in Texas basically tells me that there is a dark void in West Texas, as far as digitization grants go, and it also seems that most institutions that receive grants are in large cities for corporate- or urban-based collections. (There are a handful of grants that fund large institutions to digitize small communities' materials.) But I haven't seen very much in regard to digitization of things like what we have here at the SWC/SCL.
Researching grants appears to be similar to researching inventions, or even to researching arguments. What makes one invention unique or relevant? Why should an organization fund this invention?
These are very minor, small, initial questions. As with everything, only time can tell the story of who receives funding and who gets stepped on by the Jolly Green Giant.
Oh, and this is a nifty link about the oldest writing in the world and where it was found.
The field of technical communication and rhetoric is apparently known for producing students who are good at writing grants. Since I have not had the opportunity to take the TC grant-writing course at my university, I will have to be creative and persuasive in my argumentation, and I will have to try to write a document that is free of flaws and written with strong elocution.
In short, I'll try to write good. I'm excited. The research I've done on extant partnerships and grant recipients in Texas basically tells me that there is a dark void in West Texas, as far as digitization grants go, and it also seems that most institutions that receive grants are in large cities for corporate- or urban-based collections. (There are a handful of grants that fund large institutions to digitize small communities' materials.) But I haven't seen very much in regard to digitization of things like what we have here at the SWC/SCL.
Researching grants appears to be similar to researching inventions, or even to researching arguments. What makes one invention unique or relevant? Why should an organization fund this invention?
These are very minor, small, initial questions. As with everything, only time can tell the story of who receives funding and who gets stepped on by the Jolly Green Giant.
Oh, and this is a nifty link about the oldest writing in the world and where it was found.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
German High Court Restricts E-mail and Phone Data Retention
This could prove interesting--I'm sure it will come up again.
"The government's commissioner for data protection and freedom of information needed to be included in the process of controlling the use of the data, it said. The information could only be used in secret "if that is necessary in individual cases and ordered by a judge," Papier said.
The ruling follows a warning by the government that private sector Internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft need to be more transparent about the personal data they store on Web users."
"The government's commissioner for data protection and freedom of information needed to be included in the process of controlling the use of the data, it said. The information could only be used in secret "if that is necessary in individual cases and ordered by a judge," Papier said.
The ruling follows a warning by the government that private sector Internet companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft need to be more transparent about the personal data they store on Web users."
Monday, March 1, 2010
Google Patents Location-Based Advertising
Here we go, it's Web 3.0, coming to get us. As soon as you sign on, rather than receiving ads for some random company, Google will now advertise a tea shop to you if you're searching for drinks with your Android in the middle of London, or a silk worm factory if you're hanging out in Thailand trying to find a cloth distributor. According to the link above, this also gives power of price arbitration. It will be interesting to see how online companies like Amazon will be affected by this. Of course, a company like Amazon is large enough that they probably won't have troubles, but smaller companies might.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
It's good Slashdot's Paying Attention (Click link here)
Because, really, ...
No. I won't be sarcastic. This is definitely an important issue, and it is actually one of the main reasons why so many people work in digitization in archives; one should ask the question, "How much has been lost?" just to address the digital record of the past, say, fifteen years. (In a very short time, it's scary to realize how much has either been lost or is inaccessible due to lack of proper information regarding the digital artifact.)
And a question I have been considering for the past few months: What ought we to save? Should we, realistically, scramble to save every bit and byte out there for the sake of preservation of information?
My thoughts are thus:
1) What do we have from, say, 550-1066AD England? The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, the Seafarer, lots of Anglo-Saxon translations of Latin biblical verses, Beowulf. I think it is fair to say that what we have left is rich and important, but if I could take a time machine to see what the world was like then, aye, there's the rub. So the next question is . . .
2) What ought we to save to give future human beings a fair perspective of the years, say, 2000-2010AD? Would/should we save more than what we have left of dark age England? I think so, yes, but then I have to ask
3) Should curators of cultural memory make value judgments based upon the need to provide a "fair and impartial" view of life on Earth, in the United States, in the year 2008?
I ask these questions because I sincerely don't believe we should be saving everything on the green earth; but I know also that people become terrified when they hear the idea, "Someone's going to choose to take a snapshot of this time and this place, and that is all the future will know of it." Why do people duck under the table when a person pulls out a camera at a party? They don't want a record of their having been there? They don't want a record of frazzled hair and lipstick teeth?
Of what value is an archival record if value judgments are made in compiling it? And, conversely, of what value is an archival record if no value judgments are made in compiling it?
I wonder what people would want to save if they were asked to save a digital something.
(Of course, now I'm thinking about the websites I used to love to visit. One of my favorites that is long gone was Mail-A-Malady. It was a horrible little website, perfect for torturing friends.)
No. I won't be sarcastic. This is definitely an important issue, and it is actually one of the main reasons why so many people work in digitization in archives; one should ask the question, "How much has been lost?" just to address the digital record of the past, say, fifteen years. (In a very short time, it's scary to realize how much has either been lost or is inaccessible due to lack of proper information regarding the digital artifact.)
And a question I have been considering for the past few months: What ought we to save? Should we, realistically, scramble to save every bit and byte out there for the sake of preservation of information?
My thoughts are thus:
1) What do we have from, say, 550-1066AD England? The Dream of the Rood, The Wanderer, the Seafarer, lots of Anglo-Saxon translations of Latin biblical verses, Beowulf. I think it is fair to say that what we have left is rich and important, but if I could take a time machine to see what the world was like then, aye, there's the rub. So the next question is . . .
2) What ought we to save to give future human beings a fair perspective of the years, say, 2000-2010AD? Would/should we save more than what we have left of dark age England? I think so, yes, but then I have to ask
3) Should curators of cultural memory make value judgments based upon the need to provide a "fair and impartial" view of life on Earth, in the United States, in the year 2008?
I ask these questions because I sincerely don't believe we should be saving everything on the green earth; but I know also that people become terrified when they hear the idea, "Someone's going to choose to take a snapshot of this time and this place, and that is all the future will know of it." Why do people duck under the table when a person pulls out a camera at a party? They don't want a record of their having been there? They don't want a record of frazzled hair and lipstick teeth?
Of what value is an archival record if value judgments are made in compiling it? And, conversely, of what value is an archival record if no value judgments are made in compiling it?
I wonder what people would want to save if they were asked to save a digital something.
(Of course, now I'm thinking about the websites I used to love to visit. One of my favorites that is long gone was Mail-A-Malady. It was a horrible little website, perfect for torturing friends.)
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The two things have nothing to do with each other, really. Google promises
Allow me to say again: I love Google. Really, I do.
And I have no idea if the two things really are related or not, but I find it very interesting that Google patents this filter stuff by country-of-origin, but blocks another kind of filter in an ostensibly unrelated matter.
(Click the link in the title of my prior blog post. That's the article I'm referring to.)
And I have no idea if the two things really are related or not, but I find it very interesting that Google patents this filter stuff by country-of-origin, but blocks another kind of filter in an ostensibly unrelated matter.
(Click the link in the title of my prior blog post. That's the article I'm referring to.)
Monday, February 15, 2010
Aww, Look at Google and Y! Being the Good Guys ... It's so cute!
(I originally accessed this article from Slashdot's posting of it.)
I love to read things about free speech being protected, especially when the "protectors" are companies like Google and Y!. Now, I'm not saying that I disagree with opposing Conroy's plan, but I do have to critique people's immediate willingness to jump on and declare Google and Y! heroes for helping the community. Sure, we don't want to be China--THEY'RE NOT CAPITALISTS! (Insert gasp here.)
Is there a bottom line here? Oh, I think so.
Yet again, I have to say, I'd have no doubt bowed to the social order offered by Emperor Palpatine, but I don't think I'd pretend it was anything more than, "This society is super organized, and that appeals to my sense of feng shui!" It's called capitalism, people. Savor it. Enjoy it. Benefit from it. But don't overlook the fact that these companies are enjoying a profit from lack of filters.
I sometimes gripe about capitalism--don't get me wrong, I recognize that I thrive in an easy country to live in, but I also would prefer not to have broccoli shoved down my throat while someone tells me it's fried oysters.
I love to read things about free speech being protected, especially when the "protectors" are companies like Google and Y!. Now, I'm not saying that I disagree with opposing Conroy's plan, but I do have to critique people's immediate willingness to jump on and declare Google and Y! heroes for helping the community. Sure, we don't want to be China--THEY'RE NOT CAPITALISTS! (Insert gasp here.)
Is there a bottom line here? Oh, I think so.
Yet again, I have to say, I'd have no doubt bowed to the social order offered by Emperor Palpatine, but I don't think I'd pretend it was anything more than, "This society is super organized, and that appeals to my sense of feng shui!" It's called capitalism, people. Savor it. Enjoy it. Benefit from it. But don't overlook the fact that these companies are enjoying a profit from lack of filters.
I sometimes gripe about capitalism--don't get me wrong, I recognize that I thrive in an easy country to live in, but I also would prefer not to have broccoli shoved down my throat while someone tells me it's fried oysters.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Five Professional Development Things I Learned This Week
I remember in grade school, one of the things I was always terrible at was coloring pictures with crayons. One day, I sat down to color for a fourth-grade competition, determined to color the prettiest picture I possibly could, mainly in order to completely over-shadow and outshine the competition. (As Hagar the Horrible once said: "Winning isn't everything. It's also important to humiliate your competition.")
This was back in the mid-eighties, when light-pastels were en vogue, and the lighter the colors used, the better the teacher believed the picture to be. I determined to make a picture with the hues and shades of a stained-glass window: Sharp, dark, rich. (Because another method I've always employed in competition is to think differently than the opponents.)
I turned my picture in, was the only kid who did the stained-glass window thing, and I was so happy. Of course the teacher (and my fellow classmates who were voting in the coloring competition), completely ignored what I had put a lot of heart into creating--it wasn't pastel; it wasn't light; it was definitely different.
Meh. You reach an age where you realize that the self-expression opportunity is more important than winning...and let's face it, I'm competitive enough to admit that the two things are equally important to me. It still irks me that those people had no proper taste in coloring.
Of course, it's probable that I didn't color within the lines, too.
This week, I had the opportunity to engage in extended conversation with a competing department's digitization head. The digitization program this person heads is leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And clearly this person has a better foundation for doing this, has had a lot more training--and a little more time--than I have to get my feet under me. (And, as this person continually said, "You have to start somewhere.")
But either way, what I've learned, in swallowing my very fierce competitiveness--and as a third sibling of three, this is difficult--is threefold:
1) Communication, however you can establish it, is important, helpful, significant, and you never know how it might become productive down the road. Now, since I had already developed an opinion that this person was fairly patient and generous with knowledge, I figured I should establish communication for the sake of information exchange.
1B) Training is expensive, and it is generally more expensive than my own institution (for example) can afford.
Therefore: If you can communicate in even small ways, it's important try to learn, to sponge as much information from others in the field as possible. (Naturally, you don't want to become known as a mooch, so you should certainly proffer good humor and witty conversation in exchange for a contact's patience.)
2) Don't compare yourself. Don't compete. AND, something I constantly strive to remind myself: Don't be so arrogant that you think you're coloring the perfect picture because you've chosen a different tactic; you could simply be very bad at color. Listen to what other professionals in the field have to say, and try to glean from both spoken and unspoken critiques what you can learn to strengthen what you're doing--or to entirely scrap weaknesses in your methods. Do you rely too heavily on one theory of digitization, for instance that everything must be accessed, to the exclusion of digital preservation? (Thank you, anonymous person, for this nudge.)
3) Think things over. At this point, I am honestly disheartened by the level of my own work, and I am going to strive to raise the bar, even if it's to the point of handing off other job duties (like raw web design), toward the goal of enacting a small handful of what I consider more important things.
But I also am a pragmatist: What I am working on (DSpace) is, and always was, a deliberate choice, after testing. For my institution, it is viable, preservable, and scalable. It is a pretty good archival software; and though it meets the demands of what an institution requires, it does have its flaws. (In proofreading this, I have to say: Can we ask this question of ourselves as employees, too? And perhaps even as human beings?) And as I was reminded also, you must start somewhere; but in digitization, somewhere needs to at minimum be sustainable.
4) Be patient with yourself, with your own work, and focus on it being -your own work-. My own feeling of disappointment in myself springs from my constant desire to be at the top of class, to always produce the best essay, to always ask the smartest questions, to never, ever look intellectually silly. (And yeah, this is deep-rooted.) But I am recognizing this week, that it's also significant that I appreciate that, of course, I'm not going to be the best or the brightest, rather that I have to develop a proper tool for a proper job. And I have to spend time learning that tool and to appreciate that there indeed are reasons for choosing it.
5) Most important, always evaluate your current state, try to figure out what needs to be improved upon, but also figure out what you're doing well. (And this isn't just in technology or digitization. It's in life in general.) Then, after understanding what is well, building a foundation upon that will provide an excellent foundation for development.
It's been a humbling, educational week; I have learned a lot, and I hope to enact some of what I have learned. I hope that anyone who loves his/her job can understand that I am humbled, not because I had originally thought that what I was doing was perfect, but because I genuinely love my work, and I feel like I've been a bit of a neglectful or spread-too-thin parent toward what I love. I'm going to retrench some things and work toward enacting and incorporating other things.
This was back in the mid-eighties, when light-pastels were en vogue, and the lighter the colors used, the better the teacher believed the picture to be. I determined to make a picture with the hues and shades of a stained-glass window: Sharp, dark, rich. (Because another method I've always employed in competition is to think differently than the opponents.)
I turned my picture in, was the only kid who did the stained-glass window thing, and I was so happy. Of course the teacher (and my fellow classmates who were voting in the coloring competition), completely ignored what I had put a lot of heart into creating--it wasn't pastel; it wasn't light; it was definitely different.
Meh. You reach an age where you realize that the self-expression opportunity is more important than winning...and let's face it, I'm competitive enough to admit that the two things are equally important to me. It still irks me that those people had no proper taste in coloring.
Of course, it's probable that I didn't color within the lines, too.
This week, I had the opportunity to engage in extended conversation with a competing department's digitization head. The digitization program this person heads is leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And clearly this person has a better foundation for doing this, has had a lot more training--and a little more time--than I have to get my feet under me. (And, as this person continually said, "You have to start somewhere.")
But either way, what I've learned, in swallowing my very fierce competitiveness--and as a third sibling of three, this is difficult--is threefold:
1) Communication, however you can establish it, is important, helpful, significant, and you never know how it might become productive down the road. Now, since I had already developed an opinion that this person was fairly patient and generous with knowledge, I figured I should establish communication for the sake of information exchange.
1B) Training is expensive, and it is generally more expensive than my own institution (for example) can afford.
Therefore: If you can communicate in even small ways, it's important try to learn, to sponge as much information from others in the field as possible. (Naturally, you don't want to become known as a mooch, so you should certainly proffer good humor and witty conversation in exchange for a contact's patience.)
2) Don't compare yourself. Don't compete. AND, something I constantly strive to remind myself: Don't be so arrogant that you think you're coloring the perfect picture because you've chosen a different tactic; you could simply be very bad at color. Listen to what other professionals in the field have to say, and try to glean from both spoken and unspoken critiques what you can learn to strengthen what you're doing--or to entirely scrap weaknesses in your methods. Do you rely too heavily on one theory of digitization, for instance that everything must be accessed, to the exclusion of digital preservation? (Thank you, anonymous person, for this nudge.)
3) Think things over. At this point, I am honestly disheartened by the level of my own work, and I am going to strive to raise the bar, even if it's to the point of handing off other job duties (like raw web design), toward the goal of enacting a small handful of what I consider more important things.
But I also am a pragmatist: What I am working on (DSpace) is, and always was, a deliberate choice, after testing. For my institution, it is viable, preservable, and scalable. It is a pretty good archival software; and though it meets the demands of what an institution requires, it does have its flaws. (In proofreading this, I have to say: Can we ask this question of ourselves as employees, too? And perhaps even as human beings?) And as I was reminded also, you must start somewhere; but in digitization, somewhere needs to at minimum be sustainable.
4) Be patient with yourself, with your own work, and focus on it being -your own work-. My own feeling of disappointment in myself springs from my constant desire to be at the top of class, to always produce the best essay, to always ask the smartest questions, to never, ever look intellectually silly. (And yeah, this is deep-rooted.) But I am recognizing this week, that it's also significant that I appreciate that, of course, I'm not going to be the best or the brightest, rather that I have to develop a proper tool for a proper job. And I have to spend time learning that tool and to appreciate that there indeed are reasons for choosing it.
5) Most important, always evaluate your current state, try to figure out what needs to be improved upon, but also figure out what you're doing well. (And this isn't just in technology or digitization. It's in life in general.) Then, after understanding what is well, building a foundation upon that will provide an excellent foundation for development.
It's been a humbling, educational week; I have learned a lot, and I hope to enact some of what I have learned. I hope that anyone who loves his/her job can understand that I am humbled, not because I had originally thought that what I was doing was perfect, but because I genuinely love my work, and I feel like I've been a bit of a neglectful or spread-too-thin parent toward what I love. I'm going to retrench some things and work toward enacting and incorporating other things.
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