Final Project

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Abilene Library Consortium: Assignment 3

For Assignment Three, I interviewed Ms. Devhra Bennett-Jones, digital archivist for the Abilene Library Consortium in Abilene, TX. The ALC is a consortium of four academic (Abilene Christian University, McMurry University, Hardin-Simmons University, and Howard Payne University) and one public (Abilene Public Library) library.

The ALC is in the process of deploying its first content management system. They have decided to utilize D-Space in conjunction with a website interface called Manakin (developed by Texas A & M). Though our recent reading has emphasized the uses of D-Space in managing institutional output, this is not the primary focus of the ALC project. Rather, they are utilizing D-Space to help preserve archival material. The general climate of west Texas is not considered "friendly" to the preservation of old papers, photos, et al. Unfortunately, none of the libraries has a climate-controlled storage facility, nor do they have the funds to construct one in the near future, and all of them are experiencing major material backlogs. It is hoped that this CMS will help them preserve the history of their unique region (i.e., "The Big Country")

Ms. Bennett-Jones said that the most difficult part of the learning curve (at least thus far) has been retraining the various library catalogers to stop thinking in terms of MARC and start thinking in terms of Dublin Core metadata. She believes this is because most the catalogers are used to looking at things on an individual level (e.g., a single book, a journal issue, etc.) rather than looking at them from a collection level as one must do in archiving (e.g., a box of papers, photographs, and video all donated by a single person). The variety of material found in archives is the primary reason that ALC decided to adopt D-Space. In Ms. Bennett-Jones' words "it is very robust and can handle all types of sources well." Additionally, the ALC was very attracted to the "dark archiving" option available through D-Space.

Assignment 4

Is anyone else haunted by the suspicion that they really have not grasped what things like a "metadata schema" are, or how they differ from "technical standards supported"? I don't know that I've ever felt this lost in a class in my entire academic career...just wondering if I'm the only one.

Dazed and Confused

The title pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right about now. I'm waiting to hear back from two library directors whom I've requested responses from for Assignment 3. I'm trying to figure out how to do Assignment 4. And my new Final Project partner (Celia Strickland) and I are negotiating just which option we want to go with and how we'll approach it.

This is, of course, in addition to the various and sundry work- and family-related issues that crop up for all of us. Hope ya'll are doing well. I think we can all see the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel...here's hoping it's not a train;-)

The "R" Must Stand for Rosetta

All you history fans are, I'm sure, familiar with the story of the Rosetta Stone. It was a stele containing an inscription in three ancient languages: Greek, Egyptian Hieroglyphics, (and I forget the third...maybe Latin?) In any event, the importance of the Rosetta Stone was that it finally allowed linguists to begin deciphering the mysterious hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians. So foundational was the Rosetta Stone to the history of linguistics, that it lends its name to the most popular line of language-learning software on the market today.

As I was reading through RFID in U.S. Libraries I could not shake the feeling that I was basically reading a Rosetta Stone. I didn't get a lot (and I mean, A LOT) of this 88 page exercise in verbosity and anagramic usage, but occasionally there would be a word or a sentence I understood. Now...if I could just find the English translation, I'd be in business.

Stop the (Word)Presses!

My experience with WordPress was good overall, though I wish we had had more time to work on the project. It felt like a tremendous amount of time early on was spent clarifying the assignment, rather than fulfilling it.

I came into this project with some WP experience. Previously, I had used WP for blogging and was familiar with many of its themes, as well as with utilizing the tagging and category features. However, I had really did much with the plugins/widgets/gadgets prior to this assignment. Quite honestly, I wasn't even sure that WP featured them--at least not to the degree and in the variety that Blogger does.

I had a bit of an embarassing experience early on when I was tooling around on the site to reacquaint myself with WP. In "cleaning up" the sidebar I eliminated the Meta gadget, which is what allowed us all to be site administrators. The upshot was that while trying to contribute to my team, I wound up locking my teammates out of the site. Fortunately, this was easily fixed once I knew what the problem was. (Thank you, Dr. Oguz).

I have mixed feelings about the whole team structure. Though I could not have asked for better team members, we struggled with the classic bane of student teams: scheduling. I think this problem was exacerbated by the short time frame we had to work within. In the end, however, I suppose we did pretty well.

A Ray of Hope

For some reason, I'm feeling a lot better about this class today. Perhaps it's because Dr. Oguz is going to allow me some additional time to comment on the vodcasts I missed due to computer issues. Maybe it's because after meeting with my WordPress teammates, I realized we don't have as much left to do as I originally thought. Maybe I've just had a good day and residual optimism is bleeding over into MLIS 7505. Where it comes from, I'll take it and be thankful. Hope a little sunshine has come your way as well.