Workplace Policy and Social Media

As you can hear from the following CNN video, it all comes down to workplace policy.  Noah Kravitz kept his Twitter account when he left PhoneDog and just changed the name of the account and kept all the followers.  Were the followers his or his former job's?  Workplace policies would have prevented a lawsuit.  But when you listen to the video, Kravitz never really answers the question of whether or not there were policies in place.  He surely must have known when he changed the handle of his account that it was a type of stealing.  Wouldn't you agree?

Second Life - Internships

I attended a Second Life presentation on internships available to SLIS students at SJSU this past week.  The presentation put on by Profs. Franks and Lindberg was very informative about how to go about finding or creating your own internship whether it be in person or virtual.  We all gathered in Second Life the online virtual world where SLIS and VCARA have "property".  As usual the presentation had sound problems, but over all it was great to attend an event with others even if it was virtual.  Here's a snapshot of the event:

Fascinating avatars--someone was even a cat!

Digital Migration

If ever there was a need for migration of digital data, this is it:  the American people's response to a national tragedy.  Data was collected after Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 in the form of punch cards.  After 9/11, a group wanted to replicate the study, but where to find the original data?  Please link to the following blog article in the Library of Congress' Digital Preservation blog The Signal:

http://blogs.loc.gov/digitalpreservation/2011/11/digital-preservation-and-the-1963-kennedy-assassination-study/

Such a wonderfully concise explanation.

Here's a pic of a punch card machine:

Punch Cards!, by DanCentury, on Flickr

NPR, the CIA and your MLIS

NPR had an interesting story on Monday, November 7th on the CIA using librarians to monitor facebook and twitter accounts overseas.  Robert Segal specifically mentioned that the CIA employs lots of people with MLIS degrees.  I can't wait until I get mine.  So here's an actual application of our Web 2.0 skills.  Here's the link to the story and audio on NPR or you can listen to it here too:

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/142111403/how-does-the-cia-use-social-media

BTW, the trees are finally turning here in Los Angeles.  Here's a beautiful example from my husband:

Enjoy!

Surveys

I used Mineful today for a survey in class.  It's very similar to Survey Monkey which I've used in the past.  These tools can be very useful, unless a number of people try to use the site at the same time.  I've experienced Survey Monkey's site being overwhelmed and crashing.  It's not pretty.  Doodle.com is also a great site for polling.  I've used that one before too.

And yesterday was National Donuts Day.  Here's a poster from NARA:

Let me just say I've never had to justify donuts to my kids!

Fantastic SLIS Student Behind the Scenes Huntington Library Tour

All pictures for this post are by Natalya Pashkova.

This past Friday I had won the SJSU SLIS ALASC lottery to be one of the few privileged to participate in a behind the scenes tour of the Huntington Library in Pasadena.  The tour was free as was the parking and it took place before the buildings and grounds opened for the day.  It was a whirlwind tour that lasted 2 1/2 nonstop hours through many of the never seen rooms where the conservators, librarians and archivists work at the library.  I wound up taking 10 pages of notes, meeting old and new friends on the tour, and being wowed more than once.

First we were given a short summary of the library, art collection and botanical gardens.  We were shown a small segment of the Huntington, since it also comprises art and gardens.  We then went on to see where the student fellows work (their own offices on a floor of the Munger building), and where the conservators work their magic.  We were shown book repair of folios, such as this before and after pic:

2 books: one with new binding and boards, one without.

We saw custom built solvent tables and baths to remove stains from paper and maps where it takes one hour per inch to remove unwanted tape:

This map has had 25 hours of work on it to remove tape!

Many of the book tools used for repair were acquired in the 1920's when Henry Huntington set up the place and the tools themselves they believe were made in the 18th and 19th centuries!  See these and sort of what's hanging on the wall:

Some 18th and 19th century book tools.

Onward to the Imaging Lab and the center of the library's photo department.  Since the Huntington are their own publishers, they create their own images.  Here's a few statistics: 252,000 images made, 28 terabytes saved, highest possible resolution always.  If the image costs $1 to make, the metadata costs them $15 to make, all images are tiff format.  CONTENTdm, OCLC, MetaArchive, and LOCKSS all used to save and secure data.  Labor is their highest cost.  The library is not in a position to do any hiring (that's the worst statistic of all!)  Some samples of their photo work:

No that's not a pirate!

The Munger is their new building which is 90,000 sq ft.  They all used to work in the old building in cramped quarters.  Now onward to the library section and the librarians.  There are 9 librarians who are all involved in one way or another in cataloging.  Last year the library acquired 2,600 books which for the most part will need unique metadata.  They do the best metadata possible and then move on.  The library is always getting in new books.  There is lots of collaboration between libraries.  For instance, the Huntington acquired a copy of Newton's Principia but the librarians could not identify the language it was in.  It was narrowed down to Mongolian, but how on earth to read the book in order to create the catalog entry?  Some librarian was located in Washington State as an expert and after an email and some faxing of pages, the entry was complete in 30 minutes!  With the library's new digital presence, all librarians are encouraged to spend one day a week "digital Fridays" working on their digital library.  One of the library's recent acquisitions was the Burndy Collection of science works.  Remember at one time there were no title pages in books.  Incunabula do not have them so processing here at the Huntington can be a challenge.  Here's a pic of one book who's cataloging is in process:

One restoration of the Vatican--link to the book's entry here: http://catalog.huntington.org/record=b1800268~S0

The tour ended and after a much needed rest and lunch, we headed on to the new permanent exhibition of science books from the Burndy collection donated in 2006 to the library.  And here's what I found:

Newton's Principia owned by Newton himself!! and then by Edmond Halley!!  catalog entry: http://catalog.huntington.org/record=b1737300~S0 

Newton's copy of his Opticks!!! catalog entry: http://catalog.huntington.org/record=b1720427~S0

There was so much more learned from this tour, but I don't want to make this post too long.  I just want to say that I was so wowed that for the first time while visiting the Huntington, I didn't visit the Gutenberg Bible nor Audubon's Folio.  What a day!

Daughter's Halloween Dance

For those of you who wanted to see my daughter's Princess Leia costume for Halloween, here it is:

 

She didn't win the costume competition, but had a great time nevertheless!

Job Searching

My group project is bringing back so many feelings of insecurity that I felt when I was job searching in 2009-2010.  Through hard work and I think luck I found a position, but so many people are still unemployed.  The State of California Employment Development Department states that the rate is 12.4 percent for September 2011, down from 12.9 percent a year ago.  That's still so many people.  It doesn't even begin to touch on the people I know who are underemployed.  I'm thinking the next 5 years are still going to be very bad. 

Missing NYC

Most of the time I feel adjusted to the fact that I now live in LA.   But then I'll hear something or see something like this:

and I wonder why I ever left NY.

This image is from a Craig Ferguson tweet of all things. Besides tweeting images, he's about the funniest person I know, who can make me laugh so hard that I cry, all in just 140 characters. His handle: CraigyFerg

Voki Character

Sergeant York Pic

NARA's Today's Document twitter yesterday had a picture of Sergeant Alvin York who was the most decorated soldier of WWI.  He won the US Congressional Medal of Honor.  But here is an actual photo of him on the hill of his fame:

Sergeant Alvin C. York, 328th Infantry, who with aid of 17 men, captured 132 German prisoners; shows hill on which raid took place [October 8, 1918]. Argonne Forest, near Cornay, France., 02/07/1919

I knew he was a real person, but I was more familiar with the movie about him in 1941 with Gary Cooper playing York that won Cooper the Oscar for best actor.  The movie wasn't bad, but depicted York of course simplistically.  In real life he was more complex.  The movie depicted him as a conscientious objector, but really he seemed to waver.  He kept a diary during the war, and probably that would be fascinating to read.  And sure enough with a little searching online here is the link: http://acacia.pair.com/Acacia.Vignettes/The.Diary.of.Alvin.York.html

During part of the battle he recounts picking off men with bayonets:

In the middle of the fight a German officer and five men done jumped out of a trench and charged me with fixed bayonets. They had about twenty-five yards to come and they were coming right smart. I only had about half a clip left in my rifle; but I had my pistol ready. I done flipped it out fast and teched them off, too.

I teched off the sixth man first; then the fifth; then the fourth; then the third; and so on. That's the way we shoot wild turkeys at home. You see we don't want the front ones to know that we're getting the back ones, and then they keep on coming until we get them all. Of course, I hadn't time to think of that. I guess I jes naturally did it. I knowed, too, that if the front ones wavered, or if I stopped them the rear ones would drop down and pump a volley into me and get me.

Then I returned to the rifle, and kept right on after those machine guns. I knowed now that if I done kept my head and didn't run out of ammunition I had them. So I done hollered to them to come down and give up. I didn't want to kill any more'n I had to. I would tech a couple of them off and holler again. But I guess they couldn't understand my language, or else they couldn't hear me in the awful racket that was going on all around. Over twenty Germans were killed by this time.

He may have killed 20, but his sharpshooting enabled him to capture 132 prisoners.  And there he is on the hill where it happened.

Project and Pic

Our virtual time capsule project "Job Searching in 2011" is bringing back some bad feelings from when I was unemployed in 2009.  So with this project it's like facing my demons.  But with it all, there seems to be more confidence and knowledge attained.  I was finally successful in an interview (and knew I'd nailed it) and was proud of my resume.  Hopefully I can retain the confidence and keep the momentum going by keeping up my resume (and LinkedIn profile) continue to be cognizant of my verbal skills and be somewhat knowledgeable about networking.

On another note, here's a pic from Kate Theimer's Flickr project of the Nova Scotia Archive's images.  Here's the link to the project http://t.co/1coxLkbX



This image doesn't even have a year nor a photographer listed, but I would guess it's from about 100 years ago. Except for the clothes and hair, could be any of us now.

My state of Web 2.0

I'm trying to adopt as many of the Web 2.0 tools as I can while in Prof. Franks class.  Sometimes it's slow going though.  Or at least it feels that way.  Here's a list of what I feel I've accomplished:

• Set up my own blog and am making an effort to post topically at least once a week.
• Got a twitter gadget (and button) on my blog and making an effort to tweet at least once a day even if it is a retweet.
• Had trouble following every one's blog in class besides the ones I personally follow, so I broke down and setup a blog aggregator (Google Reader) and find it very convenient. 
• Following a few more twitter feeds pertaining to archives.
• Discovered the world of wikis and started one for my current job (a la Dennehy & Burke).
• Actually got an edited video up on YouTube.

Now a list of what I feel I need to work on or get more information about:

• I could follow everyone's twitter in class if I only knew what their twitter handle was!
• I've done some stuff with Flickr, but have not really integrated it with this class yet.
• Podcasts??!!
• Not looking forward to Facebook.

Here's a Jing capture of my work wiki if only to have something to look at:

It's a bit of a sample email I use at work constantly.

Historical Twitter

I found a cute little gem of a twitter feed: The Astoria Historical Society

Twitter handle: LIChistory

It's the section of Queens, NY where I grew up. I had known they had a strong history and preservation component while I was growing up and apparently in 1985 they incorporated and now have a vibrant website, photo section, facebook page and even a twitter feed.

Some recent tweets:

- Triborough Bridge Walking Tour http://t.co/Bl61ENI #constant contact

- Do you have a story about the Triborough Bridge? The MTA would like to hear it. http://t.co/fy9HrOX

- Last days for our exhibit on 30th Avenue. Watch a segment from our opening http://t.co/iJQEMiw


Very local and very interesting and meaningful I think to the people who love the area.


BTW, I've had a twitter feed for a few years now, and really only used it to receive news of library and archives bloggers with updates.  I'll make an effort to tweet now, even if it's only retweeting!

New feature:  See my recent feed on my blog.



1935 Maypole Celebration from "The Greater Astoria Historical Society"   (We were still doing this when I was a kid!)

YouTube video

My daughter with our dog Chip at the 240th San Gabriel Mission Fiesta at the Saturday morning pet contest. It's a lot of fun every year. I've added the title at the beginning and credits at the end. I used Window MovieMaker and it took forever to figure out how to save my modifications. (Our dog won a ribbon btw!)

NYC view

I'm fascinated with what Jing can do.  I've made this short video about two photos I found on different museum websites during the Summer semester for my Photo Preservation class.  Upon Alfred Stieglitz's death, his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe had his platinum prints sent to various museums throughout the US.  The internet now brings similar views back together.  This view is near and dear to every New Yorker:


View from back window of Gallery 291. (my desktop image: The Uffington White Horse in England.)

Let's give this a whirl!

While not quite what any archive is, the name of my blog brings a chuckle when said, and hopefully let's people remember its name.

And speaking of blogs with great names, one of my favorites has just that: The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian.  I found solo librarian John Lang's blog when I was writing my paper for 204 on Lone Arrangers and Solo Librarians in 2009.  At the time, he wrote his posts himself without many images and commented on current library happenings.  Then he started adding more images, ppts and videos.  I soon became unemployed and then he became unemployed.  He found work before I did and became a "Digital Librarian."  The only downside is that he is so busy, his blogs aren't as personal as they once were, but are still extremely informative.  He uses Twitter and usually tweets at least once a day pointing to his favorite post.

Web 2.0 seems to give archivists a great outlet for their current musings on many subjects, provides a sounding board for current projects and shameless self promotion! 

This image appealed to me from this week's readings of the Ford Archives:

Race car driver Barney Oldfield (25 yrs old at the time) and Henry Ford in Ford's 999 race car in 1903.

Maybe it's because I just bought my new used Prius this week:

Not as young and certainly not as cool but my own little slice of America's fascination with the automobile.