Eprints Probelm Again

Just tried to deposit more searches into Eprints and am not sure they are being deposited. I keep getting the feeling that I am doing something wrong, but I think I am following the steps correctly. Oh well, I left an email in the discussion board so I hope it gets figured out.

Eprints nightmare (sort of)

Just spent about an hour this afternoon trying to post my research onto the EPrints repository. I would enter my metadata, review the information and send it to the repository but nothing would go into it. Or at least it does not show up on the browse. I thought I was going crazy because I thought I was doing everything correctly. It seems there is something wrong with the browse and search functions...

Taufschein Database

I am still working on my Taufschein inventory. I am using an Excel file to work with because I feel more comfortable with it than using Access. I have copied files over before from Excel to Access but it is sometimes a hassle and cannot do it all at once. Hopefully it will not give me any problems this time. I am going to read (not sure if i should have already) the database chapter in our computer textbook to try and get a better idea of what I can do with databases. All I really know now is that I am basically entering information based on what I think people will want to search for: names, dates, locations, etc...I want to be able to, first of all, learn how create searches with a soundex so that I can allow pepole to search without exact spellings. Not sure if i can do that with Access??? A big problem is entering the same names with different spellings. I am entering 19th century German names that had no standard spellings, the same name is often spelled differently or names were simply phonetically spelled so that it is difficult to know how to enter the names. I know I could standardize the names (which is what I do with place names) but I also want to record the original spellings in order to be sure I am getting the name correct. It is possible that the odd spelling was retained and that is how it is spelled today.

Sunday night

Very tired. Just want to say that I did not get a chance to work on my assignments this weekend but did have a chance to talk to someone about social networking (my LIS 2000 Hot topic) and how it is affecting our everyday lives. I did not realize how out of it I am regarding this and education....more on this later....

Quick Post

Have been working on my essay for week 5/6. Very tough reading. It was difficult to try and combine the three books :Willinsky, Borgman and Wright into one coherent essay. there was so much information and I didn't know where to start. I really enjoyed Glut though. I liked how is uses history to show our need (not just humans but all animals) for organization and the creative ways in which people have created organizational systems of over the centuries. It is alos a good overview of library history and introduces us to inventions that never made it for one reason or another and ideas that did make it but have sort of become obsolete: re. Dewey. Nonetheless, our library uses Dewey because it is convenient for us and the subject classifications all fit in nicley with out collection.

Taufschein Inventory

I have been working on an inventory of our Taufschein collection at work. Taufscheins are printed birth and baptismal certificates that were used by the Pennsylvania Germans as a decorative memorial to record the birth and baptism of children in the nineteenth century. They were printed in English or German and record information which is useful to genealogists today. The majority of the document is printed, but the personal information is manuscript. The manuscript was done either professionally by a scrivener or done by a family member. Taufscheins record parents' names, including the mother's maiden name, the child's date of birth and baptism, where the child was born, who performed the baptism, and who the child's sponsers were. They are not official birth certificates, but merely decorative and commemorative. They are also sometimes mistakenly called Fraktur. Fraktur are a form of illuminated manuscrpipt, and while Taufscheins are closely related to Fraktur, they were really another form of folk art. Both are ususally written in German script and use bright colors to decorate but Fraktur are all manuscript and Taufscheins are printed (in other words, mass-produced) and filled in. My inventory includes all of the information mentioned above and will hopefully provide our researchers another source of genealogical information.

End of Week Five Redux

Just posted my discussion response to the Bradford's law question in LIS 2000. There were some very interesting posts and most people covered the question from the bibliographic database angle. I was a little intimidated by some of the responses and feel that perhaps I misunderstood the question. Anyway, I am just noting my insecurity here...Also, in LIS 2000, I signed up for my Hot Topics assignment and got in the group covering social networking. Before the course started I would have thought social networknig meant things like the "Old Boy network" so I had no idea it meant there was an area on the web for an exchange of information which individuals could sign up for and get feeds for, etc., very exciting, and makes me feel a little behind. Sometimes I wonder if everything I do where I work is obsolete and pointless. I simply catalog books and manuscripts into a local database (PastPerferct software) and it has no further use than as a catalog for our own collection. I need to find how and if I can ever get this information on the web. More on this later I hope...

End of Week Five

I posted my Jing assignment (see below) but am not sure how well I did it. The hardest part was creating a narrative and then reading it while trying not to mess up and have to start over. I have a new appreciation for actors and acting. 

I am also still trying to work out the best way to juggle school and work. The most difficult thing for me now is finding time for all of the reading. I have never been a fast reader so this course is forcing me to really skim over articles and get the gist rather than studying what I read - there is not enough time for that. I think I am getting the important points and concepts so that if I do not understand the details at least I will be familiar with the major ideas presented.  

HuntSchenkel's Library

HuntSchenkel's Library: Zotero Assignment

Jing Anxiety

I am trying to share my Jing demonstration onto Screencast and do not seem to be having any luck. It is either downloading too long or not sharing at all - very frustrating! I know it is simple but I must be missing a step somewhere. I seem to be spending a lot of time on projects that should be very simple - I hope that I can get all of this technichal stuff down now so that I will not have so much trouble in the future.

End of Week 4

This course if really hard to keep up with. Another short blog here before...I have been trying to keep up with all of the readings and the lectures (and other videos and RSS feeds) but it is very hard, if not impoossible for me to take it all in. I not only have to take it all in, but I have to process it. Right now I am just reading very fast and not really understanding everything. I Just want to keep up and get an idea of the concepts and theories introduced. I feel that in the long run it will all make sense but now i am just keeping my head above the water...

Digital Technology and Copyright

Just finished my essay for Double Fold. It makes me think about technology and all of its applications concerning information and libraries, etc. I wasn't aware before how much copyright and ownership of ideas are debated between publishers and libraries. In Sarah Thomas's article from "Double Fold to Double Bind" she shows how publishers are now considering holding back distribution of digital literature (if I am remembering this correctly) in order to be able to maintain rights to these books. It seems this creates an entirely new dillema for libraries in that they now may not even have access to these books. Hard copies will always exist I hope but if publishers plan to only publish certain books electronically, does this greatly diminish the role of the library? I am just trying to sort this out through the blog. Hope to understand more of this soon...

Short Entry

Still reading Double Fold and am amazed at the lack of competence and arrogance of our so-called experts (at least in the Cold War period). I guess I shouldn't be too surprised however when so much money is thrown at projects that much is wasted: I am thinking especially about the story of the Library of Congress's attempts at de-acidification and their lack of success.