tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73823840184776498222024-03-14T05:06:48.791-05:00Quiescit anima librisOne archivist's journey from archives to libraries and back again.Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.comBlogger141125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-19444481021664536782015-06-15T12:19:00.001-05:002015-06-15T12:19:28.727-05:00Noblesse oblige
I was talking to a younger colleague of mine, one who only recently moved over from medical to academic libraries, about academic library research. She went to library school fresh out of college, and hated reading the "theory", and even now has a less-than-gracious view of the librarians who spend their time just talking about librarianship instead of *doing* librarianship. For the record: I Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-65078041794881226122015-01-08T09:46:00.004-06:002015-01-08T09:46:58.327-06:00The Perpetual Future, or a Feeling of DespairThe other day, while scrolling through Twitter feelings about the annual AHA meeting, I saw that someone said " too much of digital work is stuck in a perpetual future tense."
The perpetual future.
My husband once said, when he was an Economics major and was also working at a window factory at night, that he finally understood Marxist rhetoric, because no matter how hard he worked, there is Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-76681827965322772702014-12-04T09:44:00.003-06:002014-12-04T10:38:22.602-06:00Radicalism in Archives
Question posed for submissions to Archive Journal on "radical archives"
Is radical content (e.g., the archives of activist collectives, social movements, or avant-garde artists) best served by practices that eschew archival standards? What are the short- and long-term consequences of such decisions?
This question is one that skirts a central issue of archival work, one that is sometimes Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-29930840777665117452014-12-01T10:38:00.002-06:002014-12-01T10:38:49.993-06:00The Dangers of NostalgiaI've been thinking a lot on what makes an archives a good one or a bad one. Of course these are totally subjective terms--"good" and "bad"-- but I assume if an archivist steps inside a repository and sees certain things, it throws up a red flag and an institution can get piled into the "bad" category pretty quickly. Some of these things might be.... a really huge backlog, or maybe improper Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-89074276011155048712014-11-11T09:06:00.001-06:002014-11-11T09:09:32.416-06:00Square pegs in round holesThere is really nothing like trying to explain best practices and limitations to lay people to clear your thinking on archival and library processes.
Yesterday I was interviewed by a group of MBA students out of UCLA. They were curious about how archivists and digital librarians approach their large digital projects, including how we create metadata. They are hypothesizing a content (or digital Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-40205072220041363072014-10-24T10:21:00.002-05:002014-10-24T10:21:47.204-05:00The Story V. The RealityA fellow archivist and I saw a job ad for the position of assistant archivist at Tiffany & Co. Now, neither of us knows anyone from their corporate or historic archives, nor do we have any idea of how the institution works. But some job ads just grab your imagination!
This is what we imagined:
Everyone is in pencil skirts and fashionable scarves, wool trousers and silk vests, slender and Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-17269117671475017582014-07-16T11:33:00.000-05:002014-07-16T11:35:25.706-05:00On CuriosityI am a very curious person. I like looking up random facts and tucking them away in my mental pockets, to pull them out and study them later. I enjoy microscopes and bits of information and sitting very still in various locations to see what happens when I do that.
Curiosity, though, seems to be for the young. If I do a google search on "places for curious people" I inevitably come up with 80% Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-84396383744369090412014-05-15T11:51:00.004-05:002014-05-15T11:51:41.968-05:00The Future of the Archival Professional
Lots of people are talking about the future of archives, mostly
from the point of view of materials and access, and
these are indeed very pressing issues. Reinventing the mission of the archives
and finding ways to mediate and educate the user will certainly be the greatest
challenge in the coming years. But
occasionally scholars are diving into the waters of defining archivists
themselvesMelissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-63871003818317324712014-02-12T20:29:00.001-06:002014-02-12T20:29:55.685-06:00Archival stewardshipOne of the things I'm thinking about right now is how we're going to appraise and accession new materials for the archive. Based on the literature I'm reading right now, and the population we're serving, and the constraints on my time, it seems like the traditional archivist-driven models aren't going to work very well here. So instead I'm working on the idea of participatory/crowdsourcing Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-77164228083925385482014-01-28T15:49:00.002-06:002014-01-28T15:49:19.613-06:00More bad poetryThis is the second haiku I've written about cataloging/metadata, but it was for a report, so I feel like I get a free pass. I apologize in advance.
"A haiku about interdepartmental collaboration", by Me
Building best practice
is communicating well
with catalogingMelissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-27518296378691758522014-01-23T17:37:00.001-06:002014-01-23T17:37:02.785-06:00Creating the historical record?There's an interesting truth about my work: I am literally deciding right now what people will believe about this university in the future. There are two distinct stories that could be told: one is that this is the lesser institution to the greater parent university. The one that is not as rigorous, not as prestigious, not as important (and that's not an untrue story, if you measure success in Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-32914641828887279822014-01-14T12:22:00.002-06:002014-01-14T12:22:20.801-06:00Retrofit metadataPart of my challenge here is to create an archives that will be easy for our students to use and access. Ok, that's actually the entirety of my challenge here. I know that our archives will not be a research archives in the sense of a Harvard or University of Texas. It's simply never going to be that; there are not enough resources and this institution is not focused on prestige acquisitions or Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-75358008360911529062014-01-13T09:35:00.000-06:002014-01-13T09:35:06.934-06:00a haikui wrote a haiku about metadata.
Metadata is
not a schema but the heart
of a description
Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-37295185374753092102013-10-02T12:50:00.000-05:002013-10-02T12:52:10.278-05:00The answer to life, the archives, and everythingSo, here's a story problem that I never faced while a fledgling archivist at the iSchool:
You have been tasked with creating an archive for a university of 14,000 students, 700 faculty, and a forty-year history. When you arrive on the job, you are given 10 large boxes' worth of material which has been "donated" over the years. There are no donors noted: everything has been put into boxes Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-86824096692360276512013-09-19T10:34:00.001-05:002013-09-19T10:34:35.641-05:00Decision-making and managementYesterday, we had our professional development meeting. This is for the librarians, and we talk about issues that surround moving up in your career, libraries generally, or management issues. The reality of the meeting is that it's a chance to sit around and think bigger thoughts than we tend to do in staff meetings, where all we talk about is systems, schedules, conferences, etc. I really like Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-23034511648715790102013-09-17T09:37:00.001-05:002013-09-17T09:37:17.508-05:00A Defense of MARCToday I decided to work on the procedures that we will use in the future to create finding aids. I'm trying to keep things loose and relatively flexible, so I'm creating a form that will have space for typing in all the things we need in a finding aid, and making each heading a combination of both the DACS elements and the MARC field that one would associate with those elements. This way someone Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-6350818640756840422013-09-10T09:13:00.002-05:002013-09-10T09:13:27.537-05:00Ode to Dublin CoreI'm currently trying to take the courses necessary to fulfill the DAS (Digital Archives Specialist) requirements and get certified. I took my second of the first tier of classes yesterday, which is called Standards for Digital Archives. It was an overview of the different metadata standards and some of the tangential programs that go along with metadata. So, the usual players: OAIS, MIX, MODS, Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-56943512437199680372013-09-04T10:36:00.003-05:002014-01-15T10:30:29.625-06:00Access in ArchivesI'm back, to ponder the nature of service in the archival world. Get ready to gaze at those navels, people.
When I left the realm of "pure" archives, almost 7 years ago, most large archival institutions had *some* digital content available online, and had EAD finding aids available in union catalogs or online repositories. They had websites that mostly directed patrons on how to come in to the Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-55616199234096920942013-08-30T14:48:00.003-05:002013-08-30T14:48:51.740-05:00The Public Face of an ArchivesI've been going around and around in my mind about how I want to present this archive to The World. Since we have no public face yet, I'm pretty open to possibilities. The question that I've been facing over the past couple weeks is one of storage. Where do I want to store our metadata?
Now, for the digital/digitized things, I used CONTENTdm and it works pretty well. It's not perfect, but the Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-65803292379752884832013-08-13T14:31:00.000-05:002013-08-13T14:31:27.550-05:00PressuresI remember, when I was starting out in archives, getting excited about every new thing that came across my desk. I was a history major at the time, and every scrap of history was a new world, another little piece in the puzzle of "what happened." My curiosity eventually lost its edge. I mean, I didn't lose my love of history or anything quite so dire, but I definitely gave up on the Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-16925088146688157242013-07-19T13:42:00.000-05:002013-07-19T13:42:32.647-05:00Back to the ArchivesIt's been awhile since I last posted, but a lot has happened since I last posted, so I suppose that makes sense. I got a new job, now once again working as a "pure" archivist. It's been quite a few years since that was true, but it feels good to be focusing on archives. Luckily, the intersection between archives, digitization, and metadata is a big one, so I'm still doing what interests me the Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-45606004690360829402013-03-27T14:13:00.000-05:002013-03-27T14:13:02.384-05:00LC Classification Tables
Just as fair warning: this blog entry is probably only
interesting to catalogers. And maybe not even every one of them, but I really
need to process my emotions about the Library of Congress Classification today.
I’m sure that all catalogers have had this happen to them:
you’re assigning a call number using the Library of Congress classification, no
big deal, flipping through (or scrolling Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-64913940870275415312013-03-20T10:41:00.003-05:002013-03-20T10:41:45.118-05:00MotivationI have two quotes printed out and hanging at my desk:
"When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." --R. Buckminster Fuller
"God is in the details." --Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
I look at them every time I am exasperated, or bored, or feeling antsy. Cataloging is actually really taxing: it Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-24638623964070905962013-02-15T11:09:00.002-06:002013-02-15T11:09:56.261-06:00The Power of Tradition
I recently was handed “Notes used on catalog cards”,
compiled by Olive Swain, from 1963, when I was having trouble remembering how
to word a certain turn of phrase related to a translation. This is a fantastic
little book, a second edition to an earlier compilation that I don’t have at
hand. It gives examples of all the notes that you might want to use in
cataloging a book (not scores or sound Melissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7382384018477649822.post-8098573409834293282013-02-11T10:36:00.001-06:002013-02-11T10:36:52.151-06:00Yearning for the Good Ol' Days
There’s a discussion on Autocat about interfaces and how
they are all different, and basically mourning the loss of the
totally-standardized card catalog. Yes, back in the day, a person could roll
into a library and go to the card catalog and they would know exactly what they
were looking at, and how to use it (if the already knew how to use it). Today,
you roll into the library and sit down atMelissahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02857009116761816327noreply@blogger.com0