New semester/new assignment

Here’s my new assignment for the semester:

Mentor: Jen Wolfe

IDL usability & interface design: The Iowa Digital Library is a growing collection of more than 100,000 digital objects. The goal of this project is to help create a plan to improve the site’s manageability, navigability, and accessibility. Working with DLS, Enterprise Applications and Web Design, the fellows will be tasked with exploring the feasibility of a web usability study of IDL and researching sound information architecture strategies that deal with a range of issues including search functionality, branding, and design.  Prof. Haowei Hsieh will be collaborating with DLS on this project. Other duties as assigned.

Today I’m just getting myself acquainted with the site and doing a little research.  Jen has strep so I’ll be meeting with her once she fells better.

preparing for presentations/some final thoughts

I had to take the last week off, since I had the stomach flu that has been going around.  I was sick from Sunday through Thursday, which really took out a lot of work time for me.

This week I need to focus on my presentation for Friday.  We are having our end of the semester presentations.  I am spending this week working on it and will show it to Cliff before the presentations on Friday.

Its been a really nice way to reflect on the semester and see what I’ve been able to accomplish.  I now actually feel like I did get some stuff done and I feel good about what I can contribute to the project.

Since I will be working over the winter break, I hope to be able to have a lot more done before I leave this project for my next.

It really has been an excellent semester and I really have the highest admiration for the people and the project at Widernet.

thanksgiving week

I didn’t have a lot of plans for the week of thanksgiving so I decided to stay in Iowa City and get some work done.  I began by gathering contacts for some of  our largest collections, including project gutenberg, google, WHO, and CDC.  I placed the contact name and contact information in a confluence page so that anyone who works on this project after me can access the information more readily.

I also did some reading on metadata harvesting so that I understand the process.  Its something I wasn’t sure about,  so I am learning a lot more.  Especially thanks to Rachel M. who sent me some information and an excellent link.

gathering metadata

After having several conversation with Cliff and with the egranary librarians, it was decided that the next steps would be to start gathering metadata.  There are various steps and ways to do this.  I had a meeting with Casse, the office manager and Rachel, who has been working at Widernet for a long time.  I honestly had no idea where to start and how to get something like this done. One of thier suggestions was to ask  our current contacts to ask if they had their items cataloged and if we could have their metadata.  A second suggestion was to look in OCLC to see what already is there, OCLC will give us metadata.  Also, DMOZ allows for people to use their metadata and Open Arcvhives has a metadata harvester project.
I’m still not very clear with this, because I’ve never done it, so I’m just going to read up and keep asking questions as they come up.

MODS meeting

So we had an excellent videoconference with Library of Congress and learned a lot of MODS.  We have therefore decided this is the way we want to go because this metadata schema works well for our project.  Everyone seemed to think it was the best choice, and after hearing all the information that LOC gave us, I definitely agree.  I need to ask about next steps, because I am not sure myself what the next thing to do is and how we need to go about implementing this. So my next steps are to ask for help.
I did audiorecord the videoconference and placed an mp3 on the server so all of the other egranary librarians could have access to it.

Dia de los Muertos activities (off topic)

Even though the day of the dead was never practiced in my family as I was growing up (my mom never practiced this here nor in mexico city & my father is not mexican), I have decided over the last years to volunteer for various activities for the day.  This year, we were in midterms, so I was not able to help as much as I would have liked.  I was ableto do some behind the scenes work for the university of iowa activities and the des moines art center day of the dead festival. 

It was nice to be able to participate and in turn, my dad’s name was placed on the alter at the des moines art center.  I sent a photo to some friends of mine to have this also placed on the alter.  Even though it was not something he ever practiced I am glad I had the opportunity to put his name and photo there.  I’m hoping to get some pictures soon.

integrated library systems

So we’ve been trying to find an integrated library system that would work best for us.  This has been taking time and research. Luckily, LOC happens to have a great website for different ILS that are available.  So today I”ve been going through these to rule them either in or out based on specific criteria, which is basically their ability to handle digital items and price.  We are really hoping to find an open source possibility.  I’m a little disappointed that LibLime has not gotten back to me.  They seem to have the resources we need and I am hoping to get a presentation together with them.  They had originally suggested that they give us a demonstration, so I’m hoping Marc, will get back to me sooner than later. 

In the mean time, I’m working through the rest of these, there are so many available, to try to see if any of the other softwares would suite our needs.

updates

After a week of being very sick, I’m finally back in the office this week full time.  Last week I was only able to come in for a day, but tried to work from home as much as I could.  Today, I’m working on an informational handout on MODS so that all of the eGranary Librarians will have information on this schema before the meeting with library of congress on Friday.  I’m hoping this will help for everyone to be on the same page.

More to come as the week progresses…

polycomm tech stuff/LOC VC

So, I’ve have everything set for the conference call and now i’m working on the technical aspects of the polycomm.  LOC wants to test the system so i’m working on scheduling with their tech VP person and SLIS to have a tech testing check before the actual conference call.   Also, I need some training on the system because I’ve never used it.  Vicki has worked out with Jim’s schedule so we will meet next thursday at 11.  This was the only time the three of us could meet, unfortunately, it is during class, but I will just have to excuse myself for a few moments.  I’m going to send my professor an email with an explanation as to what we are doing. 

I have also given Cliff the contact information of both of the presenters so he can touch base with them before the videoconference. 

I have been sick, so I was out yesterday, but did do some work from home.

project and task management, el segundo

Last week I found out that I needed to add my project to the project and task management system and associated tasks, so I spent a lot of time playing catch up with this.  I wish I would have known this when I first got here, but now I feel like its finally updated to the point that it shows what I’ve been doing for these last few months.  Now its just adding tasks as I get items done. 

Actually, I’m finding this overall very helpful, it helps me keep organized as to what I am doing and what needs to be done.  I also think it will also leave those who come after me a very thorough understanding as to what I have worked on.