Educator + Infonista + Historian

As you now know I began my tenure as the interim Curator for Literature and Rare Books by trying to get more familiar with cataloged items in Rare Books and Special Collections by creating a spreadsheet that would give me an overview of the collection as a whole. Technical Services provided me with a MARC file containing the complete MARC records for every item in these collections and pointed me to MARCedit to be able to create a customized report about the collections. Previously I explained how I used MARCedit in Revealing La Revolution: The EnvironmentalScan & MARCedit, Part 1 . Now I’m going to share how I imported and set up my data in Microsoft Excel so that it revealed the contents of Rare Books and Special Collections to me. I began by opening a new workbook in Microsoft Excel and went to the “Data” Menu Ribbon. Excel Data Menu - Import from Text File In the furthest left column I choose to import my data “from text” and directed the request box to the corr...

As the interim Curator of Literature and Rare Books I am writing the Environmental Scan for the French Pamphlet Project. Two tools I have found very useful to help with this are MARCedit and Microsoft Excel (I sort of love spreadsheets). I became familiar with MARCedit over the summer as I attempted to gain intellectual control over my expanded collection responsibilities and learned a new (to me) feature of Microsoft Excel which has proved very useful for putting together this report. So I wanted to tell you a little about what I’ve learned. After I was appointed interim Curator for Literature and Rare Books in May, I requested a report from Technical Services of all catalogued items in Rare Books and Special Collections. I already had a comfortable grasp of the literary manuscript collections but had not had an opportunity to really get to know the Rare Books and Special Collections volumes. In an effort to become better acquainted with these collections, I asked Technical Serv...

I've added a new page to this website! It is titled " Research " and has a summary of the my current research project available on it. I've spent the last year thinking about Digital Teaching Collections. Last summer I undertook some background research about what Digital Teaching Collections would look like on behalf of the Education & Outreach Coordinator in Special Collections and the Digital Programs & Initiatives Manager in Digital Stewardship at the University Libraries. In the spring of 2013, I completed a literature review for Digital Teaching Collections and an IRB to survey UMD humanities and social science faculty about the use of digital resources for instructional purposes as an independent study project. Over the summer I sent out my survey to UMD faculty and compiled the responses. I am currently editing the final draft of my report for University Libraries about what Digital Teaching Collections should be and how they can be implemented into Un...

Best quote of the conference: Great Technology is Invisible!  Last week I attended the Computers in Libraries 2013 conference. I really enjoyed the conference and think I was able to walk away with some information that I will be able to apply immediately in my work at the University of Maryland Libraries as well as in the future. For now I'll tell you which sessions I attended and provide a link to the notes that I took during the conference, but I'll try to post individual sessions over the next few weeks.  My Agenda: Monday April 8 th : Track B, Web Presence 15 Web Trends for 2013 David Lee King Digital Services Director, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library and and Publisher Seven Deadly Sins of Websites Casey Schacher , Resource Discovery Librarian, University of Wiscosin - Madison, Memorial Library Paige Mano , Web Communications and Social Media Coordinator, University of Wisconsin - Parkside Library Tony Aponte , Science & Engineering ...

This week in ENGL 888D: I found Lukens and DiSalvo’s definition of technological fluency incredibly appealing. Fluency, in contrast to literacy, affords creativity. If I am literate in a language, I can read, write, and speak it, but if I am fluent in a language I can write poetry or a novel or use the language in ways the literate cannot. Technological fluency is the ability to be creative with technology;... What drew me in most was how Lukens and DiSalvo used this definition to advocate for a constructivist pedagogical approach in technological education for the Humanities. To an outsider like myself, it seems that frequently university level Humanities instructors only want to educate about their content and expect students to learn the technology and methodology outside of their classroom (either in another discipline or at the previous education level). Utilizing speculative design in coursework moves away from this mentality. Likewise I appreciate that speculative desig...

Way back in January I had the opportunity to attend Digital Hu manities Winter Institute (DHWI) host ed by MITH .  I was/am t he grateful recipient of a UMD Libraries Scholarship which paid my registration fees. While attending the course Teaching through Multimedia by Vi rginia Kuhn and Vicki Callahan I had the opportunity to practice with some new soft ware, but hon estly the class was not what I expected . I'm sure the course description was entirely clear to the authors, but its brevity and use of the term multimedia were problematic for most course attendees. T hough , Teaching through Multimedia en ded up being different from what I expected , I still really enjoyed it (and it seemed like the other students did as well). I thought that the course would be more along t he lines of DHSI's " Digital Ped agogy in the Humanities " which I didn't know existed prior to registering for Teaching through Multimedia (ot herwise I probably woul d have realize...

Since yesterday's post means that 2012 is officially over (I wish! Working in academia there are no clean year end breaks - especially outside of the classroom), the plans for 2013 can begin! So since I'm always hatching some 'scathingly brilliant' plan (+2pts for recognizing the quote) allow me to update you on a few of mine for 2013. 1. Rock an internship with Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage 's web developer. I am super excited to start this internship and will do my best to keep you up-to-date on both the fun and daily things that I will be doing every Thursday and Friday this spring. 2. Complete a research project that can be published in an academic journal. You might have noticed I am interested in the ways that Digital Humanities projects can be used for instruction, I'm trying to undertake a study of how UMD Humanities faculty are using DH projects in their courses this spring. I just need to get an advisor for the project (I h...

Happy New Year! I realize I'm a little late, but its been a busy finals/holidays/back to work few weeks. Before setting new priorities for 2013, I would like to take a day to reflect on the lessons learned and goals achieved in 2012. School Digital Preservation - Apply international and national standards as best as you are able for the materials your institution has with the resources available. Remain aware of standards as they are updated. TEI is awesome (I would love to work more closely with TEI)!!! Information Access - Listen carefully to what people say their information needs/wants are and ask questions. Not all reference resources are available on the internet (say what!?!). Research Methods - Completing an NEH grant proposal is very intense but a great experience! History of the Book - A great introduction to rare books and the vocabulary of rare books. Special Collections - Are complicated and transitioning (doesn't that just sum up life?) Library Mana...