Tbacreations's Weblog

Cigarette and Matchbox Art

tbacreations — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:47:25 +0000

These posts may not count any more, but since I found that this is in fact the last week of school (I thought this was finals week and things were determined in all classes) I thought I would write some more. I may or may not get more points at this point in the semester, but I hate that is seems like I didn’t really seem to care too much about digital collections this semester. I had a great deal to do this semester and my collection was not as great as it should have been, but it has been harder to find interesting things to blog about. I am looking forward to the organization of information class next semester because I think that it would be so much easier to understand collections.

Today, I visited the New York Public library website, which I haven’t really gotten to visit this semester, but one of their images collection really struck me. The pictures are of old cigarette cards. I can see why cigarettes were such a rage back in the day. Collecting cards like baseball cards and getting cigarettes instead of bubble gum. The reason why it struck me, however, is that the art work is really interesting. And, I have started my own collection of matchbook cover and cigar box postcards. These pop art collections are so similar. I wish I was able to upload one of my matchbox postcards, so it could be compared to the pictures online. Each cover speaks so much of its time and culture.

The collection I wish I had done

tbacreations — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:11:20 +0000

I wish I had taken the pictures I took while in Italy and made a collection out of them. Somehow, I thought that would be too easy. But, I had taken the photos and even have most of them categorized. My friends even sent me a DVD of more photos which I would have been able to add. Many of my pictures are blurry, so I am glad to have the other photos. If I had used the photos that were already digital, I would have had more time to worry about the metadata and the organization. Hindsight being what it is, I would have chosen the easier route. That is not to say that I won’t finish the project I started because my family is not expecting it to be done, but finding the inspiration is sometimes lacking. Perhaps once the holidays are over, there will be more concentration for scanning in pictures.

Funny Comic

tbacreations — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:40:33 +0000

Astronomy picture of the day

tbacreations — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:27:03 +0000

I don’t know why I didn’t think of this collection before when I was making my list of favorite digital collections. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ is a website that has interesting picutres of a different astrological phenomenon every day. For Chirstmas last year, I got a book about it. And it is so neat to see what the picture is going to be for the next day. The positioning of venus and jupiter last week made me remember. Yahoo news had a posting of a picutre from Asia that made the rising moon look like a smiley face. The cosmos are so interesting.

Papers

tbacreations — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 14:24:25 +0000

I finsihed editing the final paper for the ODYN class I took last month. Working in a group is so difficult sometimes. I am glad that I did not have to write the whole 15 pages (twice that will all of the figures and appendicies), but putting it all together was really tiring. I tried to make the paper cohesive and sound like one person, without really changing much. I had to add transitions and conclusions, find citations that weren’t really there. And, switching back to APA after being enbedded in Chicago for several semesters threw me. I thought that the chicago manual was vague…APA is worse. I don’t remember it being that bad, but trying to find information on how to cite a brouchure was practically like finding a needle in a haystack. I finally found it. Anyway, I hope that the rest of the group likes what I did. I am ready to put this project to bed. It was interesting to view a paper from the point of view of actually presenting it to the company to use. It made it more real. And, I think it will be a very nice addition to my portfolio at the end of the program.

I am glad that the semester is starting to wrap up. This semester has felt longer than last Spring. However, I feel like I have learned alot this semester.

Making a digital collection is difficult, especially when it is a family project on top of being a class project. Had I known that my family would be pressuring me more to get it done, I would have chosen a different project
There never seems to be enough time in a week to get done what you think you should have gotten done. In my collections proposal I said that scanning in the pictures would probably only take 10 hours, max. What I ever wrong. I didn’t acount for editing out the white space, flipping pictures that got put into the scanner incorrectly, etc. I think I spent more time editing than I did scanning. For the rest of the pictures I have to scan in, I will make sure they are at least facing the correct way and they are organized long before I even get close to the scanner.
I learned that there are more reference materials out there than I care to know about. And evealuating them is an art and a hassle. We were supposed to also find a “book” review of the sources we were evaluating. I had no idea where to go for that. There are definitely advantages to being in an MLIS program and working in a library. I hope those who are actually in a library already realize that.
Organizations, all kinds, have change programs that people will be annoyed with…and as much as technology is a reality, it is amazing how many people fight new technologies. All organizations, being products of human behavior, are basically the same. They have the same problems, they have the same triumphs. It is just a matter of getting down to the real meat of the matter which is usually just lack of communication.
No matter how well a team works together, email still makes things infinitely harder (lack of communication again-see it all comes back to that).
After three semesters of trying, I really can’t get into this blogging thing. I don’t mind it when I just need to write what I want to write, when I want to write it, but I have a really hard time being a part of the blogsphere. I have other things I would rather do with my time than spend all of it online. When I am bored, the internet is not the first place I go. And my blog this semester has been a lowsy form of communication.

I have found myself at least looking at the news and interesting facts on Yahoo when I go online to read my comics, so I am becoming a bit more internet inclined…but, seriously, when I had my internet down for two weeks this semester, I didn’t miss it much, except for the fact that I had assignments due. If I hadn’t been in class, I probably wouldn’t have bothered much with it. Oh well, live and learn, right?

Italy

tbacreations — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 02:15:36 +0000

My plan this semester was to, little by little, give a bit of information about my trip at the beginning of the semester. I haven’t seemed to have time, or the clearness of thought to so that. Last night, I got a DVD of pictures that a friend from the trip put together for me, which brought up the thought. Since I have a bit of time, I thought I would post about the Uffizi Gallery.

Uffizi Gallery Walkway

I did not go into the Uffizi as I was on a budget, but we walked by it and got a little information about it. Our tour guide pointed out the statue of Americo Vesspucci and actually asked if I knew who he was (I did). The corridor of the Uffizi is full of statues of Famous Florentines. It is amazing how many famous people were born or called Florence home. It is true that the Florence was the birthplace of so many great men. I absolutely loved Florence. It was like the time stopped there. And, while I was working on my digial collection, I found a picture of Florence that my grandfather took and it looks almost like a picture that I took in August. Over 50 years later and the city hasn’t changed. It bustles and bulges at the seams, but there are still brillant moments of peace and tranquility. And, it is so hard to explain to people who have not been there. You can walk through a street where you have to practially fight through the crowd and burst into a square where no one is there but the pigeons.

Florence

Florence 1942

The phots are taken from opposite sides of the city, but you can see how similar the city still is. History lives here and it speaks to anyone willing to listen.

LibriVox

tbacreations — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:44:31 +0000

This online collection of audio books is really cool. One of my weird “dreams” is to read an audio book. This website allows everyone to do that on books within the public domain. I think this is an ambitious project, but a good example of open source at its best. The whole site works on the will of volunteers.

My Digital Collection

tbacreations — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:35:13 +0000

I spent so much time scanning in my photos that I left too little time to get the photos online. November ended up being much more eventful than I ever thought it could be. We were on overtime at work, I was taking a weekend class and scanning in pictures in my free time. The photos took about 2 minutes per picture to scan in, which didn’t leave much time to get too many pictures scanned in. Then, I realized that my computer at work would not run Greenstone for some reason. I tried to work on it on campus, but couldn’t get that to work either. And, at that point, I was running out of time. So, I tried to find alternative avenues. I ended up posting to a blog, which did not take .tiff, so I had to go back and try to convert all of the photos to .jpeg or anything other than .tiff. Awesome. So, I have now gotten some converted and have a few hours to get it online. I was not able to get anything organized. The things I have learned from this experience? The best laid plans will never be good enough, there is never enough time to get it all done, do your research long before you start scanning in pictures, and organize them ahead of time. I was just numbering the photos and scanning them in. If I had taken the time first to actually group the photos into “like” scenes, then I would have been able to scan them in and it would have been in order already. SInce the photos do not have too much information, I am going to try and group them, eventually, by people, places, and things, to start. I would like my family to get involved in this project, so being on the blog would let them help me with the photos. They might remember something their father told them about. I guess, at this point, I should tell you that the photos I am scanning in for my project are photos that my grandfather gave my father. This is a project that my dad asked me to do last year and am lucky enough to have a reason to get it done now. The photos are an interesting look at my history and gives me a chance to see a part of my grandfather. SInce I never knew him personally, as he passed away when my dad was a kid, it is nice to have this small form of communication.

I have enjoyed this project, but I can see why there is usually a graduate student working on these kinds of things. The hours that it takes to compile just 300 photos seems astronomical when you have other things going on. If I had time to work on the project every day, straight, I would have had plenty of time to get more done. Also, I can see why creating a digital collection that already has digital items would be so much easier than creating a regular collection and making it digital. These photos that I am converting to digital are black and white and old. Some corners are wrinkled or even missing, the photos are curled and hard to scan. I could only scan these photos a certain way to make the photos clear once they became digital. Hence, using the .tiff. And, since I still don’t know much about metadata still, making it up for these photos in a blog is going to take a bit of time. At least this is a learning experience.

Libraries closing?

tbacreations — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 18:04:42 +0000

In class a few weekends ago, we were talking about the economic crisis and how it hasn’t really hit Oklahoma yet, but it is coming. One student in class mentioned that Philedelphia is closing now “non-essential” services within the city. I hadn’t heard this and I don’t know if someone else has blogged about this, but it is kind of scary. The Free Library and at least 11 branches of the regular library system will be shut down. To read the Philadelphia Inquirer article go here. The library journal also had an article about it, which you can read here. When the world looks like it might need more information handling than ever, we are finding a reduction in the process. Philadelphia now, what next? I know that entertainments get cut first in economic crises, but the library could be the first place that people turn to when they need an escape and can’t afford to go to the movies or out to eat, they might find pleasure in books again. If we start to close down libraries, I think that the we will be facing a very depressed nation. At least, I would be very depressed without the cosolation of my books.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for librarians to learn the art of marketing…and perhaps, even though it is not a popular topic, perhaps it is an opportunity for us to start getting advertisers. If we cannot rely on the money coming in, then we should start figuring out how to get the money for ourselves.

Time is ticking

tbacreations — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:36:15 +0000

I want to post about the webinars that I watched last month…one that I posted and another that showed up and looked interesting. But, at the moment, I am in the computer lab at school waiting out lunch and thought I would take the time to blog since I have basically neglected this function all semester, really. November has nearly passed without a trace…and it is incredibly amazing to me that it is half over. On top of work being absolutely crazy, I am taking an Organizational Design class every weekend this month. This is the second weekend and the class is very interesting. It is Organizational Behavior and Change. Problems that I think that are part of only my situation are proving to be worldwide. Some many things are clicking for me in this class. I read a chapter and say “wow, that is exactly right!” It is helping me approach work differently and even school differently. Anyone interested in behavioral science and human dynamics as they work within an organization should strongly consider taking an ODYN class. It fits so well with our views of library management and the fact that we will be managers once we graduate that it is well worth it. I wish that the program had been better advertised (I stumbled across it, trying to find a class to fill in hours this semester) because I might have considered a dual major at the beginning.

The things that I find interesting:

Managers will always have that one employee who absolutely pushes all of her buttons;

Organizations are harder to change than people;

Finding one problem may only uncover a mess underneath;

With time and patience, anyone can overcome behavioral problems;

With the right training, people can excel to whatever they want to be;

And finally, the more open a company is, the more likely there will be employee buy-in. When the CEO or Top management is easily accessable, the more people will feel a trust and openess with their company, and the better that company is to adapt to the changing environments.

How does this relate? Librarians need to be aware of the environment, otherwise, libraries will perish. The more we hone our abilities to accepting new technologies, new theories, new everything, the eaiser the transition will be in the implimentation phase. People will fight it, as always, but the more information they have, the better they will be in the long run. And what are we the keepers of?

Information!