Field Trip #3 - Anderson Library

The adventure to Anderson Library started when we decided to meet on campus and drive as a group (it seemed the most logical as Sonja has no driver's license, and Becky is a bit handicapped). We all quickly learned that it was Graduation on campus and getting there, let alone finding places to park was somewhat of a challenge. But we met up and went on our way to the Library....or so we thought. We got a little lost, but we did see people plowing out TCF Stadium, Dinky town, both sides of the river, the back doors to the caverns, Wilson Library, etc. Basically we took an unexpected tour of the U. But after much searching we made our way over snow drifts to Anderson Library. From there we started the project of building an enclosure. Becky and I worked together on this as she had only the use of one and half hands. It went really well to be honest. We decided to use the heavier card stock as the book we were working on was an older hardcover book. Actually it worked out really well, as bending the heavy card stock was somewhat difficult. But in the end we claimed victory and got a very tight fitting enclosure. After that we went on our tour of the caverns and the building. I couldn't believe how big the caverns were! Especially when Tim said that there was room for 17 of them! It actually really reminded me of the FargoDome (where I worked for 6 years) which also has that poured concrete base to it that the caverns had. I did find it somewhat surprising that the humidity was so high in the caverns. I guess I had not thought about how the river and groundwater in that area would increase the humidity. I suppose that environmental control systems really become important when you go to less common environments such as 90 ft. under the surface. I thought the library was really interesting, I especially liked the displays, you can tell that people put a lot of effort into creating and displaying the objects. I found it funny that a lot of the reading rooms had been converted into other areas, generally storage for a specific collection. It gave the impression that space was becoming a problem, which made sense when Tim explained that down in the caverns they out-grew their space in 10 years. Overall I really liked the tour, even with the whole getting lost thing that started it!

The Game: Finished!

This last week I finished The Game project. Or at least I finished my groups part of the project. I am very interested to see how the Admins will format everything. I wonder if they will send a final copy out to the class, hopefully they will. Overall I felt that the Game was a very interesting project for the class to work on. I did think that organizing such a large project was much more difficult than it seemed it would be. I had thought that the Game would turn out a bit differently than it has, but I like that it developed the way it did. I think it would be really interesting to see how other classes have developed their version of this. In general I felt that my group worked extremely well together. I must say that Becky was really helpful to getting us motivated and moving. She really found a lot of the research that helped us to get a basis for what we would then need in the future, which was amazing. I also felt that using Google Docs was great. We all chose various colors to write in so we cold see what everyone else had done, and the chat option was fantastic! It made it really easy to have everyone be online at the same time, which gave us the opportunity to have discussions where we could easily see what everyone was doing. It was a little hard with 6 people to find times to meet, but in general I felt that everyone in Tech Services did their homework and pulled their weight. I also worked extensively on the budget for the creation of the Repair Area. I liked working on it, but there were definitely some communication issues between the department heads. Looking back it may have been helpful for all of us to have had more than 1 meeting with just the Department Heads.

---Update: I was asked to look over the final document as well. I said that I have time before class on Dec 9th, so I figured I should help....so now I get to look at formatting and such. 47 pages, this should be interesting!

Class - Dec 2nd, Readings - Ch. 6 & 17

Class this week was discussing digital preservation which was very interesting as there are so many form of digital items. I really was not surprised, but interested, when I realized that so much of digital preservation had to do with Metadata. I am currently taking Metadata, and working on cataloging a digital collection with some of my classmates, and I can totally see how it connects to Preservation and Conservation. I found it interesting that when you start looking at cataloging digital items one of the main things you need to think about is access. I knew (somewhere in the back of my mind) that other countries, like China, had restrictions on what people could see as far as digital information, but I had not thought about how you catalog something you can also influence people's access to information. It was also interesting as the two types of digital items influence the issues with digital media. If something is born digital I believe that it is easier to preserve it. That is not to say that an item would be in danger of losing some of its integrity if you migrate it to another digital medium; however, it is more likely that this problem would be prominent if the item you wish to migrate was made into a digital item from a CD, or something.

My group also met briefly to discuss the game. We mostly went over what little we needed to finish, when it needed to be done so I could do the final editing as well as how we were going to be doing the editing section of the work. I also updated my group on the budget proposal that I had been working on for not only the Tech Services department, but 2 others as well. I had been spending the last week compiling information on the creation of the repair area and putting together a budget for it. It was actually more difficult than I thought it would be. Mostly the hard part was making sure that we weren't doubling-up on items between departments. There ended up being a lot more items than I thought there would be. Plus I had to research what we could use to create the space that would be reasonable in cost, durable, and have plenty of storage. It was interesting to say the least.

Chapter 6: Issues in Digital Archiving
In this chapter one line really stood out to me, "...professional librarians are uniquely qualified to take up the technological challenge. But if we do not, we will contribute to the stagnation of our own profession as well as fail in our responsibility to civilization. (p. 99)" This was especially important to me as I can see that lacking in keeping up with technology could create a self-damaging cycle for librarians and libraries. If you do not have the newest form of technology at your disposal, then how do you keep patrons interested? However, how to you keep materials in a useful form if the newest digital technology is not compatible or feasible? Users may wish their library had iPads to check out, but is that really the best way for a library to use its resources? Still as librarians we need to look at the long-term affects technology will be and is having on the environment we work in.

Chapter 17: Digitization for Preservation and Access
This chapter was somewhat repetitive, but its basic concepts were laid out very clearly. I can understand that microfilm is a great product for many libraries. We had already learned that if stored and taken care of correctly it has an extremely long life, but for many patrons, microfilm is not a good source for information. Personally, I would much rather look at a PDF rather than microfilm. It was interesting to me that there are not really standards or guidelines for digital media. I would have thought that the ALA or IFLA or someone would have started to come up with a general set of digital guidelines, as digitization of objects is really becoming a priority for libraries/librarians. Of course that also falls into the sad fact that most digital media is not thought of in the long-term. It reminds me of the new version of planet of the apes. In that there is a library, with a digital custodian (or librarian, if you will). the books have crumbled away and the custodians program is starting to fall apart. At that point I always wonder, didn't they have a backup plan? Of course it doesn't come to this, but if your digital collection is gone, and you have no physical collection anymore, then what precautions did you take to insure you had materials for the future?