Fianl summary

This class was very interesting. The last install Protege OWL was hard. I had to delete an app before the install would work. This all took a clenched fist and a nervous click. I still am not sure what I am doing. It was interesting to work in the GUI interface but I am glad we can manipulate things even more now as things did not go where I wanted them to and I had to delete and retype over and over. I also had a hard time not putting a space between the words. I really did this one all by myself although I am not sure I did everything correct.

The whole course was so interesting. I learned so much about the behind the scenes of the computer world. I took a computer programing class in the early 70's as a sophomore in high school and would have understood all this if I hadn't moved schools. I am glad i have revisited it.

Each digital collection management system had good points and not so good points. Overall I liked DSpace the most. Drupal was a good starting point and EPrints was difficult to work with. They all were interesting to work with and I look forward to working in the field in the future.

Unit 12

Downloading a pre-installed VM seems counter productive. Doing the whole process myself I have learned what is what and know where mistakes can take place. It seems that it is easier to trouble shoot when I download and build the machine myself. The building of the system does not take that much time and it adds ownership to the process.
On the other hand if you are working with lots of data taking the time to build the system may not be cost effective. If the system is already there then the people can concentrate on the repository. The collection can be up and available faster. Time can be better spent building collections instead of downloading and building virtual machines.
I enjoyed building the VMs and collections but I did not understand every aspect of the install so I am not sure it would be any advantage for me to build the VM instead of downloading one pre-installed.

Unit 11

Althought I could not get a theme loaded on my Omeka site I did like it the best. It seemed to be easier to navigate and the DC elements were very helpful and user friendly. The Omeka site was very helpful. The screencasts were very helpful and I liked seeing the actions before I did them. Reading the different forums gave me the insight into the way Omeka can be used and how libraries can use it.

As I remember DSpace was another site that was not hard to use. The way it linked pages to each other was a plus because it allowed for a stream of thought through the collecition. Drupal is similar to DSpace in that it has been around for a while and has more detail than Omeka. Jhove was very technical and it automated object ingestion, storage, access and preservation. It seemed that it was started and then forgotten as some of the information was outdated.

OAI-PMH was a little intimidating. I had trouble using it but it seems it would be a good tool in the Open Archive program. It seems as if I did not have enough background knowledge to use it effectively. I liked that it enhances access to e-prints archives.

Because all these different systems are open source their seervices are available to everyone. Each system has pluses and minuses but because they are open source you can decided which works best for your collection.

Unit 10

I searched the website Cyclades: An Open Collaborative Virtual Archive Environment. Its partners are the European Research Consortium for Informatics and Mathematics, the Institute of Computer Science, Fraunhofer FIT among others. It is a collaborative virtual archive service that has a core set of cross-archive value-added services. This allows for communication and collaboration between services.
I searched GEO-Leo which was a collection of earth science and mining related bibliographic records. There were some dead ends but most of the links worked and I got some good information from the collection. The collection by the German Research Association is offered to all German academics and scientists. It gives access to relevant books, journals and information resources.
I looked at Sheet Music Consortium. The members are UC Los Angeles, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, and Duke University. This is what I expect from a federated collection. The search was easy and I actually found the sheet music I was looking for. Some of the sheet music was not accessible because of copyright but all that I looked at were. Some of the searches took me to another site. “The Maine Music Box” where I was able to access the sheet music.
The last site I looked at was the Oaister site in the tech assignment. It was very large and well thought out. I was able to navigate through the different features with little trouble. Everything I clicked on had more things to click on. It has so many records and contributors that it might be overwhelming to some people.
I think a good federated collection has continuity and flow. The movement through the site must be fluid. The collection should be connected and well thought out. The collections I looked at were all at different levels of usability. I had a hard time finding anything in the first two sites I looked at. They seemed cumbersome and had a number of dead ends. The last two were much more successful. I don’t think the number of records or contributors is a negative for the Oiaster site because it is organized well and was easy to navigate. The sheet music site also had a large number of records but was not hard to navigante. I think the organization of the site is more important than the number of records it has.

Unit 9

The challenge I am having cataloging my items is mostly that I do not know my items intimately. They are just items I found online. I am not completely sure about the metadata involved with each piece. There are a few that have some metadata attached so they were easier to catalog than others. I do not even know that much about the pictures of my mom as she recently had a stroke and is unable to tell me about her childhood pictures I just found and included.

I enjoyed looking for the metadata for the items that are in my collection. Some had more than others and some had none because I did not remember where I got the item. I had to go back and rethink some of the categories I chose because I wanted to keep my labels consistent. I had not thought of all of this when I first began putting my collection together but, as I see it coming together I see how important it is to know what you have. I went back through my collection and tried to make the metadata consistent.

I can see how cataloging records is expensive. It is took a while for me to decide what subject headings and key words to use.

Unit 8

I did not read correctly and did not change the logo until I read other student's posts stating that they changed the logo. I went back and changed the logo picture to a picture of my mom, who is in some of the pictures in my repository. I thought it would be fun to see if I could cut her face from a photo and save it and paste it into the logo. It worked. I was nervous because there was a lot of work to get it posted but there were no signs of victory until I finished. I was nervous clicking on the refresh button that all that work would have to be repeated but, alas, I did it correctly the first time.

Unit 8

This install was easier than the other two because it is the third one I did. I remembered little tricks from the last two installs that I was able to use with this one. I could not remember how to move from one user to the other. I had trouble with typos but not as many as before. I figured out from the past that I was the wrong user when it asked for the password. I knew that there was no password, partly from John’s post. But then I had to navigate back to the user1. I am beginning to understand and the pathways and terms to use in the VM.
I branding change I did was minimal. I changed the welcome to read “This repository is a collection of photographs and objects from Chicago during the 1933-1934 World’s Fair”. This was not that easy to enter as I did not know that I needed to use “sudo nano” before the long command string. Then I did not take out the "a"before and after the line. Of course it failed and I went back and figured out the mistake. It worked.
Customizing the look of the installation was not very hard even though I made a mistake the first time. The more I work with the VM and the command line the more comfortable I am so this install was easier than the other two.

unit 7

I am new to digital information. Right now the only questions I have are ones that are addressed in each unit. I am working on keeping my head above water. I don't know what questions to ask and I have not worked with digital collections before so I don't know what should be in a collection and what is too much. I will continue to read everyone's posts and try to take it all in. I am excited to see what I have learned and what I can do so far. Everything I look at still leaves me with questions and uncertainties. I am just grasping the very edge of all that we are learning but I continue to understand more and more.

However, I looked at Enterprise Content Management (ECM). It is a formalized organization and storage system for documents and other content. ECM are tools that are used throughout the lifecycle of the content. ECM evolved to include new metadata and information about how the content was used. This allows the organization to access data used in business decisions.
The ECM has evolved from electronic document management systems (EDMS) of the late 1980’s. These original products were stand-alone products that could resolve customer inquiries. As the internet was introduced the term was changed to ECM. Open Source ECM products are both internal and external making outsourcing possible.
ECM have three key ideas, they are integrative middleware which is behind the scenes infrastructure for web-based IT, independent services which means there is only one general service available which avoids redundant functions, and as a uniform repository for all types of information which is a content warehouse.
ECM technology is an invisible infrastructure that supports specialized applications and fit into multi-layer models for managing structured data.

Unit 6

How was the install for you? Were you able to follow what was going on, or was it pretty much rote? Do you think you could figure this out on your own or would you need help from a systems specialist?

The install went OK for me. I tried to use the same password I have been using for everything and it failed. I did not know where I made my mistake so I deleted the whole machine. Now, looking back I see that I could have slowed down and retraced the steps and found the snapshot just before the mistake and started from there. i just worry that I won't get everything done on time and so I try to move too fast sometimes. I don't know exactly what we are doing so I am afraid my ignorance will show and I won't pass the class. I am not as computer savvy as others in the class but I am learning a lot. I have even been able to help others at work because of the exposure this class has given me. I would not want to be set loose to do this on my own yet but I am beginning to understand the process as we go along.

Drupal modules

I installed the finder module because it was one word. I did not remember that the underscore was a placeholder for the spacebar. I am not sure how it will help my collection. This is all so new to me. I am just glad I was able to download it.

I then saw crumbs and tried to download it but, alas, my luck did not hold and I could not download it. I thinK I will try again because that is something I could use with my collection. I use it in the library all the time and it saves me steps and time. Granted my collection is not very big but it is a tool I understand.

Drupal

The creation of my collection in Drupal went well. I have not made a digital collection before and this seems to be working well at this point. The search ability seem to bring up the collection with ease and advanced search is very specific and goes right to the page I was looking for. I will continue to learn more about the program and its advantages and limitations. The management discussion post is very helpful to me because this is a "Brave New World" for me.

Drupal

I had no trouble working with Drupal. This was definentally easier than 672. The install brought back memories from this summer. I was able to see my mistakes and typos. However, when I went back today I could not remember how to get to Drupal. I went back and looked at the notes and found it. I was able to make the database "Cars" and add users, content and a story. The directions were great and easy to follow. I was able to go back and forth to create new users and then new content and change the taxonomy. The simplicity of the navigation eased any concerns I had about using this tool to make a database.

Copyright in the networked world: copyright police

The article I read is “Copyright in the networked world: copyright police”. This article is about copyright enforcement and digital collections. It addresses the role of the police, private organizations and libraries. We must consider enforcement of copyright issues and how it affects both the digital material and the persons involved.
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is working with private rights holders to change the behavior of the general public by threatening to bring lawsuits against large numbers of citizens. Although many of these cases settle out of court there is still some concern that “fair use” (17 USC 107) statute is being overlooked in some cases.
In a study to see if more monitoring keeps people honest it was determined that it works for some and not others. In another study Universities that offered alternatives to pirating music saw little change in the pirating behavior of students. Universities also have to worry about in loco parentis although they believe students are responsible because they signed a user-agreement. Sony tried to police piracy by adding hidden software but got into hot water with “fair use” (17 USC 107) statute. Libraries need to be part of the solution because they understand copyright protection and its ramifications.
This issue rings a cord with me because as an elementary school librarian I have a hard time getting students and teachers to follow copyright rules. It did not surprise me that very little monitoring makes the biggest difference because I believe that most people want to be honest and upstanding. This is an important issue because as the librarian I feel it is my position to inform and educate the teachers and students. Knowing that people want to be honest gives me courage to continue teaching the copyright skills that I do. I am interested in seeing how this issue plays itself out as the internet becomes more main stream.
Michael Seadle, (2006) "Copyright in the networked world: copyright police", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 24 Iss: 1, pp.153 - 159

Century of Progress World's Fair

My collection is going to be of the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago. I just finished reading John Jakes Homland about a family during the 1930's. I also just finished cleaning out my parents house with all their photographs including some of my mom and her family in Chicago during the Century of Progress World's Fair in 1934.
I will include photographs, films and documents from Chicago during that era. People who would be interested in this collection are people who visited the World's Fair, Chicagoians, and History buffs.

Unit 12

The model of the project escalation in Keil (p.422) could describe any project, digital or otherwise. There are project factors that influence a broject. The psychological and social factors interest me the most. It is interesting that a manager attaches so much self-worth to a project. It is a sad sign of our culture. We define people by thier titles more than we should. Maybe if we did not put so much emphasis on owning a project we would not have the greed we do. I am also intersted in haw people act in groups. The competitive nature of people is another factor that I think should be checked at the door. If we could leave our egos out of the process projects would be more successful.

The readings this week were helpful to me because I am part of a committee that is working together to purchase books and digital resources for hte 33 school libraries in the distirct. The process we are using is very similar to the standardized project management developed by the Project Management Institute. The nine knowledge areas are exactly what the Library Technology Override Committee is using as we work together to purchase new print and digital resources for the district.

Look how far we've come

When I started this course I did not know much about the building of databases. I was very hesitant to start downloading programs and files. I was nervous to close any programs. The ubuntu program that could have closed and lost so I was afraid to close it at all. After talking to classmate who had the same hesitation I realized that if I followed the directions I would be ok.

I slowly gained confidence as the lessons progressed. I still was hesitant to hit the enter key to see my results and was pleasantly surprised when the command line worked. This last week I used my first VM because I am not sure if I loaded all the programs needed onto the second user we made. However, as my gut feeling proved, I had not given the first VM permissions needed to write files so it was a challenge to go back and find where that was in the assignments.

Once I was directed to the assignment to give permissions I was able to speed ahead. I understood what I was doing even though I was slow and had to redo a few of the steps. I was able to make a database for the family photos I brought back from Chicago of my family and ancestors.

SQL

The SQL was hard for me this week partly because I did not have access to the internet until Sunday afternoon. I had to do it all in three days where I usually work all week on the assignments. If I had more time I think the logical order of SQL would have been easy to understand. I could not get the photographer table to work but had to move on to get it all done. I plan to continue to work on it as I move into the next units.

ERD

In your blog this week talk briefly about what concepts in this unit you found most difficult. Are there still things that are unclear? How might you go about furthering your understanding of these topics?

The concepts in this unit that were most dificult were understanding the ERD. I understood the spreadsheet with the information and the need to seperate the different entities and attributes but I could not quite understand which entity went where and why. I have read the recommended references at the bottom of the Coulson tutoral and am getting a better sense of the relationships. I will reread them after next weeks readings to make sure I understand the concept.

The website Bruce mentioned was very helpful
http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/. It helped me see that the database is the bigger picture made up of all the little pieces of data.

Technology Plans

The State of the Union article was interestion but not a surprise. The government is always spending too much money and IT plans are no exception.
The ALA plan looks very organized and easy to implement. I am a member but have not had too much contact at the national level. The AZ branch has a good handle on technology. I am looking forward to seeing how their plan unfolds.
The Gerding article was very helpful to me because it had a step-by-step plan for implementing technology in the library. The school district I am in has a good plan that seems to follow this idea. They had a vision, they did inventory to see what was in the schools, They assessed what was needed and the budgeted for the technology. They are evaluating by asking teachers what they think of the new technology and taking suggestions.
This class has given me a new appreciation for behind the scene technology development. I would like to be involved with the planning of new technology implementation in a school district in the future. The information I have gained in this class has given me a good base of knowledge to build on in the future.

XML

Discuss briefly how you went about learning XML and which resources you used. Comment briefly on how helpful they were and indicate any intermediate or advanced modules or sections you reviewed.

This week we looked at XML. I had heard of it but never paid attention to what it was. I read all the links in the lecture which helped me immensely. The w3school tutorial was most helpful as it was easy to read and moved slowly (I was able to keep up and understand). The DTD and XML Schema were a little harder to understand. But I will go back and reread them for better comprehension. The Introduction to XML by Mark Long was also very informative and easy to listen to and view. I am a visual learner so the screenshots were most valuable to my learning. I did look at the intermediate modules from w3schools but my eyes started glossing over trying to remember all the vocabulary. I did the first three sections on the UACBT site; Welcome Info, XML Basics, and XML Documents. This gave me a grasp on XML and I look forward to learning more.
After doing the tutorials, the two articles in the lecture had a greater meaning for me. Roy Tennant wrote "By its very nature, MARC is flat, whereas a table of contents is hierarchical" in his article "MARC Must Die". This made sense to me and I can see how stiff MARC is and how flexible XML is.

As stated in XML, a Choice or Replacement, "Due to Unicode and platform neutrality, XML offers the greatest promise of data longevity (or future-proofing), as hardware, software, and network protocols continue to change." using XML will help keep libraries in the forefront of the information highway.

HTML

This is the first website I have done from scratch using CLI. I have made others in classes using the latest and greatest web design site. This process was fun and rewarding but also nerve racking as I was under the wire with this and the other assignments. I read the PowerPoint and did the tutorials at w3schools.com. I did the tutorials twice because I lost the first practice website I made. I tried to be careful typing the tags correctly although I did make mistakes. I was able to find the mistakes and when I got it right I was elated. I looked at the source for other websites and was pleasantly surprised to understand some of the tags.

I looked at a few other sites for information but the ones provided in the unit were very helpful. I am still trying to wrap my brain around the acronyms; HTML, XHTML, and XML. I will keep reading to try to better understand.

Networking 101

The lecture was easy to read and the links were interesting. I read the lecture and the links first and then listened to the Computer Science E-1 podcast. I listened to the first lecture about hardware and enjoyed the easy style of the two presenters. They made the material understandable even though I already knew most of the information. The two podcasts 4-5 made networking more understandable. I believe I am a visual person so watching them talk and explain things made it easier for me to stay focused. When I read the lectures my mind wanders to all the things I am not doing and I have to bring it back. I sometimes read the lectures out loud so I hear the words. This also helps me stay focused. I liked the way the presenters of Computer Science E-1 explained packet switching. The visuals made packet switching real for me.
The Wikipedia articles were hard to read as it seemed like every other word was a link to explain that word. I get distracted easily. Although when I went back and reread the articles without clicking on the links I was better able to understand the concepts.
The readings on learning styles just confirmed for me that I am a visual learner. I remember grocery lists and map directions if I see a map or directions even if I do not have them with me. Once, right after I met my husband (1983), I had him help me move my stored things from Madison, WI to Chicago. My roommate in Madison had moved my things to a new location giving me directions in a letter which I forgot in Chicago. Although we were in a van that ran out of gas and had no heat in January I found the house by remembering the directions in the letter and got my things.

Unit 4

This assignment was frustrating for me. I am not sure why but the UA VPN was not connected and it took me a while to post and read and repost my problem until it was identified that I was not connection. There was no ip address in the window. Once in I had no problem doing the activities. I am still having trouble understanding what we are doing.

As Jennifer stated "I went through these assignments with my head down..." I did this also and am not sure that I could do it again if I did not have directions. When I was finished I was excited that I was able to do it. I am looking forward to learning more and applying CLI in the library.

Hands on commands and Linux

I worked through the vimtutor with the tutor and ubuntu screens next to each other. Sometimes I could not find the blinking cursor and was ready to panic, but then I enlarged the screen and found it lower down. I also typed the wrong thing in at the end and remembered how to fix the problem from earlier lessons. It was pretty exciting to see what I could do with Linux. I am still waiting to see where all this is going but it is an exciting journey.

The only configuration I have done on my personal computer has had to deal with the screen saver or the size of the pixels on the screen. Otherwise I just worked with what I bought. After getting a teaching job in the late 90's I took all the technology classes offered. The classes were software classes to be used in the classroom so this is all new information to me. However I am drawn to technology as it is fascinating and the way of the future.

Absolute Beginner Talk

Wow, if these are beginners I am not even beginning. They are discussing things I have never heard of. I hope these will make more sense as we progress.

ubuntu

I looked at ubuntu and read some of the posts. It was interesting to read the posts as I have no idea what they are talking about except the last entry had a code that included the word kernel which I now know.

Blogging

Hi, I am looking forward to becoming proficient at Blogging and all future endeavors in this class.