Neuroscience
Great article about the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the June 2005 issue of Technology Review. David Talbot talks about what NARA's mission is (to save every document the government produces) and how that mission is complicated by documents that are "born digital." Said documents include email, anything written on a word processor, GIS documents, and even this blog.
Problems saving these documents are two-fold: first, they're hard to get; how much email are we supposed to save, anyway? second, their file format is likely to become obsolete in 5-10 years. Not very encouraging for future historians, who may want to read our emails in 100-200-300 years.
The good news is that there are many job opportunities for "...new kind of professional, an expert with the historian's eye ... but a computer scientist's understanding of storage technologies and a librarian's fluency with metadata." In the words of MacKenzie Smith, the associate director for technology at MIT Libraries, a "data curator" is what's needed.
- Government Web Site Widgets
I just had two great librarians talk to my reference class, and I learned as much as the students did about government documents work and GIS / geography sources. Thanks to UConn's undergraduate and GIS librarian Michael Howser and Connecticut's...
- Design & "remediation" In Technology Review
Just got the new issue of Technology Review, which had some interesting design articles, plus an interesting description of "remediation." Quotes from the articles I liked: Q&A with Bill Moggridge, industrial designer for 40 years and author of Designing...
- Are You Interruptible?
Great story in Sunday’s New York Times about people who are trying to be more productive despite the prevalence of interruptions such as email, IM, and the myriad electronic documents we have open at any one time. Apparently the best solution is to...
- Cool Technology & Maps
The June issue of Technology Review has a short article on David Rumsey's digital map archive. Rumsey's site is way cool, using the Luna Insight product (also used at Smith), and the article talks about both his software and his map collecting...
- Happenin' Technology
Interested in new technology and its application? LITA (ALA's Library and Information Technology Association group) blogged its way throug the ALA Annual Meeting. Their blog is at http://litablog.org/ , where you can read what people think about hot...
Neuroscience
Data Curator, anyone?
Great article about the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in the June 2005 issue of Technology Review. David Talbot talks about what NARA's mission is (to save every document the government produces) and how that mission is complicated by documents that are "born digital." Said documents include email, anything written on a word processor, GIS documents, and even this blog.
Problems saving these documents are two-fold: first, they're hard to get; how much email are we supposed to save, anyway? second, their file format is likely to become obsolete in 5-10 years. Not very encouraging for future historians, who may want to read our emails in 100-200-300 years.
The good news is that there are many job opportunities for "...new kind of professional, an expert with the historian's eye ... but a computer scientist's understanding of storage technologies and a librarian's fluency with metadata." In the words of MacKenzie Smith, the associate director for technology at MIT Libraries, a "data curator" is what's needed.
- Government Web Site Widgets
I just had two great librarians talk to my reference class, and I learned as much as the students did about government documents work and GIS / geography sources. Thanks to UConn's undergraduate and GIS librarian Michael Howser and Connecticut's...
- Design & "remediation" In Technology Review
Just got the new issue of Technology Review, which had some interesting design articles, plus an interesting description of "remediation." Quotes from the articles I liked: Q&A with Bill Moggridge, industrial designer for 40 years and author of Designing...
- Are You Interruptible?
Great story in Sunday’s New York Times about people who are trying to be more productive despite the prevalence of interruptions such as email, IM, and the myriad electronic documents we have open at any one time. Apparently the best solution is to...
- Cool Technology & Maps
The June issue of Technology Review has a short article on David Rumsey's digital map archive. Rumsey's site is way cool, using the Luna Insight product (also used at Smith), and the article talks about both his software and his map collecting...
- Happenin' Technology
Interested in new technology and its application? LITA (ALA's Library and Information Technology Association group) blogged its way throug the ALA Annual Meeting. Their blog is at http://litablog.org/ , where you can read what people think about hot...