Mod Librarian Visits NYPL!

5 Things Thursday: DAM Gurus, Ranganathan, Conferences

Here are five plus things to ponder this week:

1. How are conferences helpful? Jill Hurst-Wahl delineates the ways here. If nothing else, a conference or unconference is an opportunity to hob knob with like minded professionals. I am a huge fan!


2. Are you a DAM Guru? There is a program for that - this site connects seasoned professionals with those new to digital asset management.


3. If you have five minutes to read about the father of library science, S.R. Ranganathan, take a look at this on the SILAS site. It will knock Dewey out of the park...


4. Although my blog rarely appears on any lists, here are 6 indispensable library tech blogs. I especially like the Free Range Librarian.


5. An insightful piece in The Atlantic on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the ramifications for cultural heritage preservation.

BONUS: Check out these very thorough metadata guidelines from the Minnesota Digital Library. Whether you are trying to develop your own process or simply interested in how other organizations work, this is a must skim.

Next Thursday is my birthday, so Five Things will return on April 4th. Enjoy!

5 Things Thursday: Taxonomy Testing, Web Archiving, DAM

Here are five wonderful things to peruse and consider this week:

1. How do you test a taxonomy? Heather Hedden tells us how and explains the difference between evaluating and testing, an important distinction.


2. Were you breathlessly awaiting the Web Archiving Life Cycle Model? The folks at Archive-It provide a lovely graphic and a white paper.


3.  My favorite DAM expert, John Horodyski, wrote a whitepaper called A Guide to the Lifeblood of DAM. Excellent and with a focus on metadata.


4. Here are three projects librarians should be helping - UnGlue.it, LibriVox and LibraryBox. Check out all the details on Hack Library School.


5. For fun - a link to a t shirt design I really like...

@DPLA: Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) has been popping up in library news frequently as the official launch on March 18th approaches.

From a great article in American Libraries, to a LibraryBox SXSW project, DPLA is ready to launch in a big way. But what exactly is DPLA and did the idea originate or coincide with an OCLC report on Digital Libraries from November of 2011?

Indeed, there is some overlap - for instance, Emily Gore is the DPLA Director of Content and was one of the participants in the 2011 convening. There is a lot of overlap on the steering committee as well.

So what is the DPLA and how will it work? Although I expect many blog posts and articles to be written on just this subject in the next week, I thought I would boil it down. DPLA will integrate and aggregate existing content from hub libraries across the country. This is best explained here in the section on the Digital Hubs Pilot Project.

In addition, Elements of the DPLA gets into the nitty gritty - metadata, content, code and tools.

Stay tuned for a post next Monday for the launch itself with more insight and information.

5 Things Thursday: ISBN, Digital Etiquette, Maria Semple, Archives, DAM

Here are your five things for the week:

1. Ever wonder how to compose a proper email? Here are some etiquette tips.


2. Read about the digital life of a historic archive - the Association of Cultural Equity (ACE), a vast and remarkable assemblage of field recordings, instruments, books, posters and other artifacts collected by the legendary American archivist Alan Lomax over the better part of the 20th century.


3. For Seattle folks, Maria Semple, author of Seattle based Where'd You Go Bernadette, faces off with beloved Nancy Pearl at Town Hall.


4. A little digital asset management snippet - know your strategy and use cases!


5. The ISBN number may become a thing of the past...