Logro agridulce

For the past nine months I have had the great pleasure assisting with the creation of the Washington County Heritage Online digital collection. Funded by a LSTA grant, the collection brings together cultural organizations from across Washington County in the creation of a digital photograph collection. Specifically, I have been cataloging images donated by Centro Cultural, the county's foremost Latino community organization. Being trusted with their photographs was an honor, and I am very proud of this collection. Working with another volunteer, we have selected, digitized, restored and wrote metadata for about 900 images - all depicting Centro Cultural's contributions to Washington County.

Photographed by Francisco Rangel. Copyright held by Centro Cultural.

Now that the project is over, it is a little sad for this experience to come to an end. I really enjoyed working in the Pacific University Archives. I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to see a project through from start to finish. And I hate to admit it, but I am also going to miss the two hour (one way) bus/train/bus ride out to Forest Grove. It was a wonderful opportunity for contemplation and reading. I think I read more books since starting this gig than I did while working a Borders Bookstore.

Although my time with this collection has come to an end, I know there are many more organizations who are ready and willing to contribute more photographs to this collection, and I am really excited to see watch this collection grow.

Protecting the commons

Photo credit: _PaulS_ via flickr

Before becoming a librarian, I earned a BA degree in environmental sociology - studying the interaction of social and ecological systems. During that time I was influenced by the idea of the commons - specifically the tragedy of the commons. This is the theory that natural resources shared by a community need to be properly managed and protected.  The classic example is a communal pasture where herds of animals graze. If each herdsman decides to add more animals to their stock, soon the pasture will not be able to support any life form. While many writers and theorists have discussed the commons in regards to environmental thought, the concept was made famous in Garrett Hardin's '"The Tragedy of the Commons," published in the December 1968 edition of Science. Hardin open the article building off Wiesner and York's discussion of the nuclear arms race, quoting them as saying "It is our considered professional judgement that this dilemma has no technical solution." Hardin took the further and looks at the tragedy of the commons as having no technical solution but requiring a fundamental extension in morality.

An example of a successfully managed commons is the Maine lobster industry. Maine lobster-men know that they must follow loosely-regulated restrictions in order to secure the future of their industry. If they over harvest, there will be no more lobsters. That's why, in the face of technological innovations, they have been using the same harvesting methods for close to 125 years.

What does environmental theory, the nuclear arms race and Maine lobster have to do with libraries?  As open space and natural resources are the commons to environmental theory, access to information through libraries (both physical or digital) are the commons to library science. I believe that the management of ebooks will be the libraries industry "tragedy of the commons."

There is a battle being raged, between publishers and libraries over access of electronic content: dealing with the licensing, access and distribution of electronic information - and ebooks seem to be the latest vanguard of this fight.  I will admit, a lot of what is happening is over my head, having never had to deal directly with library acquisitions or collection development policy. But what it seems to boil down to is the publishing industry protecting its profit margins while librarians protect the right of their patrons to access information.

Hardin stated that "a technical solution may be defined as one that requires a change only in the techniques of the natural [or communication] sciences, demanding little or nothing in the way of change in human values of morality."  Digital rights management has been part of the publishing industry as a technological solution to control content - which is handy for fighting piracy, but when applied to libraries can limit access of information. It seems that the argument on side of the publishers is that they are trying to protect authors and copyright holders. But we need to remember that copyright was founded as a balancing act - to not only promote incentives for authors and creators to share their ideas, but also to allow for the general public access to their ideas to build upon them.

And just like Wiesner, York and Hardin concluded, I do not believe that there will be a technical solution, but we need to bring about a look at our morality in dealing with freedom to read. Do we value open and private access to information? As a democratic nation whose foundations include the creation of modern libraries, I would like the think that we do - we just might have to make others see that, too. 

As I still try and learn about the logistics and strategies of this fight - I do know that librarians need to stick together and raise their voices. It is through collected action that gains can be made. Look at the fight in academia over the controversies of scholarly communication and the rising costs of journal titles. The collected action of librarians and faculty to boycott these journals is starting to make an impact.

As we work to combine our voices, we should look to leaders in this fight. This is who I am currently following:

K.G. Schneider had an excellent recent post on her blog, Free Range Librarian. Keeping with the environmental theme, she describes this as a problem with "reading ecology."

Andy Woodworth has been a constant voice in the discussion of eBooks in the library setting through his blog, Agnostic, Maybe.

Sarah Houghton, the Librarian in Black, has also been very vocal in speaking up for readers rights - and even has a YouTube channel where she uploaded a video discussing her views of how Amazon treat library patrons.

This is an ongoing debate, and I would love for you to share your thoughts. How do you think libraries should handle the ebook situation? Who have you heard speak up to publishers in the name of freedom to read? What will the future look like? Let us know in the comments below and let's keep this conversation going...

References:
J. B. Wiesner and H. F. York, Sci. Amer. 1964; 211 (No. 4): 27
G. Hardin, Science 1968 Dec 13; 162 (5364):1243-8

Job seeking advice from an actual job seeker

The time has come. There is no more putting it off. The end is in sight. The job search is in full effect.

Now that I am no longer a library student, the time is quickly running out at my current work study position. And of course, at the same time the grant which funds my other (semi-professional) job has almost dried up. It's now time to land that first, full-on professional job. Or at least a job that will carry me over until I land that professional job.

Thankfully, as library students/recent graduates we all have an ace in our pockets: We're not just librarians, we are information managers. From the get-go, it has been apparent that the MLS/MLIS is a versatile degree. We can go into traditional librarian roles, apply for cutting edge positions within libraries (managing digital content, for example) or take our degrees into any learning organization that needs assistance organizing, accessing or disseminating information.

Also, as information managers, we are able to effectively manage our own job search. Here is the strategy that is helping me stay sane throughout this process:

I. Manage Content

There are jobs out there, it is just a matter of finding them. Just like a subject specialist, we can put 21st century innovations to work, doing the dirty work for us. Remember: work smarter, not harder. So far RSS feeds, listservs and email alerts have been doing all of the harvesting for me.

A few RSS feeds that I subscribe too:

http://www.libgig.com/

http://www.lisjobs.com/jobs/

http://joblist.ala.org/

I also subscribe to listservs for  library associations for parts of the countries I want to live in, my school's various listserv as well as the I Need a Library Job daily email.

I have also created a number of email alerts through google, creating different combinations of cities/states that I want to live in, various librarian titles, potential dream jobs and sites where they might be posted. If you don't want your inbox overloaded with the alerts, you can have them sent to you in daily batch formats, which is convenient. While they might create extra influx of email - it is so nice to have them show up in just one spot!

II. Get Organized 

Spreadsheets have become my new best friend. I currently have two: one for jobs I am applying too and one for my own information.

Every time I find a job that I am interested in, I add it to my spreadsheet. I have fields for job title/institution, location, link to web posting, date job closes, date I sent in materials, and finally a field for networking. It goes without saying that networking is the most important part of job searching, so if there is anyone I can network with with each job, I be sure to make note of it.

The second spreadsheet came out of my frustration with online application. Some folks say to circumscribe these forms by mailing your resume/cover letter directly to whomever you would be reporting to, but I strongly believe in following directions to a T - especially when applying for jobs. You want to show that you are detail oriented and complete any tasks you are assigned. My fellow classmate Chris has a really good suggestion: create a spreadsheet with all of the universal information that is requested in these forms. Than you can just copy/paste the info, and not get super frustrated when the online form decides to delete everything you just typed in!

If you have taken a metadata or records management class, I am sure you are well aware of the importance of excellent naming conventions. Since you are tailoring each cover letter and resume to each job that you are applying to, file naming is super important in staying organized. When you are applying to similar jobs or when you do land that interview, you want to be able to quickly look up information. You can see in the screenshot below, I am trying to stick to some sort of system. I might have to update it a bit....

This is just what is on my flashdrive. I have about three times as many resumes on my home computer.

There is a lot of competition out there. But we are also all in this together. What job searching strategies have worked for you? If you are currently searching what are you doing to stay sane? 

InfoCampPDX Recap

AJLouie's sketch of Jason Sack's keynote.

InfoCamp was a success. And its success was completely due to our participants.

It has been said before that unconferences are perfect examples of the "if you build it, they will come" phenomena. Last weekend proved this for me. I am not going to lie - I was a bit nervous going into it. Building an unconference involves a giant leap of faith. You get your ducks in a row: order coffee, slice up bagels, rent a space, market the heck out of your event. But the day is only successful if folks show up and fill you break out sessions with interesting topics that create conversation and collaboration. And that is exactly what happened at InfoCampPDX.

Here is a list of the presentations that were offered throughout the day:

• Modeling - Tips & War Stories: A Discussion  
• Passionate Research: How do you find info when you’re on an obsession?
•  Information visualization, what is it good for? Much more than absolutely nothing.”
  
• Instrument Resonance: Finding the Bach in city noise” or “Creating meaning out of chaos with semantic model resonance filtering"
• You should talk to your doctor. And so should your phone. Information in a healthcare context.
• The confluence of: Information literacy, Information Retrieval & Information Architecture
• You don’t pay attention to what you’re NOT looking for. User expectations & the world of information
• Taxonomy Madness 
• Wiki at 16: Wikimedia Strategic Planning 
• A work session for library people interested in supporting a student and new professionals round table in OLA 
• Get Sketching: DIY Information Visualization Design 
• Designing Awe: The science of surprise and delight 
• Information Analytics: What is the role of measurement technology for encouraging accuracy of returned results? 
• How to Throw an InfoCamp

If anyone is interested in helping plan next year's InfoCamp - and we already have some momentum built up after Saturday's success - send the organizing committee an email: infocampPDX@gmail.com.


Again, thank you to the fellow organizers, the sponsors, the volunteers, and especially the participants for making Portland's first InfoCamp an excellent day!

#nerdingout

First. Why you should come to InfoCampPDX:

Last: I obviously have way too much time on my hands:

That is all. Good day.

InfoCamp is coming to town!

I'm pretty excited to announce that InfoCampPDX is going to be a reality!

The unconference is going to be hosted at the Q Center on February 4th, 2012 from 9am to 5pm.

Registration is going to be $30, with $20 discounted registration for students.

For those of you who are not familiar with InfoCamp, it's a one day unconference for people excited about connecting people with information. This includes visual and user experience designers, librarians, web folk and other InfoNerds. It started in Seattle (which I've attended the past two years - you can read about my experience there last year)  and the model has been recreated in California, South Carolina and even Germany. 


User experience (UX) has been the most exciting topic I've learned about since starting library school. And now that I am continuing down the path toward a real career, I hope that UX continues to be a focus of my professional life.

That's why I got involved with the planning of InfoCampPDX. I'm always wanting to learn more about UX, so I figured why not help get the unconference up and going here in Portland. So far I have stepped up to help coordinate volunteers (if you want to volunteer - email me at infocampPDX@gmal.com), build our website and manage our twitter and facebook accounts (with Kirsten Himes). 

Since I love social networking, I thought it would be fun to think of creative ways to market our event. I remember the first time I went to InfoCamp Seattle, I knew nothing about UX, so I thought it would be fun to send out some online video clips that examine UX from different perspectives. I know that this will ruin the suspense of following our social media sites, but out of my excitement I wanted to post the videos I found here. These videos all play nicely together because A) it shows the development of human computer interaction and design over the past ten years and what might be waiting in our future and B) it shows how UX is integrated into so many different industries: education, academia, media, entertainment, retail, medicine, non-profits etc. Where ever you find technology and innovation, you find user experience.

This one looks at the value of user experience:



This one is hilarious because it is so old:



These next two show cool ways users will be able to interact with visual information:





Who doesn't love a really good hack:

Leading From The Stacks: Hipster in a headdress

This is the ninth post in the series Leading From The Stacks, an examination of leadership in the library industry. It was initiated by my course Leading From Any Position.

I love TED talks. I know that I have posted or linked to a bunch of them in this series. I'm a visual and auditory learner so they have been a great resource for me. Here is one that I thought would be fascinating, but I actually found that I had some issues with it. Its David Logan, talking about his theories on Tribal Leadership:

Logan discuses his five levels of tribal groups: 
Stage one: Life sucks. These are gangs, criminals and loners who feel that life sucks and life will always suck.
Stage two: My life sucks. His example is a long line at the DMV.
Stage three: My life is great. Emphasis on my.
Stage four: Unify individuals. Looking at tribes of highly desirable corporate jobs, like zappos or google.
Stage five: Life is great. Unifying everyone. Such as the reconciliation of South Africa.

Logan's definition of leadership is nudging your organization towards the fifth stage.

My disappointment lies in the fact that I started watching this video with some pretty high standards. I thought this was going to be coming from the perspective of a anthropologist, looking at actual tribes. Instead, this was a business professor talking about organizational culture. Which is an important conversation to have. But why can't we just call it organizational culture? I guess tribal leadership is a bit sexier, but if feels like cultural appropriation. Kind of like a hipster in a headdress.

I think an actual examination of leader styles would be fascinating. As an undergraduate student, we discussed Ujamaa, which is African Socialism. Ujamaa is a swahili word for extended family. African socialism grew out of the idea that what is good for the tribe is good for the individual. European socialism tends to focus more on the relationship between the worker (proletariat) and the factory owner (capitalist). Comparing the two is a look at industrial tribes versus non-industrial tribes. There is a lot to learn from both, but personally, I like to think of the library organization more of a family setting than a factory. And so ideas of Ujamaa makes more sense. What is good for the individual library worker is good for the organization.