Summer = Travel

I've lost count of how many times I've traveled this summer. The professional experience has been great, but it's made the schedule hectic, and made it very difficult to keep up with everyday-type work. I'm looking forward to returning to a more normal schedule at the end of next week--by normal, of course, I mean that I'll also be returning to taking a full-time courseload. I'm sadistically excited about this semester, however, particularly about one course titled "Essentials of Academic Publishing." Practical, interesting, immediately applicable--right up my alley.

But in the meantime, I've got one last trip to make. This, finally, is the vacation trip--not a semi-"vacation" tacked on to one of my or my husband's work trips--just six days in New York City for fun.

I look forward to returning in a more work-ready state of mind... and to a regular schedule. Hooray for fall!

Extra, Extra: .Gov Harvest!

Yep, UNT has joined the efforts to harvest the Bush Administration's "webstuffs." Not only can you read about it on the Washington Post (also on NextGov), but you can read a fun quote from my boss Suzanne:

"When Bush took over, the second that he was sworn in, the White House Web site went from being this massive collection of important links to a picture of Bush and his biography and a picture of [Vice President] Cheney and his biography," Sears said. "We don't want to see that happen again. . . . It's just very important for history's sake that this material is archived the way that the printed material has always been archived."

In other news, Murphy's Law states that any time the Washington Post calls about your Digital Collections, you will be out sick and your boss will be interviewed instead. Ah, well--such is life, eh?

Upload in Progress

...expet more content to pop up throughout the next few days, but here's the beginning of information from my presentation. This is all going up on my wiki, as well.

"Preserving access to government websites: development and practice in the CyberCemetery"
-- by STARR HOFFMAN (University of North Texas Libraries, Denton, USA)

• link to full paper
• link to full presentation: PDF, (Powerpoint TBA)
• photos from presentation (TBA)
• other documents related to the CyberCemetery:
• CyberCemetery Metadata
• CC Metadata: Working Plan
• CC Metadata Entry Rules

IFLA: Presentation Done!

Well, that was a fantastic experience! I was fortunate to share the session with five great panelists working on very similar projects, and we had a bunch of insightful questions--some of which had me jotting down notes to consider later. I got to meet some people interested in our CyberCemetery--always great to be able to share and exchange ideas. In fact, I even got to meet someone from the Congressional Research Service, which of course had me geeking out a bit, as I do whenever I see something stamped with "CRS."

Note to any attendees or those otherwise interested: I"ll be posting the Powerpoint for my presentation later, and I'll happily provide other documents as you're interested. I know one woman was interested in the metadata schema we use for CyberCemetery websites, so I may just post the current version to my wiki to make it accessible to everyone. I'll link all of that content back here--I think it also might be good for me to include the questions and answers I got, for future reference. And I hope tomorrow to be able to type up and post more of the notes that I've taken in other IFLA sessions (including the other presenters from my session).

I also have to add that that IFLA's wifi connection here is quite nice--it actually inspired me to drag my laptop down here and I'm currently taking notes. Er, back to those notes.

(And also: Quebec is beautiful, I must come back!)

Bienvenue from Quebec!

My first day of IFLA was fantastic--attended sessions on statistics & measurement, access to genealogical & archival data, and library partnerships. I think what I'm enjoying most, besides the mostly excellent presentations and good speakers, is that these presentations are giving such a broader world view than a session at TLA or ALA. TLA and ALA are valuable, and certainly relevant in a "close to home" sense, but these sessions keep nudging my brain into those "ah-ha" moments of remembering that no, the entire world does not operate like the United States. It's refreshing and encouraging and exciting and a little wild to wrap the brain around sometimes.

Perhaps as a result of so many cultures and traditions being thrown together, I'm also noticing less library jargon being tossed about--another refreshing aspect of this conference. The only thing that threw me for a minute was the prevalence of the acronym ICT, which I puzzled out is information communication technology.

One interesting tidbit I took from one of the morning speakers... He's from a public library in Norway where they are hand-gathering statistics on how people use the library, whether they are performing activities in groups or alone, and how long they spend on each activity. What really interested me is that they count "computer activities" separately for those on the library computers, and those who bring their own laptops (as well as those who work at each type of computer alone or in groups). I hadn't ever thought of counting laptop vs. library PC use separately before, although it seems obvious now. (Of course, now that we're also checking out laptops, that brings a potential third category for UNT to track.)

All right, I'm off to find a quick dinner and then back to work some more on my presentation for tomorrow morning.

How Is It August?

Yes, you, too can create your own READ poster.

I got the green light for some travel funds for IFLA next week in Quebec City, so I'm in a flurry of preparation. I was already trying to catch up after having been at Interagency last week, and now knowing I'll be gone for another week is... yeah. I'm racing to complete this year's Albino Squirrel Calendar, catch up on emails, and get some things posted to the GODORT wiki.

I got all the month pages completed today: that just leaves the "other" pages (6 of them), the cover, and listing out all the relevant dates to include for each month.

At least my IFLA paper has been written for months--but I do need to pull some screenshots together for an interesting Powerpoint... and to reduce my 6-page paper into something that I can state in 15 minutes or less. Slowly, since there will be simultaneous translation.

Interesting... this summer, my blog has become my to-do list. Sigh. At this point, folks, I'm just crossing my fingers until September--the return of a regular schedule (albeit one that includes three classes), and only one professional trip (that I know of). Whew.

I was hoping to blog about how awesome Interagency was, and all the fellow librarians I met (particularly the geeky crowd), and maybe even the touristy DC things we did on the weekend... Yeah. Just like all my to-do photo editing and uploading, it will just have to wait.

Oh! One fun tidbit, however: the book for which Suzanne, Annie, and I wrote a chapter, Academic Library Outreach: Beyond the Campus Walls, is set to be published this December, a month earlier than expected! Hurrah!!