Final Reflection (IRLS675-Unit 13)

This is your final blog post. Discuss your experiences this semester and summarize what you think are the most important concepts and lessons learned:

This was a great class! I really enjoyed downloading the different digital repository programs (Drupal, DSpace, Eprints, and Omeka), working with them, and determining which would be a best fit for my collection. Having a project based on us choosing the focus is really key in getting students to invest in the project. While I chose one of these programs for my particular collection, I also know that other programs might be better suited for other types of collections. In looking at the programs, I focused mostly on usability (how easy is it to create and upload metadata), customization (how complicated is it to tailor the site to my specifications), and presentation (how good does the site look?).

I've learned several things this semester, but I found the hands-on tech assignments the most valuable part of the course and the most fun! I can now create a new virtual machine without reading the installation directions, I can troubleshoot most problems on my own, and I know that I need to take snapshots frequently (there was a situation where my building lost power and reset my computer, thus losing all of my Omeka install because I didn't save the current state).

It was a little weird taking IRLS671 at the same time since Botticelli taught that course and the management section of this course, so I often couldn't remember which course a topic was talked about in. This was kinda good in terms of connecting management and tech aspects in a holistic way. However, it was somewhat frustrating from a student perspective when completing assignments and such. It would have been better, imo, if the management part of this course just got included in 671 instead of a separate part of this course.

Pre-Installed VMs? (IRLS675-Unit 12)

Although the files are large, it’s possible to create a working virtual machine for download and playback in your Virtualization software (although in practice, it’s almost as much work and sometimes difficult to troubleshoot). In your blog, discuss the possibility of downloading a pre-installed VM versus building your own, from a learning and pedagogical perspective. Would preconfigured solutions provide more time to concentrate on the collection? Or, do you think you are losing the opportunity to learn about how a repository is structured and modified by not building it from scratch? Would you have a preference for one or the other with respect to your current computer skills and learning preferences?

I'm personally a fan of building our own systems. While it's sometimes a pain because it takes a bit of time, it's really gotten into my head how the process works (without staring at the instructions every two seconds). I value the depth of knowledge that building our own machines gives us. I would even go so far as to say that giving us pre-installed machines would be detrimental to the purpose of the DigIn program and deprive us of valuable learning experience.

Comparing Omeka, EPrints, DSpace, and Drupal (IRLS675-Unit 11)

Each program has their pros and cons. Drupal is extremely customizable, but takes some time to organize it and it looks more like a general website. DSpace's default settings lend themselves better to digital collections and looks more like a repository out of the box, but it hard to customize. EPrints didn't have a lot of music collections to use as examples and appears to need lots of customization to make it look good. Currently, I like Omeka the best because it has lots of metadata fields, looks good from a user perspective, and makes it easy to play sound files in the browser. Ease of use, customization, and look are all important to me in deciding which platform works best with my collection.

Data Harvesting (IRLS675-Unit 10)

Review the list of service providers at http://www.openarchives.org/service/listproviders.html and also http://gita.grainger.uiuc.edu/registry/services/. Review at least three or four of your choosing. Try some searches, and also see if you can identify the collections they draw from (there's usually a link somewhere to the list of contributing collections).

I chose to harvest the UCLA Archive of Popular American Music (6082 records), the Kansas City Sheet Music Collection (887 records), and the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign's Online U.S. Sheet Music Database (94304 records, omg!). It appears that they each draw only from their own collections housed in the university since I didn't find a list of providers and the items just pointed to the university pages.

In your blog, discuss what you think makes a good (useful) federated collection and why and how the service providers you selected did (or did not) create a good (useful) service. Some sites index metadata from a very large number of repositories. Why might this be a good thing? Or, why might this not be such a good thing?

There are both advantages and drawbacks to large federated collections. For instance, if you are doing a project on a certain subject, it could be useful to search across databases to get the information you need. However, with lots of data comes lots of metadata that may not always match up across collections. If a collection does not index by subject (or uses a different subject vocabulary), it may be overlooked in a subject search. Also, too many results are often hard to sift through to find exactly what you're looking for. Solid metadata (the more the merrier) and controlled vocabularies make for better federated collections. For example, the UCLA database was very complete and offered additional information in the description field. However, the other two databases offered very little other than title, creator, and date, which wasn't as useful for searching.

Catalog Record Difficulties (IRLS675-Unit 9)

Creating a catalog record is expensive -- some estimates range from $50 to well over $100 per record. It's also not easy to create good metadata that is consistent enough so that queries across repositories (or even across different catalogers) return precise results. Discuss briefly the challenges you are having cataloging your items in terms of subject listings, key words and tags, categories and other facets. How are you approaching the problem of consistency (or are you)?

Cataloguing seems easiest in Drupal so far since I can easily customize the metadata and utilize some folksonomic tagging as well. My experiences with DSpace and EPrints has been less than satisfactory due to the complex customization systems. I feel that most of my collection would be easily searchable when I have my final product, although with tags there is always the risk of misspellings and such. While I'm the sole manager of the repository, it will be fine, but it would be a lot more complex if it was open to the public. This is an area I need to think about more before creating my final repository.

EPrints Install (IRLS675-Unit 8)

I thought the EPrints install was pretty straightforward. It was faster than drupal, but slower than Dspace for me. I successfully branded my EPrints site using the second method (tried the first and it didn't work for some reason), where I edit the main file to point to my logo. I also installed the "glass" theme, but it doesn't look noticeably different, so I'm not sure if it didn't work or if it's just not very unique. So far, EPrints seems difficult to customize, mostly because of the lack of good tutorials. It seems that the EPrints online community is not as large or as dedicated to helping out new users.

Tech Savvy (IRLS675-Unit 7)

This week when trying to customize my DSpace repository, I realized how much more work I have to do to become tech savvy in this environment. I've learned a crazy amount of stuff so far in the DigIn courses, but I'm realizing now that I need to spend more time beyond/after the course to get into the advanced skills and culture of these programs. For instance, I need to brush up on my html and take it to the next level in order to create custom forms for inputting my data. I can see that this path in librarianship will be a lifelong learning experience.

Installing DSpace (IRLS675-Unit 6)

The DSpace install went super smooth after I re-installed it using the proper version. I had attempted to install the older version with a different password and it messed up, so when I installed the newer version, I just went with the default passwords and it was fine. In looking over alternative DSpace installation instructions, the duraspace wiki seemed a bit confusing and several people in the comments section pointed out errors in the command line codes. The SunScholar wiki, however, seemed very well organized and easy to follow. I think I could probably figure out how to do this on my own, but it's very helpful to have the instructions tailored to my specific use in this course since it was a no-brainer to just follow the professor's code.

Embed Media-Youtube (IRLS675-Unit 5)

I added the Embed Media module for my site so that I can embed music videos of each song that I upload to the collection. I had to also install the youtube-specific module in order to import 3rd party content directly from youtube. There were other sites that I could use, but I figured youtube is pretty universally accepted and easy to find things. So far, I like it! It took a minute to figure out how to configure everything properly so the field shows up, but I got it.

Drupaling My Collection (IRLS675-Unit 4)

Right now, Drupal doesn't seem ideal for a music collection. First of all, audio files tend to be rather large, so I would use up a lot of digital storage space very quickly. I use Drupal to manage the SIRLS webpage too, but we utilize iTunesU for hosting our podcasts. I suppose if this was a real project, I would have to seek copyright permissions from all of the artists in my collection, but it would be great to figure out how to stream the music online instead of uploading an mp3 that other people download. I'm not sure at this point how to do that in Drupal, but it would lessen the problem of contributing to the music industry's pirating problems if the items couldn't be directly downloaded. I'm wondering what other programs might be best for audio file sharing without infringing on copyright as much.

Pace of the Tech Assignments (IRLS675-Unit 3)

I'm a very busy boi this semester. I'm taking 4 courses (10 credits), working 2 graduate assistantships, and have a key leadership role in both the Progressive Librarians Guild and Pride Alliance on the UA campus. Therefore, the pace of the course seems a bit fast for me, but it may be because I am busier than most people at the moment. I definitely intend on keeping up the pace, no matter what pace that is, in order to be successful in this course, but I feel that it would be more manageable in my case to slow it down a bit (especially on weeks where we would need to install another virtual machine, since that takes several hours of downloads and configurations).

Content Management on a Budget (IRLS675-Unit 2)

This week, I looked at Regina Beach and Miqueas Dial’s article “Building a collection development CMS on a shoe-string,” which discusses a collection-specific CMS project at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK) Library, serving 5,000 students. TAMUK is a small campus and did not have the financial means to easily improve their collection development by purchasing commercial software and having a full-time tech team, so they decided to create one in-house from scratch.

The authors specifically wanted to develop this system to adequately support distance students at the school. The first step was changing the technical services workflow so that data only had to be entered once when faculty requested books through the database. The database was created in MS Access and the relationships behind the scenes look like this:

While what the faculty sees look like this:

As of publication (2005), this system was still in prototype testing and it was unclear whether or not the resources would be available to fully implement the system. The authors found that while development and completion of the CMS database was accomplished in a timely fashion, implementation in the library has been slow because of negotiating security issues.

It was interesting hearing about this endeavor and the challenges that it presented. I hadn't really thought about security issues yet, so I plan to explore this aspect of collection management a bit more in creating my collection repository.

Starting My Collection (IRLS675-Unit 1)

The assignment:

Gather a small collection of digital objects, perhaps 15-20 items. These might be digital images,

sound files, text files and other digital documents. These may also be digital surrogates (e.g.

photographs of physical objects). The collection should be of interest to you, and it should be something you know a little about. It should also be reasonably diverse, so the same terms or tags would not be used to describe each of the items. These should not be hypothetical items or catalog description records only; you should have the objects in hand (or, more accurately, on disk). You will enter this collection into Drupal in a couple of weeks providing both hierarchical and faceted access based on a simple taxonomy of terms and tags you will develop. You will also enter this collection in other repository systems over the coming weeks.

Using these guidelines, I have decided to create a repository of LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) music. I just made a mix cd of about 20 songs, so I will use these songs as the basis for my collection. I would imagine that LGBTQ people, professors/students in gender & sexuality studies, and those in the music industry would find this collection useful and interesting. The LGBTQ community is very diverse, so choosing accurate language and tags will be very important in managing the collection.


Types of terms that will be used include:

• Subject Identity Terms: This would refer to the identities either explicitly or implicitly portrayed in the song. For instance, "gay male," "lesbian," "transgender," "polyamory," etc.


• Genre: This refers to the category of music the song belongs to. For instance, "Country," "Hip Hop," "Rock," "Bluegrass," etc.


• Identifying Features: This would be basic information including "Song Title," "Artist Name," "Album," "Year," etc.

Project Management (IRLS672-Unit 12)

I enjoyed Cervone's "How Not to Run a Digital Library Project." It was written in a conversational style and was unique among the articles for this week.

His DON'T tips included:

-not bothering to understand project requirements

-forgetting to plan because it's too time consuming

-committing to a budget and schedule before knowing what you're actually supposed to do

-using WAG as a best guess

-adding more personnel when a project is running behind

-ignoring the critical path

-not worrying about the project's potential downfalls

-adding things to the project once it's already in motion

-and believing you don't need outside help at all

Project management seems to be quite complex because you need to be a jack-of-all-trades, a psychic, and a good leader/coach/mentor. However, if done right, project management can provide the needed results on time and on budget.

First DigIn Course Nearly Complete! (IRLS672-Unit 11)

Looking back on this summer semester, I can't believe how much information we got through and how far I've come. I went from vague recollections of DOS to pwning the command line! Actually, I have a loooong way to go, but I think I'm off to a good start. We've gone through linux, nano, hmtl, websites, servers, tech plans, databases, php scripting, and will soon be covering project management. Not bad for a summer course!

This class showed me that digital librarianship may be a bit more complicated than I initially thought, but it also showed me that I can accomplish a lot when I put my mind to it. I'm determined to not have to rely on an IT department every time I need a tiny thing. I think all librarians should have some of this tech knowledge in order to be empowered, not threatened, in the digital age.

SQuirreL (IRLS 672-Unit 10)

I don't know why, but SQL makes me think of the world "squirrel" lol. Anyway, learning SQL wasn't much harder technically that the other stuff we've been doing, but I think it was really challenging conceptually. It's hard to visualize a relational database and what needs to be in there and how to search it. We're all really familiar with the user interface, but the interface is so different that the actual data behind the scenes. It's kinda like using a googledoc to do a survey in that the people taking the survey see a nice pretty form that they just fill in, while I get to see an ugly spreadsheet of everyone's answers. The pretty is nicer, but the ugly is certainly more useful. They say ignorance is bliss, but we're too far down the rabbit hole to stop now!

MySQL, not Yours (IRLS672-Unit 9)

This week was pretty ok. I had used MySQL previously, but needed to look a bunch of stuff up as I was working. I really like the W3 schools tutorials and the UACBT videos were ok (but a bit slow at first). I know that we were supposed to make a real project, but I still feel like the Gender & Sexuality Resource database I made is a bit hypothetical. It would be cool to work on a real-life project, get the actual experience, and get to know some of the advanced functions. Too bad I don't have time to do an internship or something. I think I will go through some of the MySQL community forums and tutorials though because it's people who use this everyday and have insight far beyond my mediocre capabilities.

Planning Ahead (IRLS672-Unit 8)

I thought the Bertot article on funding was very important. One of the main arguments I hear about why library technology isn't better is that they can't afford it. I like the suggestion they made about streamlining the application process because applications themselves can be a huge time commitment that many libraries cannot handle. I also appreciated the importance of sustainability. In any sort of philanthropic program, local people need the tools to maintain, repair, and upgrade any new technologies they may have received from a funder or else the whole project breaks down. This sustainability factor is an important part of technology plans as well. If I'm looking to fund or participate in a project, I want to know that people are in it for the long haul and that the project will go on long after I'm around. This is what I'm currently trying to get my job to look at: what are we trying to accomplish with these new technologies and how will they continue to be sustainable in the future?

XXXML (IRLS672-Unit 7)

This week we learned some XML and I had a pretty similar experience that I had when learning HTML. I relied mostly on the tutorial from W3 Schools. I found that even though it is text-based, it is very step-by-step and interactive because you can try things in the safety of their embedded programs so there's no fear of messing anything up. I also looked at the UACBT videos, but I found that I like the faster pace of being able to read instead of waiting for them to get to the information I need. I watched part of Just Enough XML to Survive, but the monotone voice left me wandering off...

A Creation Story (IRLS672-Unit 6)

This week we were charged with learning some basic HTML and creating a simple web page. I had already learned some super basic HTML in SIRLS Bootcamp and then spent a lot of last fall going over the w3schools online tutorials. So, instead of reading over everything again, I just skimmed for a refresher. Most everything was covered in the main page I made for SIRLS, except for the doctype! command and page title, which I had to look up. I used mostly basic HTML, but added centering and a background color (purple!). I had to create a subdirectory so that I didn't accidentally overwrite my original page, so the new page I made is available at http://www.u.arizona.edu/~seprzy/digin/digin.index.html. Enjoy!

Learning with Style (IRLS672-Unit 5)

This week we read about different learning styles. I think this is a useful topic to touch on in all classes, since it really defines what tasks we are going to relate to best and what way we should structure our learning. I'm definitely a fan of more interactive materials (videos, podcasts, etc), but I also find written material very useful, especially as a brief overview of a topic. I'm a total fan of wikipedia entries when I am exploring new territory. I know that it is not scholarly research and that there may be some factual errors, but I've found them to be a good way to wrap my head around a subject before delving into the details. I think that this reflects my personal learning style...

Active versus Reflective:

I think that I'm more of a reflective learner than an active learner because I like to soak everything in before giving my opinion and I prefer working alone. However, I've become a bit more active since being in the SIRLS program because the online format necessitates that we interact frequently since we never see each others' faces.

Sensing versus Intuitive:

I think I am more of an intuitive learner than a sensing learner because I can easily grasp the "big ideas," and hate getting bogged down by memorizing dates and numbers and such. However, I think that I'm also sensing some of the time because I like things (like class) to have a defined structure.

Visual versus verbal:

Like noted earlier with respect to the class materials, I think I am mostly visual, but also verbal. In fact, when I am trying to remember things I read, I often try to picture the page I read it on to recall the facts.

Sequential versus Global:

This is the hardest thing for me to decide. I like the order & structure of sequential, but I like to see the big picture and understand why I'm doing things instead of just doing them. So, maybe I'm a mix of both?

So many users, so little time... (IRLS672-Unit 4)

So this week we tried out 3 different ways to add users: command line, gnome, and webmin. I actually found command line to be the quickest since you just have to type the commands and don't have to click through a bunch of menus. However, if I didn't have the instructions in front of me, it would have probably taken me longer to look up the proper commands. Gnome was the worst, I think, since it takes some exploring to find the user/group management area. However, I did accidentally add a user before I added the group and it automatically added the group for me, so that was cool. Webmin was really user-friendly, but I had to leave the command line to do it. Overall, I think I just need to focus on remembering command line terms instead of trying to GUI myself around it.

Linux is Texty (IRLS672-Unit 3)

The text element has been very interesting for me in this course so far. Since it's summer and I want to have some fun, I got a PC copy of Final Fantasy VII to play. I had previously played this game on a Playstation 2, but I didn't yet have a game controller for PC, so at the same time I'm learning all of these new linux commands, I've also been gaming using keyboard commands. While I now have a game controller (since it's a lot easier and I can sit further away from the screen), I believe this helped me pick up some of the typing skills needed to navigate. Nano isn't too bad, but Vim has lot of commands to remember and the screen navigation uses the h,j,k, and l keys instead of the regular directional keys. That was a bit hard to get used to, but not as difficult as if I had not been playing FF7 recently =;-)

In terms of configuration, I don't recall doing a lot of configuring with my laptop. A lot of stuff comes pre-packaged and is set up for automatic updates. I'm excited to get into how stuff actually works behind the scenes.

Virtually Speaking (IRLS672-Unit 2)

This week, I got myself all set up with the remote desktop ("virtual machine") and also got Ubuntu loaded using VMware. There were several tutorials to help us get acquainted with the linux environment on our remote desktops. I appreciated them all in their own way. The video tutorials through UACBT were very helpful because we got to see visually how it's done and hear someone talk us through it. It engaged more of the senses so it sunk in to my brain. It got a little complicated at some points, but it's just more things to look forward to figuring out.

The text-based tutorials from Linuxcommand were also helpful and I found them to be a good way to build on the video tutorials. The text-based tutorials focused more on beginning to memorize the actual commands. I can see these being a good "cheat sheet" when we are doing assignments and I can't remember how to do something.

Overall, I found the combination of these two learning types to be most beneficial as I try to sort out this new system of operation.

Ubuntu for Absolute Beginners (IRLS672-Unit 1)

While waiting for permission to install and play with Ubuntu, we were assigned to check out the UbuntuForums, and specifically the Absolute Beginner Talk forum. While there, I first checked out a "sticky," which I guess is one of the more important threads with info from the forum admins and such. This thread caught my eye since it was titled "New to Ubuntu? Start Here." This forum provided many many resources for beginner "how-to" books, articles, and websites. It also included tips on how to use the forums to get the answer needed. Apparently even tech communities have trouble with people fighting, so there are lots of references to being "drama-free" and not started "flame wars."

While this was all well and good, I wanted to see what types of things people are having trouble with (and what might be a typical problem I may encounter one day). One thread that I noticed was titled "Seeking advice in regards to Ubuntu installation on a netbook." This is of interest to me since I own a netbook as my personal computer, and yet made the choice to use my partner's older laptop as my primary computer for this course since I wasn't sure how the programs would hold up on my tiny comp. It turns out from this post that it was probably a good move on my part. Apparently, there is a specific Ubuntu version for netbooks and it doesn't always work well on a computer that already has Windows installed. I know that this is part of the reason why we are using a slightly older version of Ubuntu on virtual machines for this course, but it would be nice to be able to work with this program on my netbook eventually (if it turns out I like it!). I'm thinking that another problem with my netbook is that it already has a linux-based OS (called "ExpressGate" or something), so it would essentially be 3 operating systems fighting each other on a tiny computer? Luckily, it seems that there are several ways to install Ubuntu (courtesy of the thread commentors) and I won't have to worry about this issue right now. Just something to think about for the future...