Digital Humanites 2013: some commentary
It seemed to make sense to separate this personal commentary from the notes I took on various papers and presentations at Digital Humanities 2013. These are intended to capture the kind of things that occur to one while sitting in the venue actually listening to talks but that then quickly fade on the plane ride home as one’s brain returns to the matters awaiting one upon return. As such these are not intended to be entirely thought-out or nuanced observations, but rather perhaps as conversation starters. I hope to get a few comments that will help me arrive at that more reflective understanding of those thoughts bouncing around in my head. Read more…
Becoming a DOI publisher
I presented a segment in the Scholars Portal Webinar Librarian, Publisher today, and thought it might be useful to share the slides I used more broadly. My main point was that it’s reasonable both in terms of cost and effort for libraries who are publishing scholarly content to mint and register DOIs with CrossRef. Doing so has myriad benefits, and sends a strong indication to scholars and readers that one is taking the role of publisher seriously.
Collaborative writing with Draft
This post represents a proof-of-concept test for a tool I recently started using. It's called Draft and bills itself as "easy version control and collaboration for writers." To abuse an oft-employed meme, they had me at version control. Google Docs is a great tool, but for straight up writing and editing, Draft removes nearly all of the mentally cluttering options and lets one just write. Better yet, it makes collaboration utterly painless. And then there's that version control … simply fantastic for those of us who enjoy iterative writing.
It's being developed by Nate Kontny and has been out there for about a month at this point, and he's already added new features. One that particularly appeals to me is the ability to publish directly to WordPress and other platforms, which is how I created this post.
CNI Spring 2013 notes
flickr – OZinOH
Another great CNI membership meeting is behind us. Saw a wide range of presentations, and found myself wishing as usual that there weren’t so many offered in parallel. As always with these notes, I’ve placed my own editorial comments in italics to differentiate them from the speaker’s words.
Opening Plenary – From the Version of a Record to a Version of the Record
Herbert van de Sompel, Los Alamos NL
Scholarly communication now includes many assets beyond textual articles: datasets, software, blogs, et al. The challenges are to group assets and version them.
Gave a tour of the history of efforts to modernize scholarly communication. Read more…
Supporting digital scholarship
Thankfully, there’s more to my professional life than fending off nuisance lawsuits. I have a great job here at McMaster, where I get to do many wonderful things. One of the most exciting is serving as the Administrative Director of the Lewis & Ruth Sherman Centre for Digital Scholarship.
In that role, the Montana State University Library invited me to their campus recently to speak on digital scholarship and meet with various groups, including one charged with developing a plan for offering similar services. They filmed the talk and put it up on the Tube, so I thought I’d post it here since I’m often asked questions about digital scholarship and what we’re doing here to support it.
Thank you for the support
As anyone reading this has already heard elsewhere, I’m being sued by a press for publishing a critical review on this blog. For many months, this was a private matter, but it has now gone viral. The outpouring of support reaffirming my right to a professional opinion has been copious and reassuring. Librarians, faculty, and publishers have all spoken out against this suits.
The story does not end with the support. It will continue until the lawsuits are resolved, which may take some time. At this point, however, I would like to express my profound gratitude to everyone who has spoken out on my behalf. There are far too many individuals to name, so I say a simple thank you to everyone. In particular, I’m grateful to those who have written articles, started petitions, gathered links, archived posts/comments, and done any number of other things to help spread awareness and document the results. To date, over 2,600 3400 people from around the globe have signed the petition.
Many organizations have also issued statements, including:
- The Alberta Library
- American Library Association
- Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries
- Association of American University Presses
- Association of Canadian College and University Teachers of English
- Association of Canadian University Presses
- Association of College and Research Libraries
- Association of Professors of Bishop’s University
- Association of Research Libraries (second statement March 11)
- Bibliothek & Information Deutschland (BID)
- Bibliothek Information Schweiz (French)
- British Columbia Library Association
- Brock University Faculty Association Professional Librarians
- Canadian Association of University Teachers
- Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians
- Canadian Association of Research Libraries (second statement March 11)
- Canadian Library Association
- Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries
- Dalhousie University Libraries
- Ex Libris Association
- Kansas State University Faculty Senate
- Langara Faculty Association
- Louisiana State University Faculty Senate
- McGill University Librarians
- McMaster University
- McMaster University Academic Librarians’ Association
- McMaster University Faculty Association
- Medical Library Association
- Mount Royal University Library
- Newfoundland and Labrador Library Association
- Ontario College and University Library Association
- Ontario Council of University Libraries
- Pennsylvania State University Library Faculty Organization
- Progressive Librarians Guild London Chapter
- Progressive Librarians Guild Toronto Area Chapter (second statement March 7)
- Ryerson Faculty Association Librarians
- Saskatchewan Library Association
- Simon Fraser University Faculty Association
- University of British Columbia Library
- University of California’s Council of University Librarians
- University of Guelph Faculty Association Librarians
- University of Guelph Library
- University of Lethbridge Faculty Association Professional Librarians
- University of Toronto Faculty Association
- University of Victoria Libraries
- University of Windsor Faculty Association
- Western Libraries
- Western University Faculty of Information and Media Studies
- Wilfrid Laurier University Faculty Association Librarians
- York University Faculty Association Library Chapter
I’ve surely missed some, so apologies for that, and please feel free to send me corrections/additions. I’m humbled by this public support from a wide range of professional and academic organizations.
UPDATE Feb 25, 2012: added AAUP and ALA. Am also adding others as they appear. The list grows!
CNI Fall 2012 notes
flickr – proteinbiochemist
A bit late with these, but hopefully there are still some useful bits here for people. Missed the entire first day of sessions due to a series of unfortunate airline and airport events, with the result being a 12-hour trip to DC rather than just a 90-minute flight. Tuesday’s sessions more than made it worth the time to go despite missing half the content. The three project briefings I caught were three of the better ones I’ve seen at CNI, and that’s saying something since the general quality is high. As always, my editorial comments are in italics to differentiate them from the speaker’s words. Read more…
Access 2012 notes
Access has always been one of my favourite library IT conferences. In terms of pure bang for the buck, you just can’t beat its mixture of good talks, interesting people, and stimulating conversations. Plus, this year’s Montreal version featured a conference first: a Sunday-morning bagel delivery service for attendees. Next year, Access will be held in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Don’t miss it.
What follows are some notes I jotted down in various sessions. My editorial comments are in italics to differentiate them from the speaker’s words and thoughts. Read more…
Bad beer, good coffee, grinders, and libraries
flickr – pinkangelbabe
Working in a service profession, customer service is on my mind a great deal. Being who I am, beer and coffee are also frequently on my mind. Here’s what happens when they all get mashed together.
One could suggest that the customer service experience is largely driven by two things, getting the small things right and consistency of experience. That oversimplifies a lot of the customer service research a bit, but I think it’s hard to argue that small things matter, a lot, and that one wants to be able to predict how a service entity will respond. We may all crab about cable companies, but really, you have to admit it’s a consistent experience, so we’re all still paying.
Read more…
Can an Arduino change the world?
flickr – m4rlonj
Perhaps not, but that’s no reason not to try. An explanation:
For our elder daughter’s 11th birthday, we bought her an Arduino Uno with which to tinker and hopefully ultimately take over the world. No, really, the idea is to expose her to the simple notion that computers have guts (hardware) and that it takes code (software) to make the guts do something useful. Kids–whether girls or boys–should grow up knowing something about technology other than how to insert a plug into a socket or like a page on Facebook.
As someone who works in an IT environment, it’s also eminently clear to me that there is still a glaring gender gap problem in the workplace. Today a vendor presented their server lines to a campus audience, and other than the two women affiliated with the vendor, there were zero women in a room of 25 or so IT professionals. Zero. This isn’t to pick on my employer, nor is it a dig at the guys in the room (myself included), but rather a general observation about IT work settings, which are still overwhelmingly male in most any organization, particularly the closer one gets to core infrastructure such as networks and servers.
Will programming an Arduino to make an LED blink or play a tune turn my daughter into an IT professional? Who knows? At the very least, though, for her it’s an initial step toward breaking down the shroud of mystery that surrounds higher level IT work. The kid’s great at math and could follow wiring diagrams in grade three, so why not show her how deep the well goes. My hope would be that she develops no concept of girl’s work/boy’s work.
The Bibliobrary 