Archive for the ‘digital life’ Category

Misc. blurps for the week of Jan. 11

January 15th, 2010 by Emily


And a picture of stamps from Hong Kong, for kicks.

One document at a time: Small scale digitization projects (haven’t read it yet but seems quite relevant to my work).

Great selection of digital collections from University of Hawaii Library (hey, I work there! But not on these): Digital Archive Collections. Everything from Hawaiian language newspapers to old fire insurance maps of Honolulu to the 442nd RCT Japanese Veterans archive.

Technology Essentials 2010: WebJunction Online Conference. Free online conference Feb. 9-10, about technology and libraries.

A Gentle Introduction to GIS: free PDF and worksheets on using open source GIS software Quantum GIS. More info at The Map Room.

In November 2010, AMIA (Association of Moving Image Archivists) and IASA (Int’l Association of Sound and Video Archives) will combine their annual conferences into one SUPER CONFERENCE in Philadelphia. Sign me up!

Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Hawaii Library Association Conference

November 13th, 2009 by Emily

Spent most of yesterday on the other side of the island in the shadow of some FABULOUS mountains (photos coming soon) at the Hawaii Library Association annual conference. Getting there via bus + bike was an adventure in itself, and it turns out there are major disagreements between Google Maps and Reality over whether certain small roads actually exist or are just overgrown and barricaded tracks through the mountains inhabited by slavering Rottweilers.

But we got there, more or less on time, and it was beautiful, and we were truly the dork library couple as the following photo attests:

HLA09
(photo by Andrew Wertheimer)

I sat in various sessions by various librarians and learned a lot about how libraries are working to incorporate new technologies to be more useful/relevant/far-reaching in their communities. Sarah of Librarian in Black talked about (among many other things) free software that could help libraries do more with less. I’ll get links up to some of it eventually, but for now I’ll stick to pictures. Speaking of which – just loaded the mountain photos from my camera:

Incredible, yes?

Posted in digital life, photography, work | No Comments »

Two interesting videos

November 13th, 2009 by Emily

First video: Keepers of the Frame.

Second video: Cloud Computing in Plain English. (Can’t embed; follow the link instead.)

Enjoy.

Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Legal Implications of Cloud Computing

November 5th, 2009 by Emily

Really interesting article from Information Law Group on the legal implications of cloud computing. Only partway through but posting now before I forget – this caught my eye because we just submitted a proposal for a tape backup system and one question asked of us was “why not store it in The Cloud?” We came up with various reasons not to, and legal/copyright issues made up some of those.

Quick edit: That link I gave is for Part One. Here’re Part Two and Part Three.

Posted in digital life, work | No Comments »

Zoom! Here comes the H2…

November 5th, 2009 by Emily

1103090914aI recently bought a Zoom H2 digital recorder, after a year or two of wanting one. It would’ve been great to have if I continued doing linguistics, but even now I think it’s going to prove useful. The day after it came, I brought it along to a meeting so we could record the whole thing and hang onto the MP3 file for future reference. I can use it for recording live music, and I hope to use it in the future for an oral-history type project I’ve been thinking about.

Best part? It’s way cute. Like a mini spaceship. Worst part? I still need to learn that recording doesn’t start until you push the record button TWICE.

Posted in digital life | No Comments »

World Day for Audiovisual Heritage

October 27th, 2009 by Emily

UNESCO has declared October 27 to be World Day for Audiovisual Heritage. (It also happens to be my birthday.)

For AV Heritage Day, the National Library of Serbia has produced a video about their recent efforts to digitize an important collection of very old sound recordings. Very cool.

My last job (a graduate assistantship in the linguistics department) and my current job (digital media specialist at a university library) are/were both really focused on preserving audiovisual heritage in some way. In the linguistics department I was digitizing reel-to-reel and cassette tapes that held audio recordings from linguistic fieldwork in Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Fiji, and other places in the Pacific. Some of these were from as far back as the sixties, and many of them were in pretty bad condition. After digitization, they were deposited in either the Kaipuleohone Digital Ethnographic Archive at UH (with the actual files stored in Scholarspace or in PARADISEC, a digital archive in Australia.

Now I’m working more on the video side of things. There’s an ongoing project here at the library to convert videos in obsolete formats (Beta, U-Matic, VHS*, and even a few films) to digital form. We’re already reformatted nearly 300 videos (over 250 hours of footage) and are working to make it accessible via a streaming server that will require authentication with a UH username. It’s been an interesting project so far and I’m really enjoying the chance to watch bits of pieces of the old – and usually fascinating – videos.

*We’ll save the arguments over whether VHS is obsolete yet or not for another day.

Tags: , ,
Posted in digital life, work | No Comments »

Opera

October 24th, 2009 by Emily

I recently, on a complete whim, switched from Firefox to Opera 10.10 for web browsing. And I haven’t looked back. I mean, Firefox is fine – it’s more than fine, it’s darn good, but there’s something about Opera that I totally like. I can’t really put my finger on it. It’s . . . it’s sexy.

A few things I’m enjoying:
-speed dial: I can use the command key plus a number to access any of nine websites, and these really do make up a huge amount of my browsing
-custom searches in the search bar: I type “v nabokov” and it searches Voyager (the library catalog at UH) for Nabokov. ‘Cause “v” is for Voyager, and I told it that.
-Opera Link: keeps my bookmarks, notes, and other settings synced between my laptop and my work computer
-Opera Unite: enabling this on my laptop (and leaving my laptop running) means I can access music, photos, and files on it from anywhere I have internet access
-keyboard shortcuts: I don’t like going back and forth between the keyboard and the trackpad, so the more I can navigate by typing, the better

I know most of these things (maybe not Unite) have some equivalent I could have gotten in Firefox. And I’m not trying to convince everyone to switch to Opera. I’m just happy that it works for me.

Tags: ,
Posted in digital life | 2 Comments »

2009 ARSC Conference Recordings

August 24th, 2009 by Emily

The Association for Recorded Sound Collections (ARSC) has posted audio recordings (and some PowerPoint files) from their 2009 conference:

http://www.arsc-audio.org/conference/audio2009/index.html

Very cool!

Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Meanwhile, back in the lab…

June 12th, 2009 by Emily

computersDuring the semester, we had 4 different people (undergrad and grad students) digitizing 5 or 6 different audio collections (cassette tape and reel-to-reel), which in the end were destined for two different archives (the institutional repository here on campus, and a digital archive in Australia). Nothing was quite finished at the end of the semester, but I figured I’d be back the week following graduation to pick up the pieces and sort all the files and metadata out.

A month later, I’m finally getting back into the lab. And with that month gap, I feel like I’ve lost track of SO much that I would’ve remembered if I’d been able to get back right away*. Still, so far today I’ve managed to evaluate what still needs to be digitized (two boxes of cassettes), get some stray files and metadata to the repository, make a list of what needs to be sent to Australia, and catch a few more things hiding in emails that need to be dealt with.

The main threat to my sanity right now is my urge to take to multitasking to extremes. It’s okay to be digitizing a cassette on one computer while I pick through a spreadsheet on another, but if I start making lists, uploading files, sending emails, and – oops – blogging all at once, I start forgetting what I’m in the middle of and getting distracted by things that should maybe wait.

Overall, there’s still a lot to do, but it feels much more manageable than it did two hours ago.

*No, it wasn’t laziness, though I wish it had been! It was family in town, a book chapter to help Frans finish, and a friend who broke her shoulder and needed surgery plus someone to take care of her.

Tags: ,
Posted in digital life, school | No Comments »

Coby MP-C896 MP3 Player

June 2nd, 2009 by Emily

I recently bought a Coby mp3/radio player. Prior to this, I’d used an iPod Shuffle for a year and a half, and before that I had an iPod Video (30 GB). Now the iPod Video has been handed down to my mom, the Shuffle is languishing in the closet, and the Coby is coming on the Midwest trip with me. Why?

Coby

About the Coby:
-It’s cheap. $30 plus free shipping (to the mainland) from Electronic Express on Amazon.
-2 GB memory is really all I need. I always have a laptop around that I can use for switching out music.
-It has a voice recorder. I haven’t used this yet except to test it out, but I think it’ll come in handy.
-It runs on a single AAA battery.
-No extra USB cable needed to plug it into a computer – just take the cap off and plug it in like a USB drive.
-Oh, and it WORKS AS A USB DRIVE!
-Screen is small but good enough for me.
-No way to clip it to clothing or bag, unfortunately. This would’ve made it more useful for running/biking.
-The radio works pretty well.
-Don’t need to use iTunes to load/switch music.

About the Shuffle:
-Small size is great, clip for running/biking is great.
-Annoying that I had to remember the USB dock if I wanted to charge/reload it on the go.
-No screen – not the end of the world, but a little annoying.
-Occasionally had problems syncing on my Mac.
-Love the purple color :)
-No radio, voice recorder, or ability to use as USB drive.

About the iPod Video:
-Video feature is super cool but I really didn’t use it.
-Huge drive size – again, super cool but I really didn’t use it all.
-Bulky and got scratched up.
-Great for navigating through collection of music.
-Obscenely expensive.

In conclusion? Apple products are great, but tons of different factors mean that for me, the cheap Coby is even greater.

Tags: ,
Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Team Digital Preservation!

May 7th, 2009 by Emily

I love this video.

If it wasn’t the last week of the semester, I would be on CafePress right now making TEAM DIGITAL PRESERVATION T-shirts for everyone who’s working on the Kaipuleohone archive. You know, I might just make them anyway.

Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Google Reader

May 3rd, 2009 by Emily

I went through of a bit of a Google Reader meltdown last week when I realized my feeds were getting ahead of me. Most of this was because I had subscribed to a massive museum blog feed that was compiling all sorts of blogs – even things in French, Spanish, and Chinese that I couldn’t even read. So I unsubscribed from that, went through all the individual blogs THEY subscribed to, and picked and chose from those. It’s much more manageable now, and it’s given me a chance to think about what RSS feeds I’m subscribing to, why, and what I’m doing with the information.
(more…)

Tags:
Posted in digital life | No Comments »

Digital archive talk

May 1st, 2009 by Emily

Earlier this week my supervisor and I gave a talk about the work we’ve been doing with Kaipuleohone, the digital ethnographic archive we’re starting in the linguistics department here. I’m just putting the videos of the talk up on YouTube – I’ll embed the first one below and then you should be able to link to the next two from there (total of three videos). Sorry the sound’s not great – it was a last-minute decision to film and so we just used the camcorder mic, which was at the back of the room. Anyway, here it is:

(Part 2 is here)
(Part 3 is here)

Tags: , ,
Posted in digital life, linguistics, museums | No Comments »

Kindle and all that

February 11th, 2009 by Emily

I like books a lot. I like real books, and turning the pages, and carrying them around, and seeing the old favorites get kind of wrinkly and yellow. I like that some of them have tea stains and food stains and weird lists jotted in the back cover.

I don’t have a Kindle. I think it’s kind of a cool idea, though. Convenient, you know? I read a lot of things on my computer – mostly PDFs for school, but I’ve also read tons of Terry Pratchett novels in TXT format. I read the New York Times online. I’ve bought the paper version ONCE so far this year, but I visit the website almost every day. It works better for me. Convenient, you know?

What am I getting at? There is certainly a tension between digital (Kindle/online/etc) and analog (real/paper/bound) forms of writing and reading. But I don’t always agree with the people who start ranting and raving that the digital stuff is going to be the death of books, the death of TRUE reading, the death of doing things the right way. I understand what they’re saying to an extent, but I think I see the value of both sides. I like my real books, but I like my blogs, and I think a Kindle might be nice. Can we have both? Can we accept that both have value, maybe to different people or in different situations, and not freak out because we’re scared about new things? Can we appreciate both tradition AND innovation?

Well. There’s my blog post for the day. Now I’m gonna go read a book. They both stimulate me and make my life richer. So there.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in books, digital life | No Comments »
Newer Entries »