Since seeing this Research Associate position at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, I’ve become interested in digital humanities scholarship. Information on grants, projects and workshops can be found at the Office of Digital Humanities, a division of the National Endowment for the Humanities. There is also an open access journal dedicated to the topic–Digital Humanities Quarterly. And this academic year, UCLA’s Center for Digital Humanities is hosting the Mellon Seminars in Digital Humanities, a series of workshops about the emerging field.

Maybe that PhD in Folklore that I dream about at night will be useful after all!

1) Creating metadata is laborious. Determining the appropriate vocabulary, syntax, and structure of metadata was more work than I expected. To my knowledge, there is not a controlled vocabulary for beer so I had to make educated guesses as to what terminology to use. The most specific LCSH I could find for this topic was Beer-Belgium. I used this term in the subject field.

2) Software influences what types of metadata are included in collection and how the metadata are presented. For this collection, most of our class used Omeka. I enjoyed using the software because it was user friendly and provided several Dublin Core metadata elements for collection builders to use. Omeka even includes an explanation of what should be included in the fields. I still found determining what information to put in what field a challenge. Should the source field include the manufacturer of the item, where the item was purchased or who originally owned the item? I had several questions like this and eventually entered the majority of the metadata in the description field.

3) I need to take several courses in digital information management-stat.

4) One person’s trash can be that same person’s treasure. In this collection, I included an empty bottle of Westvleteren that I kept from my trip to Belgium almost three years ago. I had forgotten that I still had the bottle, but when I found it, I was excited about adding it to the collection. The personal or cultural significance of an item—its value—is subject to change over time. An object perceived as having little value could instantly become an object of significance; point of view and perception are the only obstacles that keep an object from being valued. The same goes for digital collections.

My first digital collection is now complete! Visit the Sergent Belgian Beer Glassware Collection. http://www.theorywatch.com:8080/exhibits/belgianbeerglassware

This week–fun with social bookmarking! I recently created a Delicious account.  And since, I’ve put my classification knowledge to the test, attempting to create meaningful, descriptive tags. In addition to needing to organize my bookmarks, I wanted to experience and explore social bookmarking and folksonomies first hand. I know, I know–Delicious is so last year. But now that I’m finally on the social bookmarking bandwagon, I am learning more about how public-created metadata complements and contrasts with traditional classification standards.  It’s amazing to see the range of tags people create for the same websites. Some librarians and scholars have criticized folksonomies because they lack hierarchical structure and controlled vocabularies. People tag digital objects according to how they will use the information or how they categorize that object in their minds. Tags can be both accurate and ambiguous. And some tags seem completely unrelated to the topic they describe. I recently created the following tags for Encyclopedia Mythica:  mythology, religion, folklore and encyclopedia. One delicious user simply tagged the site philosophy. Now to me, this tag is imprecise and limited in scope. How is this tag useful to anyone other than the user? What is the point of creating and sharing tags if they have little to no meaning to others? Don’t get me wrong–I support and enjoy using social bookmarking and folksonomies. I just wonder about the limitations of this type of classification for digital libraries and OPACs. Are controlled vocabularies really dead? I hope not.

Glassware Collection at De Bierkoning, Amsterdam (Photo: Kristal)

Since studying for (and passing!) the MLIS comprehensive test, I have been thinking about the importance of metadata for digital collections and effective information retrieval. Although my knowledge of metadata structures and records is in its infancy, this course has provided me with an understanding of the principles and functions of metadata. Understanding the reasons for metadata is particularly important as I have decided to create a digital collection as my final project for this course.

My digital collection will be the historical and photographic record of my Belgian beer glassware collection. I can already sense the raised eyebrows and murmurs of disapproval. Personal tastes aside, I am most interested in creating a collection that is original, practical and of personal significance. I also wanted to build a collection that would be fun to create instead of a chore. It is my contention that a digital collection of my glassware—complete with metadata—supplements the physical collection by providing additional information about the objects. I also believe the collection’s metadata enhances its value to both myself and other glassware collectors. The collection will provide information about the objects that was not previously known. The collection will also allow users to search glasses by beer, year of attainment, country of origin and style. As I addressed in my proposal, other glassware collections I have found do not include comprehensive metadata or basic search capabilities. With my collection, I hope to create a unique set of digital content that is organized, searchable, and useful.

Stay tuned for collection updates!

For those of us interested in pursuing a PhD in LIS, we may want to consider the Cultivating Digital Librarianship Faculty (CDLF) program at the UT-Austin School of Information or Drexel University iSchool.

Today is the first international Open Access Day. The day is sponsored by SPARC, the Public Library of Science (PLoS), and Students for FreeCulture. Open Access Day was created to educate individuals about the importance of open access and to discuss issues relevant to scholarship, education and OA. Later this evening there will be global broadcasts discussing open access from a variety of viewpoints. I wish I would have known about this day sooner–I’m sure our class would have loved to participate in this global discussion!

The American Anthropological Association recently announced that archived articles from two of its journals, American Anthropologist and Anthropology News, will be available free online in 2009. Content from 1888 to 1973 will be available via AnthroSource. So…these AAA publications have a 35 year embargo period?! I’ve heard of a 12 month embargo period for electronic journal articles-but 35 years is a generation! Discussion of the pros and cons of AAA’s open access move is available here. Although recent research is not open access, AAA has taken one small (and gold) step in the diffusion of anthropological research and knowledge.

National Archive of Scotland, Edinburgh (Photo: Kristal)

In my first post I discussed two definitions of a digital library or collection. While I find the definitions straightforward, they seem expansive and applicable to a range of online resources. A digital collection is characterized by information that is digitized and organized for effective accessibility. This immediately brings to mind several types of online resources. But many of them-like dictionaries or directories-are not usually described as digital collections. Are a digital collection and a digital library the same thing? Although I have used the terms interchangeably, a digital library can specifically refer to a library or institution web page designed exclusively to house digital documents and objects that the library or institution owns. A digital library can also be a personal web page. It looks like I need to find some research on the etymology of these terms.

Our professor, Dr. Martens, has said during lecture that a collection can be anywhere. Her definition reflects the expansive and flexible definitions of Lee and Lesk. This has broadened my conceptualization of digital libraries-and I think this type of flexibility is necessary in our complex and ever-changing digital environments.

This discussion is useful for me because I will create a digital collection for this course by the end of the semester. I have yet to select a topic for this collection. I was having difficulty choosing a topic because of the broad nature (and copyright concerns) of digital libraries. Right now I have a few ideas but nothing definitive yet. Stay tuned for updates on my topic!

The Espresso Book Machine doesn’t make coffee but it does print and bind digital books in less than ten minutes. The University of Michigan’s Shapiro Library is the first academic library to use the “ATM of Books,” as the machine is commonly known. Books printed by the Espresso Book Machine cost around $10, giving users greater access to out of print or obscure publications. The book digitization collaboration between the University of Michigan Library and Google provides users around the world with a unique opportunity to purchase print copies of monographs from the UM Library’s digital collection. Maybe the 2.0 model of the Espresso Book Machine (to be released next year) will make soy cappuccinos while you wait for your book…