Is Viagra part of history now? Yes, yes it is, in my opinion. Just think of the cultural changes since 1998. Now think of the political changes. And the economic changes. Yes, 1998 is history now.
Someone’s written a dissertation on how library cataloging systems marginalize the occult and make books about it difficult to find. How cool is this student?
I’ve been mulling this over for a while now. If one of the primary reasons archivists are unwilling or afraid to come forward with information is possible litigation and job loss, then there should be a way to encourage whistle blowing or at least protections for archives that receive and make available materials like the cigarette papers.
I propose that archivists should consider an Archivists Legal Defense Fund. Modeled after the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which focuses on first amendment rights for comic book authors, the CBLDF is primarily funded through donations, which provides authors with legal defense. The CBLDF is not obligated to take every case that they receive. The Archivist’s Legal Defense Fund would have a different goal of reducing secrecy in the government and corporations by providing legal defense for archives, archivists, and records mangers that disclose information to the public.
The community would need to create stronger ties to lawyers, as well as the ACLU. Additionally, institutions can create ties to university law schools. The organization would run on donations from the archival community and would be open for petitions from individuals facing litigation related to disclosure. Cases submitted to the defense fund would not necessarily be defended. This would prevent defense of archivists and records managers who disclose trade secrets and proprietary information for unethical reasons.
There could be several benefits to creating this organization.
-Increased openness and accountability in government, NGOs, and corporations.
- Creation of an archival backbone,
- Increased professionalism and accountability.
- Legal protections
- Creation of a stronger sense of community.
OpenLibrary.org is so effin’ COOL. It has a lot of potential, and it’s an incredibly ambitious project, but it is made of awesome. I hope it works out really really well, because just think of the access people can have.
As the archival assistant here, I tend to get old video tapes chucked at me a lot. This is both interesting and frustrating. Interesting, because it turns shelving into a puzzle that involves moving vast numbers of VHS tapes around and frustrating because I don’t know if the tapes are important or if we have any paper description of them anywhere.
Today, I transcribed a tape at the 2002 Student Service Awards. It was a speech given by Late Senator Paul Wellstone. Seeing that he was kind of a big deal here, I decided to search for the text of the speech. Alas, Sen. Wellstone gave two speeches that day. One was two the DFL convention, and the other was at this awards ceremony. The speech did not appear anywhere online.
So, I called up the state archives. I talked to a lovely Reference Librarian who informed me that while the text of his speech probably exists in their archives, it has possibly not been accessioned yet, and, 6 years on (and this is just my understanding), they have not come to an agreement with the Wellstone family on how much should be released to the public. Being a member of the public, it’s tough luck for me.
So, this morning was spent infront of a TV that has no remote control running back in forth, pausing it, rewinding it, playing it, and trying to type it out at the same time. But we now have a paper copy of the text.
Over the weekend, between work and a bike race and eating far too much, I have been getting overly gleeful about various open source things. My dad installed Ubuntu on a computer he’s been trying to configure for ages, and had fantastic results. I was all rarin’ to go on the Archivist’s Toolkit for this morning, only to discover, ALAS, that the database program we’re using doesn’t use MARC XML.
There’s an option to export the data into an XML format, which would be fine and dandy, if it actually worked. According to the database manual, “XML is a new way to code…” Obviously, they didn’t think it would last, so they made the bloody thing export slower than molasses. No support of new technologies here. Bah. After about 45 minutes of waiting, 0% of the database has been exported into XML, so I’ve given up for now. The database will be down for all of Tuesday and Wednesday morning.
And then, there’s no guarantee that it will even work. Hopefully the database doesn’t explode and take my computer with it.
As a self-proclaimed mini!librarian, there are many things I’m rather unsure of. I’m trying to learn as much as possible before I leave for Pitt, but every once in a while things stump me.
In my work as a mini!Librarian at a non-profit, I’ve been working on a way to write a training manual for the rest of the office. As a start, I made a lovely power point (AKA.: Library database 101).
I am aware there are errors, I just hope there aren’t too many of them. I have to present next week Thursday.
