SPARC

Last Thursday, April 9, SPARC hosted the annual Staff Appreciation Party for all Smithsonian Libraries employees. The SIL staff, armed with goodies, trekked across the Mall to the National Museum of American Indian’s Patron’s Lounge, which boasts amazing views of the Capitol and the U.S. Botanic Garden.  Amidst platters towering with french toast, trays piled high with scones and Starbucks coffee boxes filled the brim, lively conversations could be heard at each table of SIL staffers.  SPARC members had assembled the perfect centerpiece for the tables: five Peeps chilling on plastic Easter grass.  After all, what can say “spring” better than a Peep??  

Not losing sight of the “appreciation” part of the event, four SIL staff members were recognized for their exceptional service to the Libraries: Kathryn Phillips won the Keystone Award, Kathy Hill took home the Lifesaver Award, Sheila Riley swept up the Heart of Gold Award and Sharon Layne scored the Superwoman Award.  All of these ladies were nominated by co-workers who realized their special dedication to SIL over the past year.  In addition to these peer recognition awards, a few lucky SIL staffers walked away with Starbucks gift cards, which were given out through a drawing by Melinda Jane Tomerlin and Phu Pham.

The Staff Appreciation Party was a wonderful time for SIL staff to relax, get away from the office and get to know each other better.  Thanks to SPARC members for organizing this great event!  

My First Time

On occasion I assist our SIL's Accountable Property Officer, Kathy Hill, with inventory.   Recently, I trekked along with Kathy to the Pennsy Drive facility in Landover.  It was my first time visiting the site.  The structure reminded me of an oversized loft, and someone mentioned that the building is a former furniture warehouse.  We were early, because we took the earliest shuttle that we could at 8:00am.  Employees were still arriving, and SILRA was locked.

This gave us an opportunity to walk around some.  There's an open area housing a breakroom/kitchenette with vending machines, and high tech (stainless steel) appliances. With ample tables its also a great space for meetings. The floors are concrete, but smooth underfoot.  They have the look and feel of an industrially thick clear acrylic coating.  Oblong fluorescent lights dangle from the ceiling and they reminded me of the dipping process used in candle making.

Outside of the SIL area is something that I found facinating.  It's an astonishingly carved wooden bookwheel. I'd never heard of (nor seen) such a thing!  I asked myself; "what's a bookwheel"?  Later I looked it up on wikipedia.org. "The bookwheel, an alternative version of the revolving bookstand, is a device designed to allow one person to read a variety of heavy books in one location with ease. The books are rotated vertically much like a Ferris Wheel (as opposed to a flat, rotating table surface).

This bookwheel was invented by Italian military engineer Agostino Ramelli in 1588."  On this particular day, Vanessa Haight had an early meeting, and Phuong Pham was traveling, but Mike Hardy was able to give us a great tour of the faciliy.  Kathy is diligently checking the inventory of supplies and equipment off of her property list and "tagging" specified areas.

I was also able to verify some copier inventory.  I got a chance to see some of the things that I ordered but did not know what they really were, for instance, the Lift Truck Work Assist Vehicle.  With it, Mike can reach the highest of the high stacks and even to the ceiling!

 

In the Conservation Lab, I saw the artifact sink and the hydro servce water filtration piscosystem. David Holbert also showed us around the Imaging Center.

Ummmm...What's this?  Looks like a medieval head press thingy?  Look Ma! I can do it!  With this "easy" to operate equipment I wonder if I could get a job over here? 

In case you're wondering what to do with any additional posters that may be in your unit, Sharon Layne had a creative idea using "Picturing Words". 

Twittering at Computers in Libraries

I had a remarkable experience using the now-very-popular online social networking tool Twitter at the Computers in Libraries (CIL) conference in Crystal City, March 30 to April 1.  Lugging my trusty Macbook laptop, my intention was to efficiently write entries on what I saw and heard to share with others.  At last year’s conference, I posted to the SPARC blog, and I found it was rather labor-intensive and exhausting to copy my notes and write a coherent blog entry by day’s end. This year with Twitter, I just wrote quick lines within the brief 140 character line limit, and sent the “tweets” online (90% of the time when the wi-fi was working).  There was no need to re-edit and post notes, and interested people could see them nearly in real time if they searched Twitter for the “hashtag” silcil.

The very cool thing was that by using the free Twitter client, TweetDeck, I could have my entries in one column while following other conference attendees’ tweets at the same time.  During talks, it was almost like passing notes in the back of the classroom.  This proved very helpful at the 2nd day’s keynote.  I was sitting at a place in the cavernous conference hall where the acoustics were terrible and the speaker had a Dutch accent.  With my hearing loss, it was especially difficult to understand what was said.  By following other CIL conference tweets, it functioned almost as closed-captioning for me, and everything was understood.

So, folks, I don’t think Twitter is yet “… another ephemeral, noninformative tech plaything” (per an article by conference speaker Greg Notess).   At least in the context of a conference, this librarian found it to be extremely useful.

A log of CIL Twitter entries by SIL attendees.

Gil Taylor

@giltay

Digital Curation Curriculum Symposium Notes

The DigCCurr (Digital Curation Curriculum) Symposium held in Chapel Hill, NC provides a place for the exchange of ideas and methods in collection and preservation of digital content. An increasing volume of publications are released both online and (sometimes in place of) print but little has been done to ensure that the publications are usable in the long term. Because libraries have preserved paper content for centuries and many feel that they must also contribute to the evolving field of digital curation/preservation. However, the meeting drew archivists, and IT specialists as well as librarians.

At the 2^nd annual event (April 1-3, 2009), several presentations focused on training programs for digital curators sponsored by organizations in the U.S. and abroad. In 2006, the IMLS provided funding to three library schools (UNC, Univ. of Illinois and U. of Arizona) to begin programs in the management of digital content. Representatives from each were at the DigCCurr symposium and presented preliminary results from this still-experimental field of study. Representatives from Australia, Germany, the Netherlands and the U.K. were also on hand to discuss courses, workshops and other programs in their home countries.

There were also presentations regarding personal digital assets and their explosive growth. Many people (not just scholars) create documents, web content, photos and other electronic artifacts that are largely ignored after creation. Of course it may be that most of this material can be discarded, but inevitably there will be one or two items that deserve long-term preservation. Additionally, archivists who have to manage a burgeoning amount of electronic records, emails and other administrative data were there in force talking about the challenges—often legally mandated—which they face.

Because the SIL is not only collecting but creating digital material, we will need to make some effort at maintaining these online resources for the future.  SIL’s Digital Services Division is currently considering hosting an intern from the pool of students at the University of Illinois to provide some guidance on the issues we will need to address.

 

More information about the presentations at the latest DigCCurr are at: http://www.ils.unc.edu/digccurr2009/abstracts

Staff Appreciation Breakfast and Peer Recognition Awards

Please Join us:

When:  Thursday April 9, 2009
            9am to 11am
Where: NMAI Patron’s Lounge (Room 4018)

Breakfasty items will be served*, but feel free to bring baked contributions!
SPARCles (tm) will be awarded!
Speeches will be minimal!

Please enter the museum through the Independence Ave. staff entrance near 4th St.
The Conference Room is located on the fourth floor, beyond the top of the stairs.

*contact a SPARC member if you have questions/concerns about what we're serving. I think there will be something for everyone.