Friday, August 6, 2010

My Journal

Week 1
Day 1

Upon arriving to UCL we were greeted by Professor Watkinson and Professor Dawson. They oriented us with the campus and went over our busy two week syllabus. Later in the afternoon we heard from Dr. Ian Rowland and learned about his work with CIBER, the Centre for Information Behavior and Evaluation of Research. His discussion on information behavior in regards to who and how digital resources are used really engaged me. My notion of how we read in both the print and digital environments was both challenged and expanded.


Week 1


Day 2

Dr. Claire Warwick’s presentation on digitization and the humanities was quite interesting. I loved the multitude of possibilities she presented on how to further engage the public in via social media. The way collections can be explored and interpreted is greater democratized in the digital environment. I thought she made a great point by mentioning that engagement with digital collections often leads to engagement with physical collections and does not necessarily act as a replacement, as that was something I had been wondering about myself. One of her students Kathryn Piquette then spoke about various reader experiences and an how individuals cognitive process can affected in different contexts and environments.

Later that afternoon we visited and toured the British Library. I was immediately struck by the impressive display of King George III’s collection in the center of the building and the fact that it is still utilized by scholars today. Sue Aspitel gave us an overview of the library’s collection and mission while Ian Cooke told us about some of the technological advances in databases and archives. I was most interested in Sarah Evan’s presentation on various ongoing projects such as oral history collections and the archiving of zines. In regards to oral histories I loved that the library was helping in the creation of its own content, which represents the evolving role of the library in the twenty-first century.


Day 3

Ruth Jones from Ingram Press discussed trends in e-book publishing. It was interesting to learn about the changing marketplace with retailers expanding the presence of e-commerce operations and how Web 2.0 introduces new ways to drive content discovery and thus sales. Allison Jones from Palgrave McMillian also lectured about humanities and social science publishing in the digital age. I liked how she broke down the different mediums (i.e. journals, monographs, textbooks etc) and how the nature of each lends itself to different formats (i.e. static or dynamic XML or HTML and PDFs) and the different ways each are offered based on how they’re being used.

Later that afternoon we visited SAGE publications where Marta Sedgwick and Huw Alexander continued the morning’s discussion on the many benefits of e-books (searchability, discoverability and the freedom to learn wherever you are). Based on all the day’s speakers, the publishing industry is clearly at an exciting and challenging time.

Day 4

We visited Oxford and I was taken aback by the beauty and history of the city. Our first stop was the Oxford University Press where Robert Faber spoke to us about the institution’s history and current ongoing projects. We then took a tour of the OUP museum and were lead by the highly entertaining and theatrical Marvin. I loved seeing the Alice In Wonderland print as well as the letter written by Tolkien about the origin of the word Hobbit. I was thoroughly impressed with the literary history on display.



Later that day we toured the Bodleian Library. Out guide Bill Clennel was extremely knowledgeable and gave us a thorough overview of the university library’s history and purpose. I was in awe of the rare and historical books and documents that surrounded us. I felt privileged to get such an insider’s perspective on not only the collections but the buildings as well. Following the library tour, we enjoyed a visit to the Ashmolean Museum. I was also impressed by the breadth and scope of their art and cultural artifacts on display.

Day 5

We enjoyed a great cultural day lead by Tula Giannini. We visited the Tate Britain and the Tate Modern. It was wonderful to explore the city I hadn’t seen before.

Week 2

Day 1

This morning we heard from Caren Miloy from JISC Collections who spoke about resources within academic libraries. Then Vanessa Lafaye discussed e-publishing with specific regards to e-journals. It was which prior to today we hadn’t discussed in much depth so I was quite interested in what she had to say. Later that afternoon Professor Watkinson gave us a brief history of e-presses and prepared us for the upcoming conference.

Day 2


We spent the day in Cambridge. First we visited the ProQuest offices where they discussed at length some of their collections and upcoming projects. I was extremely impressed by the depth of their many web-based research resources, especially their historical collections of early European books and the Vogue archive. I was also impressed with their new platform project, which allows for cross-searching. They stressed the importance of usability testing via student observation and surveys and it was interesting to see those methodologies in action after hearing about them in so many of my other SILS courses at Pratt. Following lunch we toured the quaint Pembroke library and campus. It was also interesting to learn about the difference between the American and British university systems since I was unfamiliar with the cultural differences.

Day 3
We visited the Office of Public Sector Information. While somewhat dry, it was still interesting to get a governmental perspective on electronic information distribution.

Day 4
Today began the first day of the Bloomsbury Conference on E-Publishing. The theme of this year’s conference was databases, datasets and the various ways they are organized, maintained and preserved in digital repositories. Welcoming remarks were made by Professor David Nicholas of CIBER/UCL, Dr. Joyce Ray and Professor David Baker. Kevin Ashley, director of the JISC Digital Curation Centre, Wilma Mossink and Dr. Eefke Smit helped frame the discussion and raised some important questions. The afternoon presentations drew from recent studies by leading information scientists Prof. Carol Tenopir, Prof. Carole Palmer on how data is being organized and used by scholars. The concept of context and archival presentation was also main component of the day’s lectures, especially during Ed Pentz, Adam Farquhar, head of Digital Library Technology at the British Library and Neil Beagrie presentations.

An issue that particularly alarmed me was the sheer amount of raw data that goes unpublished and thus unpreserved. The question of just who should be responsible for preservation was also fascinating. The role of researchers, publishers and librarians alike seems to often go undefined when it comes to the maintainence and preservation of raw data.

Day 5
The second day of the conference focused more on digital curation and various practices and content within different disciplines. I was most impressed with Dr. Claire Warwick’s presentation on digital humanities scholars and Dr. Peter Burnhill’s work in the social sciences. According to Dr. Warwick, humanities scholars use different information seeking techniques from scientists (including less keyword searches). Often time resources are not designed to meet their habits or needs. The needs and information behaviors of social scientists must continue to be studied via further usability testing so that resources can be tailored to the specific needs of their users.

Overall I found the course and conference to be quite informative and enlightening. My previous knowledge of e-publishing was quite basic, but I left the class with a much greater understanding of the many issues and challenges librarians and publishers face in this exciting and transitional digital age.

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