Off the Shelf

1. Introduction
2. Foursquare
3. Facebook updated 5/6/2010
4. Twitter – coming soon.

Keeping your life private, while still enjoying the benefits of social media, is a delicate balance. You don’t want to say too much and “over share” or say too little and not get the benefits of the application. However, very few people really understand how to control their online presence. There has been lots of discussion about how to control/privatize your online presence (here, here and even here).

Security Education:
Regardless of all the information available out there in the blogosphere, I still end up educating my friends and family about privacy whenever the subject comes up. Remember, people like us read those blogs not people like them. They are sometimes blissfully unaware of the volume of information available online about them, how easy it is to get at it, and the consequences. Haven’t you ever Googled yourself? That’s what EVERYONE sees and with a little digging they can compile a complete picture about you, where you work, live etc. However, don’t get paranoid, just keep reading…

Desire to join the pack:
Despite some of the security we sacrifice many of us enjoy participating in these online communities. There are those of us that know too much and those of us that know too little about online security. I became more acutely aware of this divide when I posted to a Defcon forum about developing some foursquare “badges” to tie into the con. At first, the reception was not so great to the idea of the con having integration with Foursquare, even though I knew many tech/hack folks who feverishly used foursquare. Thankfully, one poster came to my rescue and summed it up best,

“If you’re going to take a position against location awareness (Foursquare or otherwise) simply on the basis of trying to keep your whereabouts hidden from “the man” or “bad guys”, well, you better also turn off your cellphone, stop posting to Internet forums about what you’re up to, stop spending money, stop leaving the house, and essentially stop participating in society…you’re just hopping on the ‘me too’ train to Poorly-Informed station in Paranoidtown”.

This poster is essentially my hero, he addressed the concerns articulately and with humor, I only wish I could have said it as well myself.

Security know-how for the masses:
The problem is the Defcon bunch knows the consequences and would be knowledgeable enough to lock-down their online information (or not participate at all in social media), but there is the other “blissfully unaware” group that needs to know. So that leaves us with the need/want to participate in these online universes, yet stay safe and private. So here is a run-down of how I setup some of my social media apps (Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter) and the logic behind my settings. I feel it provides me with the best of both worlds, sharing just enough and yet taking into account everything I’ve ever learned at Defcon and HOPE (thanks guys). If you’ve got one I haven’t covered here, I’m happy to help you out. Note: I’ve ended up dividing them into a series as the Facebook privacy settings alone require more explanation.

Keep Reading: Foursquare and privacy>>>

Tags:   aware · facebook · foursquare · location · media · privacy · security · sharing · socialNo Comments.

I’ve recently been working my way through Terry Goodkind’s, Sword of Truth series on audio book. Great series, I highly recommend it. The audio book version I have was digitized from the original cassette tapes (don’t worry I’m not lugging around a cassette player, I gave that up two years ago) and this morning I took note of something really interesting about them. Although my recordings are .mp3s they still have the original cassette tape intros and outros still present. Part of the intro to each “cassette tape” is the narrator stating the recordings Library of Congress’ RC number, “RC41067″, page count (573) and the number of cassette sides (21) it covers.

Cataloging Yesterday and Today:
Where am I going with this? Well, other than the obvious kitsch value, think about how these cassettes might have been cataloged. You would assume the cataloger would have recorded that the audio recording spanned 21 cassette tape sides as well as other medium specific metadata. This got me thinking about surrogates, now that I have this recording as an .mp3, how important is it that information? Do I really need to know that the recording spans 21 cassette sides?

How much is too much information?:
I have the information that I need, Terry Goodkind’s original story. The fact that it was sliced up into 10 cassettes is not really relevant, as that was just a limitation of the medium at the time and does not effect the overall story.It might affect the quality of the digital transfer, but am I the listener really concerned with the quality (its pretty good considering its from a cassette) or is my real goal the actual content. I would vote on the side of content. Was the medium that I’m receiving it in important to the whole?

To Catalog the Details or Not?
How much time did that cataloger in 1994 spend recording this medium specific information, only to have it all kind of negated by the fact that it’s now an .mp3 making the cassette surrogates kinda irrelevant? Regardless of the cassette version, Richard still fights the good fight in his quest for Truth. So would I really be missing something by not knowing how many cassettes his journey was recorded on 16 years ago? I might just wonder why the recording sounds so analog, but other than that, what am I the end user getting from that information?

Readers ask yourselves, “How much time do you spend recording medium specific information about surrogates that might be irrelevant 10 years down the line?” Was it worth it? Flip to the other side of the coin and ask yourself, “What are the consequences of not recording this information?”

Tags:   cataloging · digitization · metadata · standardsNo Comments.

Henry Stewart: Digital Asset Management New York
Hilton NY, May 20-21, 2010
“The Art and Practice of Managing Digital Media ”

New York Archives Conference
Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY, June 2-4, 2010

Presentation Title: It works, but is it usable? Usability and DAMS

In 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art attempted to determine whether its current Digital Asset Management (DAM) system could be re-engineered to increase overall user acceptance. The approach was to use best practices from information science and user-experience to guide the process of needs discovery and analysis. This talk will outline Nielsen’s usability heuristics which were used as a means of application evaluation and as a reporting framework for the study. Examples from the user study will be used as a means to illustrate these heuristic principles.

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Here’s a list of questions that people frequently email me regarding folks in my line of work (digital asset and content management):

1. About me and the Rutgers MLIS program: Since I had already been working in the field for 6 years (digital archives and digital asset management) when I entered the program, my advisor let me take whatever classes I wanted. He told me to get in and then get out. I honestly can’t even remember what classes I took. Since I was in the process of transitioning from non-profit digital archives work back to advertising (corporate knowledge management) work, much of the curriculum was either a repeat of what I had been practicing in the field or I took the course just to get the credits. I do recall taking metadata, records management, interface design, information visualization and a class on web 2.0 (which was pretty funny). The North Carolina program is probably the most innovative for the kind of work I do now, or at least the most applicable.

2. Certification for Archivists: There is a lot of argument in the field right now about certification and are you “really” an archivist if you aren’t certified. This is one of the reasons I am happy I don’t work in that field anymore, more emphasis on academic credentials than if you can “really” do the job or not.

3. Program Innovation: I think as far as innovation goes, it was in comparison to the other two programs (Pratt & NYU/Palmer). Mainly, because the RU program has a course in information visualization and interface design as well as trying to get people exposed to web 2.0 (can’t believe there are people that by this time aren’t). However, I haven’t checked either programs in some time so they may have added some new courses.

4. LIS Program Overall: I didn’t like that I felt as though I was on “Library Island” the whole time. The program is short sighted in that the main focus is on working in a library and only draws from the world of libraries. Even though the information science field is so much broader than that, you can do almost anything with this degree!

5. Human Information Behavior Coursework: I detested the curriculum for the course, I am not a big fan of papers that really say nothing at all or when they do have an important point to make its buried in a bunch of “academic speak”. I also felt as though it was a bunch of librarians practicing “armchair psychology”. I’m sorry, but I really can’t respect someone who did their undergraduate work in English Literature who thinks they can now discuss at length the psychology of human beings in their search for information. It was very unfortunate that the curriculum only drew from the world of libraries and they never pulled from, or exposed the students to, the worlds of: usability, user experience design, advertising, information architecture, business analytics. I firmly believe that a user experience designer knows more about human behavior in relationship to information than any librarian any day. All the papers weren’t horrific, however they just seemed like old approaches and not very fresh. I think they should rename the class to “Library Science Classics” and then we would be getting somewhere useful. Who doesn’t like the classics?

6. Q. What do I do now?: A. Now I work in creative technology, more specifically digital asset or content management, which is a combination of lots of skills learned in the field. I do sometimes come into contact with archives when I do consulting work it’s usually about software choices (digital asset management applications), standards (metadata schemas, controlled vocabularies, taxonomies) and digitization best practices. The MLIS program really just gave me the slip of paper to move forward. The only thing I can suggest is you find a really talented archivist to work under for some time, who is involved in a digitization program.

7. Q. How does a digital arts/design background mesh with digital archives?: A. For how digital archives overlaps with digital media backgrounds just have a look at this and it will become clearer: http://dpbestflow.org/. Doesn’t this all seem so familiar? As digital media folks we already posses the knowledge on how to get archives from point A to point B when it comes to digitizing their collections. Many of the skills you need are skills we used everyday in our digital design work:

* Knowledge of file formats, applications (graphic design and web design), copyrights, management of digital materials (related to content management), how to scan and use digital cameras, color management, just to name a few.
* Also, if you did design you have a pretty good understanding of the importance of description, keywords, tags etc as you had to search online photography/image/art databases to locate specific assets that fit your needs. For example “boy with umbrella”. So you have a good idea what people look for and how they search.
* The stuff that people like us need to pickup is all the archives specific stuff, such as dealing with online collections, digital asset management (which if you work in media today you’ve been in contact with regularly).
* We also need to know taxonomies and metadata schemas like the back of our hands.
* Combine that with some solid programming skills, which if you did website design you can easily pickup EAD, XML and other information management specific syntax’s.
* The other biggie, which is harder for more creative folks to pickup, is information architecture and semantic web stuff. These skills help us to choose good, flexible and forward thinking applications as well as innovative ways to manage digital collections and their associated information.

8. Q. I have no digital/technology background work what classes can I take to do what you do?: A. I love this question [scarcasm]. A good place (don’t take this the wrong way) to start is to look up (wikipedia, google etc) common terms that appear such as “content management” “digital asset management” etc and learn more about them and their many facets. Unfortunately, there aren’t just some classes you can take or some applications you can learn, there are a zillion! Also, all this is dependent on factors such as the chosen work environment (non-profit, corporate, educational etc) and even those differ individually. Another factor is the type and amount of data/information you are to manage and a zillion other things that align to form the scope of the work. Oh and don’t forget the years of experience that you will need doing each any every one of these individual facets (see Q&A #9) in order to be a proficient Digital Asset or Content Manager.

9. Q. What kind of experience do I need to do what you do?: A. Its essential to have several years experience doing digital delivery: website development, application development, digital imaging etc. to pursue work in this area. I have 6 years of experience as both a web and graphic designer. I also have an 8 year background touching on all the little bits and pieces that make for a good digital asset or content manager: traditional archives work (collections processing), digitization best practices, digital imaging, metadata, taxonomy development, digital and content management systems, UX, IA, data analytics and HCI. Some of these which obviously overlap and came from experience in the design world.

10. Q. Can you tell me some good resources for information about being a digital asset manager/digital archivist?: You can always check out my delicious links to see all the various topics that I keep track of and read up on daily: My Delicious Links or stuff I follow on Google Reader .

Tags:   archives · archivists · education · experience · information_science · MLIS · RutgersNo Comments.