It Starts Again

It's the start of a new semester. My workload looks pretty hefty so far, and some of my classes aren't so "library-y," but I still am taking some very helpful classes. Especially Database Management, since that is a large part of the Metadata librarian world. Digital Libraries will surely be intriguing, and I'm glad I'm taking it with Metadata and a lot of the introduction classes under my belt.

Looks like I didn't get the library job I wanted. Oh well. I'll be on the lookout for some kind of academic job where I can do something a bit more challenging... I don't want to settle for volunteering my time if it's not very helpful to myself or the public. There's a lot of internships and part-time jobs out there that just seem pretty trivial.

So that's it for now. I was thinking of making another portfolio for my Metadata work, but on the other hand, my final project sort of encapsulates all the work I did. You can find it at: Final Metadata Project: Video Game Core

I'm back!

So, after a lengthy hiatus, I am once again returning to library blogger land. A lot has happened since I last posted. My eScience Data Management course ended, and our presentation went well enough that the researchers we worked for are interested in us implementing our proposals. So, work was done on the database, and I will later work on the finalization of our schema and making it XML-friendly. Very exciting, and I'll post (what I can) results in the future.

I also completed my internship at Cornell's CISER. There I got to experience first-hand the interaction between librarians and researchers in a non-library environment. I did my best to increase the amount and quality of metadata in their data archive. If you follow the link, you can see that the current amount of abstracts is ~70%, where it was only ~40% when I started. Also, I implemented and customized a new subject index for their archive, and I am pleased with the results.

On the school front, I have been in a Metadata class, which has really been a challenging course. I have gained a huge amount of experience with XML, taking me from a "functional" XML editor to being able to create schemata and application profiles by myself. I got experience in all kinds of metadata standards, such as DC, EAD, CDWA Lite, and others. This class has made me want to keep striving to become a metadata librarian, but I'm still keeping my options open.

Which brings me to today, when I'm interviewing for Fayetteville Free Library. It's a bit out of my comfort zone and metadata track, but I think it's always good to go outside your comfort zone when it comes to opportunities and challenges. Hopefully I get it!

So that's all for now. I'm working on my final Metadata course project, so hopefully I can share that sometime next week. My project is designing a metadata scheme specifically for video games, their consoles/platforms, and related documentation. I call it Video Game Core, or vgc. It borrows from Dublin Core, EAD, and other schemata, with a healthy amount of unique elements. Then it'll be time for the new school year! Take care.