Shawn Averkamp is Manager of Metadata Services at The New York Public Library where she directs strategy, production, ontology design, and quality control for digital resource and discovery metadata. Previously she worked as Data Services Librarian and Interim Head at the University of Iowa Libraries Digital Research and Publishing department, contributing to the Libraries’ digital collections, institutional repository, and crowdsourcing platform, DIYHistory, and as Metadata Librarian at the University of Alabama Libraries. She earned her MLIS from the University of Iowa and holds a BA in Music from Luther College.
Month: March 2017
Digital Library Initiatives at NCSU vs. Code Camp: A 2-Way Interview
BY KATIE M.
One of my favorite presentations at Code4Lib 2017 was delivered by Kevin Beswick and Nushrat Khan, two librarians with the Digital Library Initiatives (DLI) department at North Carolina State University (NCSU) Libraries. Their talk, Fostering a Departmental Culture of Peer Mentorship in Software Development, covered programs created in response to the growing number of new professionals, student workers and full-time staff entering the library with a desire to advance their software development skills. This certainly isn’t unique to NCSU and in addition to my own experience, I was reminded of a report released last year which reflected on feedback from past National Digital Stewardship Residents. Many of the participants expressed an expectation that tech education would be a larger part of their residency through a mentor or other on-site resource. Dev skills are increasingly necessary in our field but the breadth of library science as a discipline doesn’t leave much room for a comprehensive computer science curriculum, which leads to a lot of independent learning.
My own solution was to pursue a ‘coding bootcamp’ during my fellowship with METRO, I found the teaching techniques to be novel and effective. After meeting at Code4Lib, Kevin and I decided to get together to compare learning methods employed at NCSU with those at code camp. Here’s what came up in our conversation:
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Library Bytegeist Episode 6: Talking Privacy with Librarians
Libraries have always been places for free and unfettered intellectual exploration. But how is this threatened by the inherent leakiness and insecurity of the networks we use to access information these days? In this episode we talk to Alison Macrina, Bill Marden, Melissa Morrone, Chuck McAndrew, and Phoebe Stein about privacy policies, CryptoParties, Tor relays, and other adventures.
Related Articles and Resources:
BPL’s Digital Privacy Curriculum: http://www.dataprivacyproject.org/
Protecting Patron Privacy, Library Journal, July 14, 2016 by Alison Macrina
lj.libraryjournal.com/2016/07/digita…atron-privacy/
ALA Questions and Answers on Privacy and Confidentiality
www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Sectio…cfm&ContentID=15347
Library Patron Privacy in 2014 – Honoring the Legacy of Zoia Horn, CUNY School of Law, 2014, by Sarah Landon
academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewconte…ntext=cl_pubs
A Flaw in the Design, by Craig Timberg, May 30, 2015, The Washington Post: www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2….036cf687d2ce
Library Freedom Project: libraryfreedomproject.org
State Privacy Laws Regarding Library Records www.ala.org/advocacy/privacycon…rivacy/stateprivacy
EFF’s Surveillance Self-Defense: ssd.eff.org/en
Tactical Tech’s Security-in-a-box: tacticaltech.org/projects/security-box
Podcasts
Down the Security Rabbit Hole: podcast.wh1t3rabbit.net/
Privacy Paradox podcast: project.wnyc.org/privacy-paradox/
TechSNAP podcast: www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/techsnap/
Music and Soundtracks:
Opening and closing track: “Magic” by Otis MacDonald
This podcast uses these sounds from freesound:
probe1gain by pheonelai (www.freesound.org/people/phoenelai/)
Intro 1L72 by Setuniman (www.freesound.org/people/Setuniman/)
etc..
Tools used to record this podcast:
Blue Yeti microphone: www.bluemic.com/products/yeti/
Transcribe: transcribe.wreally.com/app
Reaper: www.reaper.fm/
Izotope: www.izotope.com/en/products/repai…plug-in-pack.html
Library Bytegeist Episode 5: Talking Love Letters in the Digital Age with AMNH’s Iris Lee
Saving love letters in the digital age can be tricky. Iris Lee, a metadata analyst at the American Museum of Natural History, came up with a clever solution for saving the text messages between her and her partner off her old cell phone. Dr. Michelle Janning, professor of sociology, and Davy Rothbart, founder and editor of FOUND Magazine, weigh in with their thoughts about how and why people save love messages.
Episode transcript: docs.google.com/document/d/154Qxt…/edit?usp=sharing
Related Books, Articles, and Links:
Dr. Michelle Janning’s upcoming book, The Stuff of Family Life: How Our Homes Reflect Our Lives published by Rowman & Littlefield: https://exit.sc/?url=https%3A%2F%2Frowman.com%2FISBN%2F9781442254794%2FThe-Stuff-of-Family-Life-How-Our-Homes-Reflect-Our-Lives
FOUND Magazine: foundmagazine.com/
FOUNDpodcast: www.facebook.com/FOUNDpodcast/
Cassettes from My Ex: Stories and Soundtracks of Lost Loves, by Jason Bitner, co-founder of FOUND Magazine: www.amazon.com/Cassette-My-Ex-St…cks/dp/0312565526
“Archiving Cell Phone Text Messages” by Mike Ashenfelder on the Library of Congress’ blog The Signal: blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2012/04/…one-text-messages/
“Total Recall: How to Back up all the text message on your iPhone” in Wired: www.wired.com/2013/11/backup-sms-iphone/
Music and Soundtracks:
Opening and closing track: “Magic” by Otis MacDonald
“Scissor Vision” by Letter Box
Tools used to record this podcast:
Blue Yeti microphone: www.bluemic.com/products/yeti/
Transcribe: transcribe.wreally.com/app
Reaper: www.reaper.fm/
Using OpenRefine to Reconcile Name Entities
BY KAREN H.
OpenRefine is a well-loved tool among information professionals for cleaning “messy” data, mostly tabular data (Excel, CSV, TSV), but also record data in serializations like XML. Do you have values in an Excel spreadsheet with unwanted whitespace? Or multiple spellings for the same term? Then OpenRefine might be just the tool for you. OpenRefine is flexible enough to handle script-writing or the writing of regular expressions to batch alter values any way you choose. And scripting can be used for other purposes, too, including calling outside APIs to align new data with what you have.
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