Digital Library Projects headspace

While I was starting my research during a masters program in museum studies, I was very interested in the ethics of conservation, in a strictly physical sense with art works. At the time (circa 2002), the digital was too elusive for me, too mysterious to really grasp and get a handle of, and in some ways, it is still a bit of a mystery for most.  There are tried and true methods in physical conservation work for known materials like oil paints and stone, but with digital media the waters seem to be much more unknown and murky. We've probably all had the experience of a corrupt file or an old format that has no immediately available software solution to access it. In this regard, the digital format is quite fragile and dependent on a number of ways to access and read the file. One thing I've always thought was so difficult in the whole topic of migration is taking stock of all the implications in the digital life cycle of any media format- with questions like: What are we ...

I wanted to start a blog that would be a sounding board for my work in a brand new position at the University Library at Kent State University, as their Digital Projects Librarian. This is likely take the form of things I'm fired up about on that particular day, projects I feel inspired about (or frustrated by), and then likely some random rants along the way. A bit of background about where I am coming from- Coming into this new position at Kent is in many ways a full circle for me. I am a Kent native and twice over KSU alum. I've spent a good portion of my life in/around the Kent area, and am personally pretty thrilled to be back in the city limits for work. I most recently came from a position managing the institutional repository at Case Western Reserve University for the past 6 years as their Digital Librarian, and have also been teaching adjunct at the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State since 2011. Before that, I had worked in th...