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Jan. 14th, 2014 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyA long time ago, and in a galaxy far away, skygiants asked me to talk about your classes and what the neatest/nerdiest stuff you're learning is!
I decided today would be a seriously good time to talk about this, because I just started a new job which has kind of astounded me; due to the relative disorganisation of my course leader I sometimes feel like I don't have any sort of mental structure to hang my new learning upon, and despair of ever sorting it all out. And then I go into a new environment and design a comprehensive information architecture folder hierarchy that will link digital and physical copies of photos and provide more comprehensive cataloguing than the overview currently in place, as well as offering suggestions for optimising the metadata schema.
So I've apparently learned something, then. :D
My educational choices have always been hugely practical in nature. I pick things that are reasonably widely applicable and have good job prospects at the end of them, because I have been brought up in a house where belts were generally pretty tight. We had everything we needed and more, but there was always a sense of fragility to it, and I have learned not to ask for help wherever it is possible to avoid it. My parents aren't very good with money, over all, which is why I've never been particularly successful with it; although I can support myself I have never had savings, luxuries or holidays, and I have no material evidence of how long I've been working. It's a work in progress, and I am attempting to do better, but money is one of the things that cause me the most sleepless nights.
So I have a BA in English Language Studies (which is full of really useful transferable skills, and has use in terms of the semantic web, as well as the 'grammar' of information architecture. It's also great for communication skills and the like), a PGCE in secondary English, and am currently working towards an MSc in Digital Library Management.
Digital Library Management has a huge array of attached optional modules. The main and obligatory modules are Management and Strategy of Digital Libraries (which involves things like management and strategy skills, obviously, but also information on licensing policies, collection management policies, and overviews of what makes a digital library and such), Research Methods (for the dissertationing), and Digital Multimedia Libraries (which I suspect my job will come in very hand for - more on that later - and involves the management of different file types, and I'd imagine some work on information architecture and digital preservation).
Outside of these things you can go down a technical route - looking at information architecture, database building, web development and resource management - or a more theoretical approach. My modules have been chosen with the eventual goal of working in online education - distance learning, e-learning and home schooling are all potential areas. So far I have done an independent study on Educational Informatics (no, I don't know either - mostly I am assessing their online materials from a digital literacy perspective, the essay has to be done by the 27th, it is very much in its infancy), Information Retrieval (search engines, how they work etc. - essay was an evaluation of Right Move's search interface), and Designing Usable Websites. I'm currently coding the website for that last one; or more accurately, I'm currently putting together all the deliverables which will be appendices to the design essay, and will then code it. Design's due on the 20th, implementation on the 27th. The other essay due on the 20th, an individual report on a digital library system (for which I chose AO3 :D) has been done and handed in already, so that's one minor stress relief.
Next term I am doing Information Literacy Research and a module on Social Media and Library 2.0. (Please do ask if you want any further information about any of these modules, although if I haven't done them yet I cannot guarantee I can answer).
I have two new jobs. The one starting in two weeks is to do with adult learners and community learning schemes, and will involve one day a week of data entry and analysis paired with possible focus group work on course evaluation.
The one I started today involves digitising some of the physical photographs in the collection of my university (scanning them in, essentially, but applying the information architecture mentioned earlier in the consistent naming and storage of them), and putting them into a database with attached metadata that is consistently applied for eventual migration online. So today I had a tour of the library archives. This involved wild speculation about being crushed by electronically moving shelves; my supervisor proved this wasn't possible with a cardboard box (the cardboard box later took its revenge for being used in such an experiment by refusing at length to part from its lid). There was a cage for materials to be worked with, which was SO AWESOME, I felt like a detective. There's definitely elements of detective work in what I'm going to be doing; deciphering a date written in appalling handwriting involved speculation on appropriate skirt length in the relevant decades. There are boxes and boxes of photos to work through, and whether they are worth being scanned is highly dependent on the amount of context that's available for them. If there are named people in them, for example; how much has been written on the back, or can be gleaned from the items stored with them. Basically how much of a story they can tell has a huge impact on their value.
The most useful thing about this is that the course I am on does assume an awful lot about previous experience with libraries, something I have none of. This is a chance to immerse myself in the culture and language of libraries, pick up relevant detail they won't think to teach me, and get helpful experience to go on my CV. And if the fact that I get to be absolutely gloriously pedantic in the process delights me, no one needs to know.
Somewhat unrelated but both nerdy and neat: today we found the official biography-thing (I forget the proper name, it's been a long day) and folder of evidence for Michael Palin's honorary degree from my uni. :D
skygiants asked me to talk about your classes and what the neatest/nerdiest stuff you're learning is!I decided today would be a seriously good time to talk about this, because I just started a new job which has kind of astounded me; due to the relative disorganisation of my course leader I sometimes feel like I don't have any sort of mental structure to hang my new learning upon, and despair of ever sorting it all out. And then I go into a new environment and design a comprehensive information architecture folder hierarchy that will link digital and physical copies of photos and provide more comprehensive cataloguing than the overview currently in place, as well as offering suggestions for optimising the metadata schema.
So I've apparently learned something, then. :D
My educational choices have always been hugely practical in nature. I pick things that are reasonably widely applicable and have good job prospects at the end of them, because I have been brought up in a house where belts were generally pretty tight. We had everything we needed and more, but there was always a sense of fragility to it, and I have learned not to ask for help wherever it is possible to avoid it. My parents aren't very good with money, over all, which is why I've never been particularly successful with it; although I can support myself I have never had savings, luxuries or holidays, and I have no material evidence of how long I've been working. It's a work in progress, and I am attempting to do better, but money is one of the things that cause me the most sleepless nights.
So I have a BA in English Language Studies (which is full of really useful transferable skills, and has use in terms of the semantic web, as well as the 'grammar' of information architecture. It's also great for communication skills and the like), a PGCE in secondary English, and am currently working towards an MSc in Digital Library Management.
Digital Library Management has a huge array of attached optional modules. The main and obligatory modules are Management and Strategy of Digital Libraries (which involves things like management and strategy skills, obviously, but also information on licensing policies, collection management policies, and overviews of what makes a digital library and such), Research Methods (for the dissertationing), and Digital Multimedia Libraries (which I suspect my job will come in very hand for - more on that later - and involves the management of different file types, and I'd imagine some work on information architecture and digital preservation).
Outside of these things you can go down a technical route - looking at information architecture, database building, web development and resource management - or a more theoretical approach. My modules have been chosen with the eventual goal of working in online education - distance learning, e-learning and home schooling are all potential areas. So far I have done an independent study on Educational Informatics (no, I don't know either - mostly I am assessing their online materials from a digital literacy perspective, the essay has to be done by the 27th, it is very much in its infancy), Information Retrieval (search engines, how they work etc. - essay was an evaluation of Right Move's search interface), and Designing Usable Websites. I'm currently coding the website for that last one; or more accurately, I'm currently putting together all the deliverables which will be appendices to the design essay, and will then code it. Design's due on the 20th, implementation on the 27th. The other essay due on the 20th, an individual report on a digital library system (for which I chose AO3 :D) has been done and handed in already, so that's one minor stress relief.
Next term I am doing Information Literacy Research and a module on Social Media and Library 2.0. (Please do ask if you want any further information about any of these modules, although if I haven't done them yet I cannot guarantee I can answer).
I have two new jobs. The one starting in two weeks is to do with adult learners and community learning schemes, and will involve one day a week of data entry and analysis paired with possible focus group work on course evaluation.
The one I started today involves digitising some of the physical photographs in the collection of my university (scanning them in, essentially, but applying the information architecture mentioned earlier in the consistent naming and storage of them), and putting them into a database with attached metadata that is consistently applied for eventual migration online. So today I had a tour of the library archives. This involved wild speculation about being crushed by electronically moving shelves; my supervisor proved this wasn't possible with a cardboard box (the cardboard box later took its revenge for being used in such an experiment by refusing at length to part from its lid). There was a cage for materials to be worked with, which was SO AWESOME, I felt like a detective. There's definitely elements of detective work in what I'm going to be doing; deciphering a date written in appalling handwriting involved speculation on appropriate skirt length in the relevant decades. There are boxes and boxes of photos to work through, and whether they are worth being scanned is highly dependent on the amount of context that's available for them. If there are named people in them, for example; how much has been written on the back, or can be gleaned from the items stored with them. Basically how much of a story they can tell has a huge impact on their value.
The most useful thing about this is that the course I am on does assume an awful lot about previous experience with libraries, something I have none of. This is a chance to immerse myself in the culture and language of libraries, pick up relevant detail they won't think to teach me, and get helpful experience to go on my CV. And if the fact that I get to be absolutely gloriously pedantic in the process delights me, no one needs to know.
Somewhat unrelated but both nerdy and neat: today we found the official biography-thing (I forget the proper name, it's been a long day) and folder of evidence for Michael Palin's honorary degree from my uni. :D
