Via BoingBoing
Can you tell I’m still writing those EOS papers? We will return to our regularly schedule program shortly…until then continue enjoying our new feature – InfoZen..my own little moment of zen.
an interactive & “experimental” data visualization as an oral history repository documenting the experiences of the Hurricane Katrina & its aftermath. the interface allows access to video narratives of 44 different people, & connects them by thematic associations. “lives connected” aims to tell a story, convey emotions & illustrate the relationships between oral narratives.
[link: livesconnected.com]
Found a TechSoup.org discussion board about wikis. So what’s a whiteboard? wiki 0.9?
The MCN Board has been using a Mediawiki install for board stuff this year. So far so good, but MediaWiki has some limitations that are a little frustrating, especially for wiki n00bs. Here at GSLIS we’re using Confluence which has many nice features and can be a little easier to use.
I’m looking for other Mediawiki extensions or templates that make it work a little more intuitively (like a WSYWIG editor, something to provide lists of categories you can select, etc.). Or are there better things out there? Anyone use Twiki? pmWiki? (enterFavoriteNameHere)wiki?
Clearly an article in jest, but there seems to be just a little too much truth in it. I don’t even know where to start unpacking this.
Modern Principles of Museum Administration
by A. Sinnik
From Museum Work, June 1919Definition of a Museum
A museum is an institution for the collection and display of objects that are of interest only to their owners.It is also a place where paintings, bric-a-brac, trophies of the chase, etc. are deposited whenever their owner needs to have them stored temporarily without expense to himself.
The Director and His DutiesThe Director is appointed to carry out the wishes of Curators, to sign requisitions therefor, and to take steps to provide necessary funds.
He should see that each Curator gets what he wishes, while at the same time getting no more than the other Curators think he should have. In practice these duties are sometimes in conflict.
Another important duty of the Director is to receive applications for jobs from persons who have no knowledge of museum work, and to consider the purchase of worthless specimens.
The director has no rights, bit it is customary to allow him certain privileges and the Curators will see that these are not abused.
No Director is qualified for the position he holds. This applies equally to anyone who may succeed the present incumbrance.
Curators and their Duties
Curators are to be selected for their lack of interest in the public.They should preferably be engaged in some research of personal interest, if possible on some abtuse subject that connot be finished during their lifetime and will promptly be rejected by their successors. It is also desirable that such research should entail the purchase of expensive books (see paragraphs under Library).
The principle duty of Curators is to make requisitions for supplies and services; it is not however required of them that they should employ their leisure time to do this nor expected that they will sit up nights to draw up requisitions.
If a Curator calls at the office of the Director when the latter is absent, he should leave a requisition on the desk.
Each Curator is to be provided with a private office, and an office for his stenographer. If any room is left, it may be used for the Director’s office. They should have assistants to look after the museum work and laborers or attendants for the care and arrangement of materials on exhibition.
Of the Library and the Purposes Therof
The Museum Library is a place where books may be carefully concealed from Curators. The Librarian should see that books particularly desired by Curators are not purchased. This stimulates the interest of Curators in the Librarian, and a Curator would be surprised and disappointed at finding any book he specifically needed.
Curators on their part will be careful to ask for rare or expensive books. If these are obtained, the Curator should then decide that they are unnecessary.
Curators should take care not to return books promptly, especially if they are likely to be needed by other departments. This leads the various departments to take an interest in each other’s work and may elicit candid and instructive comments theron.
Preparators or Perpatrators
The aim of the Preparator, or as he is sometimes more accurately styled Perpatrator, is to prepare series of un-finished objects; hence he should not complete any piece of work. In accordance with the principles laid down under General Considerations, as much time as possible should be spent seeking for new and complicated methods of work. His opportunities are greater in museums of natural history than in museums of art, though the work of the natural history perpatrator is often termed art because it has not resemblance to nature.An important duty is that of carefully removing labels from objects that pass through his hands; if they can not be mislaid they should be transposed. This gives the Curator or his assistant stimulating employment and occupies time that might otherwise be wasted in what is termed research.
Attendants
Attendants and cleaners should not be less than sixty years of age, and preferably in poor health. Incapacitated servants, incompetent clerks, and decrepit or slothful laborers, therefore make the best and most acceptable attendants.
Their principle duties are to read the daily papers and discuss family affairs with one another. Any time not thus occupied is at the disposal of the nearest Curator.
The elevator operator shall be provided with a comfortable seat and interesting literature. He shal make it a part of his duties to discuss personal matters with attendants on the various floors, and officers and visitors should not interrupt him when so engaged.
General Considerations
Each and every department of a museum is superior in importance and methods of administration to any and every other department. There is a seeming paradox in this, but it is practically the only point on which all Curators agreed.As a corollary to this, it is not expected that any Curator should take any interest in the museum as a whole. Expense and time should never be considered in planning exhibits or rearranging collections. Therefore any economical method of work is to be disregarded if a more expensive method can be devised.
Rules and regulations should be made to conform to the convenience of the employees; if this cannot be done, it shows gross incompetence on the part of the Director.
Suggstions to Visitors
No visitor should harbor the delusion that the Director, or for that matter any member of the museum staff has anything special to do.
Visitors wishing to see the Director on unimportant matters should preferably call about lunch time or just before he wishes to leave the building. Visitors really desiring information should be treated with silient contempt.
Any visitor not finding on exhibition any object he may wish to see displayed and labelled as he thinks should be done is requested to file a complaint with the Trustees.
In most occupations people are supposed to know something about the work in which they are engaged, but with museum work it is different and the less acquaintance one has with museum administration and the fewer facts he has to interfere with his theories, the better.
Hence, visitors should not hesitate to offer Museum Officers advice — it is stimulating to the visitor and enlightening to the Curator.
Anne @ HangingTogether comments on Richard Coxe’s summary of a new book The Soldier’s Pen: Firsthand Impressions of the Civil War. Both Anne and Richard note concern for the preservation of the personal experiences of today’s verterans, their e-mails, blogs, etc. Some recent studies have shown however that younger generations use e-mail less frequently and rely more on instant messaging and social networking sites like MySpace (grumble…where did this meme come from…). Coxe notes that Soldier’s Penn includes a “discussion about how the production of letters and other documents was affected by the ebb and flow of stationary supplies.” The equivalent here may not only whether the Internet is available to soldiers, but in what form…are certain sites blocked? What happens when they return home to broadband connections with lots of digital media in their pockets? One of the successes of YouTube has been as a place to broadcast personal deployment experiences. See “YouTube Offers Soldier’s Eye Experience of Iraq War” on MediaShift.
While I’ve seen evidence that some soldiers and their families are making attempts to preserve communications the real history of this conflict may come from efforts like the Internet Archive or various Internet preservation projects. I have yet to see a Iraq war project along the lines of the September 11 Digital Archive or the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, so much may have already slipped through the cracks. Accoding to the LOC’s MINERVA Project site, they do have an “Iraq War” preservation program underway. YouTube and other streaming formats would seem to present a challenge to automated harvesting of sites – not to mention the huge copyright mess that privately created multimedia will involve (as noted in MediaShift).
Then of course, there is also MyDeathSpace, a place for MySpace profiles of those who have passed. (offline at the time of this posting)
More interesting is what will historians do with these materials. I sometimes worry that the field is still slowly adapting to these new forms of communication and relying heavily on discrete paper-based collections. Will the kinds of social network analysis, bibliometrics, information visualization, etc. that I see in the LIS community make their way into historian’s hands anytime soon? (yes, I know CHNM is watching….but what about others?). What role do the builders of digital libraires have in facilitating this kind of research. I wrote recently about my experience with Web of Knowledge…should a digital archive provide similar kinds of analysis tools? Will we allow researchers to share their analysis tools in an open-source, history mashup – an API: “archives programming interface”? I don’t see it yet….just day dreaming.
And as a parting meme, I tag Mark to comment on this thread. I’d be interested in hearing your insights on what it looks like from the other side.
