New technology in Digital Culture Hertage #BLdigital

Last week, I attended the Digital Conversations: Digital Cultural Heritage seminar at the British Library #BLdigital. It involved a select panel discussion chaired by Paul Gooding (DPC) with Andrew Bevan (Institute of Archaeology, UCL), Kate Devlin (Dept. of Computing, Goldsmiths), Nick Short (Royal Veterinary College) and Professor Melissa Terras (UCLDH). 

What was most interesting to me was just how varied digitisation and new technology in 3D imaging and computer modelling is spreading in terms of cultural heritage organisations for art, archaeology, history and in libraries, archives, museums and galleries sector. Currently, we already have the best quality, colour and storage capabilities but now there is a need to allow people to see an image in various ways through image processing. For example, Melissa Terras explains that in order to know how best to capture information for damaged text or fragile items is to test re-create the damage (e.g. archival paper with blood splatter or partially burnt book pages) and then create 3D model. Testing these 3D models could assist you to read text you could not before without further damaging the physical resource. The pilot study data could then be released to then educate and create policy for similar organisations and technology.

New Developments in Library Cataloguing

So the Archives and Society had a seminar on 4th Feb and I decided to pop along. After all it is not every day you get to have a free taster session from the Cataloguing and Classification lecturer, Anne Welsh (UCL).

Having not come from a typical library school background I was expecting to be thrown into a world of jargon about all the new things in cataloguing, I would eventually have to adopt. However, to my surprise Anne presented an in-depth review of the history of cataloguing to bring the unbeknownst archive majority in the room up to speed. Oblivious to many in the library field the next move for cataloguers is RDA. Finally a move away from the cataloguing entry of MARC21, to a tool that allows linkages between various formats of the same items (e.g. book to film) and various authority headings.

For many cataloguers, that idea of #marcisdead comes with unfavourable change to those stuck in their ways of the absolute metadata standards of IBSD needed for cataloguing within MARC21. However, the developing benefits might just outway the negatives.

Disposal of Special Collections

It was thoroughly invigorating being able to attend the Historic Libraries Forum Annual conference on Tuesday. It is not every day you can attend a conference on the topic of “guarding against the disposal of collections” with a long list of guest speakers from special collections.

We had a Pressi presentation from Katie Flanagan (who was ill and couldn’t attend but still sent a copy of her speech) setting the scene about the need to build awareness of inappropriate disposal of special collections and the need for libraries to become watchdogs of this active through increasing social media campaigns. Also highlighting the idea about having a more pragmatic approach to ensure that there are less secretive sales of books and keep collections together in the public domain, if they do indeed need to change hands. 

After such an introduction I just knew I was in for a good debate. A lot of problems that libraries face is the need for more storage and space and the lack of money to invest in core library collections. I was therefore completed enthralled by the following speech from David McKitterick, keynote speaker on this topic. After speaking at length about the University of London blunder to sell several Shakespeare’s folios to where public opinion through newspapers and social media mobilised to act on the provocation of such a valuable collection, David laid out some truths that some libraries try heavily to avoid or are in denial about.

Whether it is the story of Wigan Public Libraries or Birmingham Law Society, quite simply all libraries have to discards books! However, he pointed out that libraries change with each generation and it is important for collection policies to be updated to reflect this. Lastly, he pressed the matter that we as librarians should remember that libraries are not museums. Where museums have “one-off” special items that can never be duplicated or found anywhere else in the world; books have a contextual value in a holdings collection. Therefore, it is important to avoid bulk selling decisions without consultation as it is most likely result in wasteful mishandling by the library and antiquarian booksellers that acquire them or lead to auctioning in fear of scarcity of space which may only raise funds and create space for the short-term. 

Librarian-In-Training!

It been a long time since I updated this blog but I wanted to wait for at least a month in my new position before bragging informing you about it.

I have been extremely blessed to work as Library Graduate Trainee at Kew Gardens, surrounded by a specialist collection on botany and plant science and just a walk away from the gardens that makes this institution so famous. In this last month, I have learned so much about the librarian's profession in terms of cataloguing books and helping library users at the enquiry desk and still motivated to learn more as my responsibilities grow.

With having such an opportunity, I definitely don't think it is time to slack off, so I am already thinking about my next career step - getting a masters degree in Library and Information Studies. For a lot of librarians this may not be an immediate necessity but to pursue my specific goals it is ideal to learn more about the industry and connect with many people in the process. After finding out one of prospective university choices application deadline is actually only a short while away, the last two weeks have been pretty daunting.

However, one never fears a challenge and I know just how I am going to succeed: - actively participating in activities that will assist in my career After all, nobody becomes a subject-specialist librarian for East Asian collections overnight. So look forward to my future posts on my crazy schedule between work and studying languages, workshops and conferences, training and who knows what else I will find within London.

Preservation vs Conservation

Earth Day Wallpaper Source: Fun Gallery Images

So Earth Day has passed a while ago, but with a lot of people and businesses going green lately and having started to read Tony Juniper's book "What has Nature Ever Done For US? Does Money Really Grow On Trees?" I have really really been thinking about a lot about Mother Earth.  Mainly the growing debate of whether we as a society should preserve global resources or conserve them in a suistainable way?

Conservation is the way in which humans use natural resources for the benefit of economic utilization. Whereas, preservation suggests low human involvement of natural areas while still managing the development of natural processes and the number of species (plant or animal). 

I can understand a conservationist point-of-view whereby sustaining ecosystems can benefit many species from extinction in terms of predation or competition and help humans harvest an appropriate yield that can be managed over years.  However, I can see the preservationist point-of-view where naturally regulating areas such as Yellowstone Natural Park has allowed more biodiversity than managed glasslands and preserved the lands aesthetic and spiritual values.

However, in times where global warming (caused mainly by humans) and natural disasters are heavily effecting biodiversity and causing the endangerment and extinction of various species, is preservation really the answer? Don't we also need conservation to ensure that more species of plants and animals are created for the future?  On the other hand, in times when the global economic crisis has deterred governments from seeing the worth of convservation and has reducing aid to conservation organisations, are efforts made really enough?  Also, if we were to implement just conservation techniques, how do we prevent business monopolies and the rich from benefitting from something that should be for all humans and provide economic justice.

So, I suppose what I am asking is "Preservation better than conservation? Or can there be a balanace between the two?" 

Google's Digitalisation Project: Good or Bad?

Recently, I was introduced to TEDtalks and I came across a library related podcast called "What we learned from 5 million books".

TEDtalk Podcast: What we learned from 5 million books

After four years of research, Harvard’s Erez Leiberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel states that a picture isn’t worth a 1000 words. It is worth 500 billion words. To understand human culture in which we have changed the way we use words and record them from the past to the present; one would read a lot of books but it isn’t very practical. Google’s Digitalisation project on the other hand has made it very practical and easier to find the information (specifically words and phrases) that you are looking for in the click of a button.

This made me think about:

How does Google’s Digitalisation project affect modern day libraries?

In modern times, libraries have to be able to provide the best service to users which would mean having the most convenient access to information anywhere in the world, which is regularly updated and available 24hours 7 days a week. Clearly the best answer would be the internet! It allows the preservation of large library archives, where physical space to store them in running out and the risk of damage by fire or flooding is reduced significantly. This was one of the reasons why the Google Print Library would set up in 2004, to store large in-house libraries whether it is manuscripts, books, journals etc from 5 different US universities.

The internet has become a necessity to keeping libraries alive, simply because the cost to run them has greatly increased over the years which have had a knock on effect on the amount of qualified librarian hired to run them. Not to mention due to the value of the printed resources, the amount of security needed to ensure the safety of priceless one-time items.However, for anyone dealing with digitalisation you would have to quote the disadvantage of copyrights law and issues related to digital information security and confidentiality. One would say that they are public records so there shouldn’t be any problems, but what happens when a non-subscriber to digitalized information acquires a copy? How does this affect future negotiations with authors?

Furthermore, one has to think of the managerial and financial issues related to libraries and technology. A lot of libraries have been stuck in their ways about not modernising and refuse to adopt digitalisation. That is all well and good for libraries that have good budgets, government funding and great sponsors. However, the libraries that don’t have such support, they need to be able to adapt while still retaining managerial control over licensing and policy making. This is where E-libraries have developed, as you do not need a lot of technical support and can be updated regularly at the speed in which collections are acquired. Donations can be used as a method to constantly fund them without digging into the day-to-day funding of primary activities.

This completely, disputes statements that librarians become useless with digitalisation as it takes a continuous team effect to update the online library around daily activities. Furthermore, this also improves librarians IT skills for further development in content management systems. Thus, improving upon the delivery and means to which information is available in the coming future.

I am curious however, to know what others think about this subject in terms of pros and cons of digitalisation on modern day libraries.