Pre-Installed VM Download

I think downloading a pre-installed virtual machine was a useful experience. Although I did not have any major problems, I found that the exercise provided a different perspective and "refresher course" learning opportunities on a few minor points. For example, I'm still not that comfortable with the unzip and run processes so it took me longer than it probably should have to get past those steps. Nevertheless I did - and that gives me a sense of satisfaction and confidence in my ability to work through small problems.

This approach did allow me to more quickly get into the hands-on work with the repository - learning the system, entering items, and building my collections. At this point in the semester that is a good thing. I appreciated the learning experience of building from scratch (with the instructor's detailed and clearly written instructions!) the other systems. I think a combination of both building from scratch and pre-installed is recommended.

A Few Selected Federated Collections

What makes a good federated collection?

• Description of who, what & why about the collection including well-documented, clearly written information about contributing (or harvested) collections and criteria or standards for inclusion.
• Options for searching and/or browsing at different levels, with limit functions built in.
• Current / up-to-date
• Authoritativeness

The following three "service providers" meet these criteria for the most part. The only exception is the out-of-date / non-current nature (as far as I can tell) of the Sheet Music Consortium site.

Sheet Music Consortium

The UCLA Digital Library Program serves as the host for a database of harvested metadata for open access digitized sheet music. This initiative is being developed by four participating institutions in the consortium: UCLA, Indiana University, Johns Hopkins University, and Duke University. In addition, the Library of Congress Music Division, the National Library of Australia and the “Maine Music Box” at the University of Maine have metadata that has been harvested. The Consortium site also provides a list (“Sheet Music on the Web”) of other web sites and institutions that have sheet music collections. The site provides basic search, browse, and advanced search options. The site does not appear to be active. The last date I see for page updates are 2003. Nevertheless, the service is useful and easy to use. I searched (using the Advanced Search) for records with the keyword “cowboy*” and selected “Digitized Sheet Music Only”. This retrieved 14 metadata records. (When I did not include the limit “Digitized Sheet Music Only”, the result was 80 records.) One of the records I pulled up was for “Pony Maid” and the lyrics start out “In Arizona there lives a maid, loved by a great big Cowboy…”!

OISter

Describing their service as a “union catalog of digital resources”. Their focus is “useful, academically-oriented” digital resources. As of Nov. 19, 2008, OISter provides access to 18,530,232 records from 1039 contributors (including SIRLS’ DLIST, the Arizona Memory Project, the UA Libraries Special Collections). There is no browse option. The search function provides options to search within fields, limit by resource type and sort. I like how the results page allows you to see the results grouped by data contributor. A search on Arizona and cowboy* in the subject field resulted in 173 records from 8 different collections (including Arizona Memory Project and the NAU Colorado Plateau Digital Archives). This is a robust, up to date and well-maintained site.

National Science Digital Library

From the FAQ for the National Science Digital Library – “As of September 2008, NSDL contained 153 unique collections of resources and over 2 million records… NSDL collections and services are selected from high quality providers of scientific and technical materials that are accurate and appropriate for educational settings. Consequently, NSDL's search results are drawn only from this body of pre-selected materials.” The NSDL search allows you to select a variety of limits, including audience, resource format, grade level, subject and “pathway” (an audience-specific views of selected NSDL resources – or portal). There is a browse collections option, either “all collections” or within broad subject categories (biological & health; geosciences, mathematics, etc.) – and within those categories the option to focus on research or education collections. I did a search using the keywords “cowboy*” and “ranch*” and limited to k-12. I got 3 results. When I searched “Arizona” and “ranch*” as a general search, I got 55 results, many of which were scholarly, scientific articles. This is an authoritative flexible, well-supported service provider with lots of depth as well as breadth.

Cataloging my Digital Collection

It has been decades(!) since I took cataloging courses for my Master's in Library Science. (I graduated in 1979.) My career has been spent on the "public service" / reference side of things. Even so, in recent years with the various digital projects I've been involved with (Rangelands West, etc.) I've begun to become more aware of and involved in issues of metadata - but not really at the nitty-gritty design & input level. All of this is leading up to my observations regarding the challenges I've faced in cataloging my IRLS 675 digital collection. I've found it to be very time-consuming and somewhat tedious in spite of the interest I have in the subject area of the items I am working with. I am using the LOC subject terms in the Eprints collection but they are not particularly useful since they are at such a high/broad level. I think for my collection I prefer the key words and tagging approach since it allows a much more "granular" level of description.

On the question of consistency, since I'm working with such a small collection and it's only one person (me) doing the cataloging, it's fairly easy to create consistent metadata records. Even so, I feel like an amateur. I would benefit from more recent education from cataloging and/or archivist course work. I can see how it becomes much more difficult when you have many people entering metadata for a collection, especially when they have little or no background in the theory and practice of cataloging.

Select and Install a Drupal Module of My Choice

[IRLS 675 Unit 5 - Assignment 2/5]
After adding and configuring the selected Drupal modules as instructed in Unit 5 – Assignment 1, I spent quite a bit of time browsing through the available modules with distributions for Drupal 6 (Assignment 2). I thought I might want to use the Tagadelic module but decided that it wouldn’t really fit with the style/atmosphere of the UA Historic Photos collection – too “messy”. I considered some image-related modules. The PicLens module is really cool but I suspect that it’s too complex for me to download and install at least given the time (or lack thereof) that I have for this. Finally I decided to download Google Analytics. The download process went smoothly but when I got to the Site Configuration page in Admin for Google Analytics, I ran into a dead-end with the Google Analytics account number. Since my Pfander Drupal site is apparently not accessible to the WWW (at least with the IP address), I couldn’t get a valid URL response from Google. I’ve probably forgotten the URL or whatever that would be acceptable for the Google Analytics registration page. At this point, it's late, I"m tired and so far behind in everything...I’m going to put this on hold and keep moving on the assignments, etc. and maybe come back to this assignment later.

Experimenting with Social Bookmarking & Tagging

Up to now, I have had fairly cursory introductory experiences with social bookmarking and tagging. The readings this week inspired me to revisit Del.icio.us and Flickr. I added the Del.icio.us tool to both IE and Firefox on my home workstation.

Most of the Web 2.0 things seem like one more place on the web to have to go and check (log in & out, etc. etc.). I have enough trouble keeping up with email (SO old-fashioned!). I'm willing to try it out though. We'll see...

Setting the Pace on the Tech Track

When I first saw that there were going to be two instructors teaching two different tracks for IRLS 675, I was quite concerned. I figured it was going to be like taking two courses in one and double the workload. So far it hasn't been too bad. I still struggle with keeping up with the readings but, as Bruce suggests, compared to the intensive Intro (IRLS 672) course, the tech track for 675 so far hasn't been as stressful. I haven't run into any serious glitches. Things are working as they should.

This is not to say that I think the pace should be sped up. I may not be taking two DigIn classes this semester - but my "day job" and other commitments of family, etc. on top of IRLS 675 are more than enough to keep me busy late into the evening and through the weekends!

CMS: Content Management Systems and Change Management

For this week's Blog assignment (Unit 2, Assignment 5), I read the article by Susan Goodwin et al, titled "CMS/CMS: content management system/change management strategies" (Library Hi Tech, 24(1): 54-60, 2006). The authors describe the web redesign initiative at Texas A&M University Libraries with a focus on the management issues that they faced. Eight "reflections and recommendations" are given based on their experience. These recommendations are consistent with the the concepts covered in the Technology Planning unit of IRLS 672.

The authors emphasize the importance of creating a project team that has broad-based representation from across the organization (not just technical staff) as well as upper level management involvement and support. The initiative gave the TAMU Libraries the opportunity to examine and refine or update their organizational model and culture, encouraging a shift from an internal focus to a user focus. These kinds of significant changes must be acknowledged and reflected in revised job descriptions, performance expectations and support for training for new competencies & skills. Not surprisingly, communication - both internal and external - sharing information but also inviting feedback and input - is seen as central to the success of implementing a content management system and developing the Libraries web presence. The process is a continous, ongoing effort and requires willingness to take risks and learn from mistakes.

Their commitment to continuous improvement and development of their website was evident when I visited the site (http://library.tamu.edu/) and found at the top right corner of the TAMU Libraries website the question "Notice our new website?". This links to an opportunity for users to comment on their most recent website redesign which was launched on August 15, 2008.

I was curious to learn what CMS the Texas A&M Libraries use but was unable to find any mention of a specific software either in the article, on the TAMU Libraries website or in a search of the scholarly literature. I found a clue however through a Google search that leads me to think they are using Plone (at least for their interactive "Library Talk" forum for commenting on the website redesign). However when I went to Plone.net and searched for libraries using Plone, TAMU did not show up on the list.

My Digital Collection - Arizona Ranch Life in the Early 20th Century

The collection I plan to create for the Drupal project in IRLS 675 will be focused on the human experience of life on Arizona ranches in the early to mid-twentieth century. I am interested in this because of my involvement with the Rangelands West web portal and other Arizona agriculture and natural resources projects (Million Books, Sonoran Desert Knowledge Exchange, Arizona Electronic Atlas). I also have a personal interest in local (Tucson and Arizona) history.

My plan is to gather fifteen to twenty digital images, text files and potentially sound and/or video files from several digital collections or projects in the UA Libraries such as the Million Books project, the USAIN-NEH Arizona Rural History Project, the Empire Ranch exhibit / collection, and The Little Cowpuncher online exhibit. I do not have these objects "in hand" or on disk yet. I am in the process of contacting the appropriate people in the Libraries and requesting permission to use the files for educational purposes in my IRLS 675 project.

I'm assuming that this collection will not be open to the world to access. However, if it was, I believe that researchers, educators, students, and other individuals with an interest in rural Arizona history and the ranching lifestyle and experience would be the audience.

Some of the terms that I would use to describe ("tag") this collection include variations on the word "ranch" (ranching, ranchers, ranches), variations on the word "land" (rangeland, wildland, public land, grassland, etc.), agriculture, rural, family, cowboy, livestock, cattle, horses, grazing, wildlife, etc.

The Shirky essay reminds me that given the conflict that has sometimes occurred between ranchers and environmentalists, other terms of a more negative nature might also show up in a tag cloud for the collection: environmental degradation, drought, development, endangered species, etc.

IRLS 675

My blog post title isn't too inspired. Nevertheless, it is significant that I have moved from IRLS 672 (Intro to Applied Technology) onward to IRLS 675 (Advanced Digital Collections). I wanted to maintain momentum in the hands-on use of the technology used for digital information management. I was a little bit afraid that if I took a break (as tempting as it was) after 672 and went on to other DigIn courses before taking IRLS 675, I might have lost some of the gains I've made in learning and applying the technology.

A Pilgrim's Progress: Looking Back on the IRLS 672 Journey

My journey through this course has often been beset by the Giant Despair and I’ve spent much time in Doubting Castle. Not to belabour the reference to Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, I feel like indeed I have gone through many valleys and my progress has been slow. Nevertheless, I have come a long way.

I started out with very little knowledge of open source software. I’d heard about open source of course – Linux, Apache, MySQL, PhP, etc. but that’s about it. I was also aware of different commercial operating systems – mainly MicroSoft and Mac. (I'm a "lifelong" PC user.) I've lived through most of the history of modern computing and the WWW (at least from the 1980’s forward) but not really been aware of the changes, except at a very superficial level.

This course has opened my eyes to so much and has given me an enhanced appreciation for "white hat" hackers, for open source software, for the intricacies of database design and implementation.

I have greater confidence in my ability to do things with the hardware and software of my primary workstation and the demo machine. I’ve definitely developed my trouble-shooting skills when those attempts to “do things” have run into barriers.

Nevertheless, I don’t have any illusions about my amateur status in all of this. I am still very much a beginner – not fluent in the language; not very far in the pilgrim's journey. Still, I’m looking forward to continuing to learn!

Unit 11 - Assignment 13

My experience with Unit 11 was somewhat frustrating. I continue to have problems accessing the UA CBT / VCT online tutorials from home and I ran into problems getting Webmin up and running. Nevertheless, these issues again helped me develop "character": persistence, patience(?!) and faith that things will/can work out if you don't give up! My trouble-shooting / problem-solving skills are getting a work-out with this course.

Regarding the stated objectives for the Unit (compare and contrast CLI and GUI approaches to creating databases, tables and users; learn more SQL including join commands), once I got into Webmin, I felt like I was moving through easily enough.

The CLI gives me a sense of control, knowing what is actually happening when I'm creating a table, etc. I had fun(!) working with the different commands and seeing something happen when I executed a command. Nevertheless, it can be quite tedious and if you make a "tiny" little typo, it can take awhile to figure out where you went wrong and get it fixed / typed in correctly.

The GUI approach is convenient and fairly intuitive.

Regarding particular SQL commands, the join commands aren't intuitive for me. I have to look at examples and/or draw out the tables to see how the different join commands work. In general however, I don't think SQL is too difficult although I have to keep a reference of some sort handy (like the W3Schools SQL tutorial's Quick Ref table) to remind myself of the commands. It would take a lot of frequent use before would feel like I could be fluent in that language.

Difficult Concepts in Unit 10

The specific concepts that I found most difficult in Unit 10 were normalization, null values and extended regular expressions.

The issues I have with normalization at this point are that it still seems very theoretical and I'm having trouble conceptualizing it. I think as I actually work with a database design it should make more sense. It helps to see lots of examples.

Null values may work out in the same way - with experience. I found it confusing to try and follow the "Working with Null Values" explanations in the MySQL.com tutorial.

My question about the extended regular expressions ("regexp") is Why? What's the point? The regular SQL pattern matching queries seem to do the same thing and for the most part seem simpler to enter. The only example given where there was an advantage to using the regexp approach was with "SELECT * FROM pet WHERE name REGEXP 'w';" where as the tutorial points out "it is not necessary ...to put a wildcard on either side of the pattern to get it to match the entire value like it would be if you used an SQL pattern." Otherwise, I don't understand why you would use the regexp commands rather than the SQL commands. Perhaps I should look for a Wikipedia article on extended regular expressions or go through Section 11.4.2 (Regular Expressions) in the MySQL tutorial to get a better understanding of this.

Overall, the whole database design exercise (Assignment 4) was difficult for me when I actually had to come up with the ERD for my proposed database. I don't know if I got it right - having the appropriate entities and/or attributes.

As a side note, I really had fun playing with MySQL - creating the menagerie database and tables, using the different commands and actually being able to make things happen!

Thank You Internet Gods! (actually Blogger programmers!)

I just learned the hard way a lesson that we are always trying to get across to students using the workstations in the Libraries' Info Commons - "save early & save often"! I had spent a considerable amount of time writing my "Reflections on Unit 9 Readings" blog post and was almost ready to publish it when the power went out! Poof! All my profound thoughts - gone! But to my great joy, when the power came back on, I discovered that everything was there as an "unpublished draft" because of the very nice "autosave" feature! Thank you, thank you, thank you Blogger people!

Reflections on Unit 9 Readings

No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth! Things at work have been "heating up" what with transitioning to a new position, team-building, conducting an online needs assessment survey for a digital project (see below), etc. etc. So, as always I'm way behind on coursework.

That's not to say that I'm not learning anything or not enjoying the class. I'm going to hang in on this course even if I barely get a passing grade. I'm learning a lot. The readings this week have been very relevant to a number of projects I am involved with and/or observed in my workplace.

As mentioned above, I am the lead on an online survey for the Rangelands West portal / Western Rangelands Partnership (WRP) initiative that I've been involved with for over 10 years. The results from this survey and other follow-on assessment efforts (possibly focus groups or interviews) will inform the development of both a business plan for the Partnership and technical requirements for a planned "overhaul" of the portal. We have hired a consultant who is advising on the needs assessment and are seeking a separate consultant (or consulting team - possibly UA Eller College MBA students) to advise on the business plan. It's interesting that the instigation of these current efforts resulted from a funding proposal that the local Arizona Rangelands team submitted for the WRP which was not funded as requested but came back from the funder saying they wanted first to provide funding for a needs assessment, defined technical requirements and a business plan before they would consider funding the request for the portal overhaul.

Among other things, the readings have made me ponder the differences and/or overlap between strategic plans, business plans, project plans, and technology plans. Since the assignment says this blog post is supposed to be "brief", I won't follow that track of thought here/now.

In general, I really enjoyed the readings. I was amazed at the dollar figures associated with the federal government's failed IT projects (in "State of the Union" by Eric Chabrow). I could relate to some of the points made by Brenda Whittaker in the paper "What went wrong? Unsuccessful information technology projects". Some of the frustrations and failures of digital projects that I've been involved with are a result of inadequately defined or shifting/changing requirements. I had experience at least once with vendor inability to meet commitments.

I enjoyed the humor in Michael Schuyler's article "Life is What Happens...", especially comments such as "If we don't understand something, we analyze it to death. Process it through a dozen committees and maybe it will go away." I thought his idea about peer review for technology plans makes a lot of sense. As he writes "The expertise for this stuff is in the trenches."

I could go on and on in detail but the point is that I think almost all of the readings are useful, practical and I plan to keep them and go back to (and in some cases for the very long reports, finish reading) to them in the future. The TechSoup and WebJunction sites and resources are amazing - again, very practical and helpful.

The only readings that I didn't find particularly helpful were the USAC instructions on E-rate eligible technology plans. The three different pages were redundant and obtuse. No wonder Michael Schuyler had a few things to say about the hassles of applying for E-rate discounts!

Update on Installation of Demo System (Unit 8)

I'm happy to say that I've finished without any problems the required Unit 8 Demo System Installation assignments:

• Assignment 3 - Connect Remotely to Your Demo System (Connecting both from Windows and also my VM Ubuntu Desktop)
• Assignment 5 - Setting Up Your Web Site (including Setting Permissions and Creating Web Space for Your User)

See http://tumamoc/ and http://tumamoc/~jeanne

I tried working through Assignment 4 - Headless Mode, but got confused and am waiting for clarification on what to do with the KVM switch, etc.

Aside from that (Assignment 4), I think I'm ready to move on to Unit 9 (just as we are supposed to be starting on Unit 10 - oh well - I'm getting closer!). ;-)

Changing the CMOS battery on the motherboard

I'm learning more troubleshooting skills. The problem is that the troubles are hardware problems and aren't directly related to things I'm supposed to be doing for the Unit assignments. Nevertheless, I've identified some online help for how to replace the CMOS battery:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000239.htm
and
http://www.ehow.com/how_8159_change-battery-computer.html

I also got out the Dell Dimension 8300 Series Owner's Manual and it gave similar step by step instructions.

Now I'm going to go buy a replacement battery.

...The battery replacement was successfully completed and my workstation is working as it should be (so far, so good). For whatever reason, it is much quieter than it had been! (We blew out a lot of dust from inside the machine. Maybe that has something to do with the noise - or lack thereof now.)

Learning XML

I am just finishing up creating my XML Document. To learn enough to get this assignment (Unit 8, Assignment 2) done, I've mainly relied on the W3Schools XML tutorial. I scanned some of the pages for the W3Schools DTD and XML Schema tutorials. I've also taken a look at the Intro to XML by Rick Ells and Larry Gales (UW). I am such a beginner and so far behind in this class that I haven't had the luxury of working through any intermediate, much less advanced modules on XML.

When I first tried (and failed) to bring up my XML document in a browser I learned several things. One is that Firefox gives you details on where you went wrong on your coding (line & column numbers and a little arrow pointing). Internet Explorer isn't so helpful. After staring and staring and fiddling with my document and then going back to the W3Schools tutorial, I finally figured out my mistake was putting a space in my element names ("common name" as opposed to "common_name").

I like the XML Validator and the Syntax Check validator that are part of the W3Schools tutorial. I hadn't gotten to that part of the tutorial before I was trying to figure out the problem with my XML document. (I was trying to take short cuts!)

Although I understand the difference between the purpose for HTML and the purpose for XML, I'm still feeling like I don't "get it" yet on the real benefits of XML. Maybe once I have more experience and learn more about style sheets, etc. it will make more sense.

Status report on installation of my demo system: As you might guess from my frequent references to being so far behind, I am just getting ready to start with Unit 8, Assignments 3-5.

Success with Pinging Static IP Address!

It finally works! I think it must have been the Sygate firewall that was causing the problem with this - as well as with the WinSCP.

(re)Learning HTML

It's been a long time since I've posted! I'm trying to catch up after several "interruptions" (ALA and a family medical situation) and a huge number of "technical difficulties".

Nevertheless, I will now address Unit 7, Assignment 7 - "Discuss briefly how you went about learning HTML..."

In some ways this was a re-learning exercise. Back in the mists of time, I did learn and use HTML for my work as a librarian here at the University of Arizona. In more recent years we've used web editors such as Contribute and the UA Libraries instituted templates for our subject guides, etc. that have put limits on how "creative" we can get with any web pages that we create. ...So my HTML coding skills are a bit rusty - but as I read through the materials in Unit 7 about HTML, things started to come back or at least sound familiar.

I really liked the self-paced tutorial at http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp It wasn't pretty or "sophisticated" but it was effective. I liked the "Try It Yourself" editor that let you practice and see the results easily and quickly.

I haven't gotten around to viewing the UACBT HTML courses. Also, I've been focused on just getting the basic web page up (trying desperately to catch up to Unit 9 before 7/21 when we start Unit 10!) so I haven't reviewed any of the intermediate or advanced modules on HTML. Sorry! :-}

Speaking of desperately catching up... a brief status report on installation of my demo system: I have a successful test for Apache on my demo system ("It works!") but I seem to still have problems with Webmin. When I ping Webmin on my demo system I just get "request timed out".

I haven't tried pinging Webmin since I removed the Sygate firewall (which solved my problems with WinSCP) so maybe I'll have better luck this next time. I'll go try that now. If it still doesn't work, I guess I'll reinstall (again! for the third time at least) Ubuntu Server on my demo system.

When I finally get the Webmin install to test successfully then maybe I can finish the rest of the Unit 7 assignments (name resolution and wiki post).

I can only hope that Unit 8 will go more smoothly. This may be only a fantasy hope but regardless, I'll keep plugging along.

Presentation Preferences

We are asked to reflect on "the variety of presentations for [the course] material – the lecture, the links (especially to wikipedia entries), videos and podcasts. Which work best (or worst) for you, and why?"

My response is that I like the variety.

Bruce's YouTube videos have been very helpful for the hands-on exercises. The UA CBT podcasts/videos have not been quite as helpful. A lot of the time, the visual was like a PowerPoint slide and the content was not particularly illuminating. The speaker (Arthur what's his name) has a cheerful presentation style though.

I've been surprised at how many of the links are to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has a questionable reputation in general academia but it seems like for computer science / open source related topics it must be considered more reputable. I guess that makes some sense when you think about it. The hackers are the ones who know about open source and there's a strong tradition of sharing information and documenting open source stuff - therefore the Wikipedia entries in this area are probably pretty reliable.

As someone else noted in an earlier unit, many of the readings - especially the more technical ones related to specific commands - are like reading a dictionary. Rather tedious and much of it hard to follow and make sense of...

My favorite readings so far are Neal Stephenson's "In the Beginning Was The Command Line" and “The Cathedral and the Bazaar” by Eric Raymond. They both are written in such an enjoyable, humorous and thought-provoking style but have so much information about the open source movement - the history, the people, the key philosophies and controversies, etc. I think I'll go back to those readings in the future "just for the fun of it". Eric Raymond's lessons or "aphorisms about effective open source development" can be applied to other efforts at collaborative initiatives and innovation in general.

It's all rather overwhelming, both in volume of information and things to read and do. I have a really hard time keeping up. (I haven't been back to look at other classmates' blog in several weeks!) Also, I'm often concerned as to whether I'm really internalizing the content, really learning it. Nevertheless, I think this course is really "stretching" my brain and I'm quite enjoying the experience.