My thoughts as I navigate the world of data librarianship.
Written collaboratively by the NDSR 2014/15 Cohort for the NDSR-NY Residents' Blog. See original posting here.
Well folks, this marks the final post from the 2014-15 NDSR-NY cohort. Before we officially sign off we wanted to say a big thank you to everyone who has followed our journeys via this blog, and offer some final thoughts on what the residency has meant to us.
Written collaboratively by the NDSR 2014/15 Cohort for the NDSR-NY Residents' Blog. See original posting here.
Applications to the 2015-16 National Digital Stewardship Residencies in New York are open! The deadline to apply has been extended by two weeks, to Friday, May 22! Woo! As if you needed more good news than that, METRO also recently announced the host institutions for this round of residencies, and they’re very exciting (like we’d probably compete with you for them if we could!). You can learn all about them and their projects here.
As the the current cohort round the corner and bring their 2014-15 residencies into the home stretch, we’re frequently asked for our advice to prospective Residents, those of you considering applying to the program (most important advice: do it!). We touched on some of these themes in our most recent interview with METRO. Here, in the meantime, are our summary responses to those questions most frequently asked of us live and online:
Originally, I had my presentation scheduled for about 10 minutes but due to time constraints on the agenda, it was shortened to five. This meant I speed-talked my way through all the analyses I had finished the Friday before (April 3) while hoping to impress on everyone there that the risk of data loss is not only imminent, but inevitable. Given the questions and comments I received directly after my presentation and in the week to come, I can say this presentation was a definite success.
For the Residency itself, all I have left to do is my final report--this is a compilation of my previous reports and analyses with recommendations for storage, management, and preservation of the Museum’s vast scientific collections and research data. These previous reports include: a plan for the length of retention for digital assets, an environmental scan to see what other similar institutions are doing for their data, and an overview of what federal agencies fund AMNH research, and whether those agencies require data management plans or not. All these previous reports will come together to form my recommendations as well as provide the Museum with the information it needs to understand and interpret my recommendations.
Hi everyone!! So, like Karl, I was recently asked to write a post on another blog (The Smithsonian Field book Project blog!) and thought, instead of rewriting the whole post and publishing it here, I could just point our lovely readers in the right direction!
The post on the Smithsonian Field book Project blog details the specific interactions I've had at the American Museum of Natural History with field books. The majority of my experience with field books was actually initiated by the curators and scientific staff that I interviewed--they will often talk about how invaluable their field notes and lab notes are to maintaining the long-term viability and usability of their research data, or how older field books are incredibly impactful to their ongoing projects. For those that don't know, field books are essentially notebooks that scientists bring into the field to record their observations and findings. There are a few tidbits in my post about how field books are necessary as primary source documentation for ongoing and current scientific research. Basically--there are really cool old field books at the Museum and they are still relevant to science!
Hi everyone, this is Vicky reporting from Portland, Oregon! I am here on the west coast for the first time attending code4Lib 2015, and since today is the last day of the conference, I thought I’d give everyone a bit of a report about what went on here.
First, I want to talk about the format of presentations at code4Lib. It’s absolutely unlike any other conference I’ve ever been too. There are no multiple sessions going at once. Everything is streamlined into one room. Yes--we sat in a room from 9-5pm watching 20 minute presentations, with an hour for lunch and two to three half hour breaks. This sounds really daunting but I have to tell you--it was so refreshing! I’ll talk a little bit more about the actual presentations later on.