Tag Archives: open source

O.A., eh oh.

Posted on July 13, 2009 | 3 Comments

As I’ve mentioned before, I was Managing Editor of the Faculty of Information Quarterly at school, but in my new capacity as an academic library, I serve on the York University Libraries’ Scholarly Communications Committee. All of a sudden, instead of just complaining about the inherent evil of journal vendors, I actually have to learn about tangible issues! Ah crap!Journals

One of the movements sweeping the world of academic publishing is the Open Access movement. I didn’t realllly get it until I attended some sessions on the topic at the CLA Annual Conference. And then had to explain it to non-librarians (the true test of knowledge).

I had to sum up my job to parents, and in doing so, found myself explaining in the simplest terms possible, the whole “Open Access” movement. I told them this:

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Posted in Library Issues

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Two neat ways to organize your web stuff: Zotero and Digsby

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 1 Comment

Over the Christmas break, I’ve gotten cozy with a couple neat applications that I thought I’d share. There’s nothing like getting all your web-based stuff organized over the holidays to brace for the busy-ness that lies ahead in the New Year. It’s like cleaning out your closet and making sense of the stuff that piles up doing the year. Organizational bliss!

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Posted in Technologies

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Wow, it’s for real!

Posted on November 12, 2008 | 1 Comment

A project that was a mere figmant of my imagination, and which came about around pints of beer is now FOR REAL.

The Faculty of Information Quarterly (F/IQ) is live and in the the Internets! I’m pretty excited. This first edition takes on a very diffent format than subsequent ones: We got a bunch of interviews with professors from the Faculty of Information to get their views of our faculty’s recent integration in the “iSchool” caucus – the move from a tradition LIS/Archives school to this new information school format has produced some really interesting insights and discussion. We’re hoping that this faculty-driven content will spark lots of thought and debate from students in the coming editions (students: be sure to submit!!).

Check it out here: fiq.ischool.utoronto.ca

Hooray!

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Posted in School

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Faculty of Information Quarterly

Posted on June 22, 2008 | 1 Comment

The working life is a sweet one, but in a bid to fill those endless hours between 5 pm and 10 pm, I’ve decided to launch a journal with some friends from the Faculty of Information (formerly the Faculty of Information Studies – the “Studies” is being dropped later this summer). I felt there was a significant need within our faculty to create some sort of dialogue – an interplay between students, faculty and staff to create a real sense of intellectual community, and as a means to simply communicating with one another in a formalized, reflective venue. This need for communication is particularly pressing in an i-school; the information movement is a young one and we haven’t yet developed a common language with which to speak to one another (if you have to brush up on your i-school literature there is an official website: http://www.ischools.org/oc/index.html). Moveover, the relationships between library and information science, archives and records management, information systems, and museum studies are rocky ones – there are certainly similarities, but also some key differences that can be difficult for us to over; they create gaps in our common understanding and can prevent an appreciation for divergent views.

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Posted in School

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IS/IT Project Description & Review

Posted on November 8, 2007 | Leave a comment

This is a project I completed for my Information Technology class, in which we were required to review a particular digital repository. I reviewed a product called Fedora, which you can check out at: http://www.fedora-commons.org/
My favorite fedora-based project is the Encyclopedia of Chicago, which is beautiful, accessible and an excellent example of a digital archive: http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/ (Note that the scenario is fictitious, though an awesome idea!… In my opinion.)

 

The UTE Project: The University of Toronto Libraries have launched an ambitious project: In collaboration with the University of Toronto Archives and the federated colleges, plans are underway for the launch of the University of Toronto Encyclopedia (UTE) – a comprehensive, multimedia compendium of photographic, sound, audiovisual and text entries related to the history and academic achievements of the University of Toronto. The UTE will exist entirely online in electronic form and once the Collections Team has created archival fonds, written entries, and amassed audiovisual materials, the Systems Team will begin the process of uploading the collection to the the information management system.

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Posted in School, Technologies

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