Unit 9: cataloging my Sutro District collection

I have two journal articles in my collection, and I think it can be helpful to try to find the abstracts in a noted database such as Ebsco, and then see the subject terms listed in the record. Additionally, I have two films that are part of the Library of Congress’ American Memory Project. Subject terms are quite explicit in these records and have been helpful in focusing subject listings of my collection.

I believe that I’ve been the most consistent with Dspace regarding my collection, as with Dspace I was able to utilize both ATT & LCSH – additionally, my LCSH listings were fairly granular in Dspace. With Eprints, I could not achieve the granularity with my subject listings that I could with Dspace. For instance, with Eprints I could only choose Psychology for some of my objects when what I really wanted to choose was ghosts, a subheading under Psychology. Additionally, I like using ATTs definition of ruins vs. LCSH definition of ruins, the latter being specific to ruins in antiquity. The ATT definition of ruins is broader, encompassing contemporary ruins as well. Obviously the Sutro Baths ruins cannot be described as ruins from antiquity.

Overall I’m enjoying cataloging my collection, but I can see how good, detailed cataloging can be very time-consuming and thus very expensive in a real working environment. But I can also understand how you wouldn't want to cut any corners when it comes to cataloging, as the metadata is key to access; if no one can find your collection, it may as well not exist.

Unit 8 & the perils of Eprints

So far I prefer Dspace over Drupal & Eprints. It has been helpful to have to do the standard install now for the 5th time. I think I’m just starting to get the hang of it:) I still had some problems this time with connectivity, but I think that’s because I configured the static IP before doing the sudo aptitude updates.

I should have read Emily’s post earlier about mixing up the primary user password with the necessary mysql password, as I had to repeat this step 3 times before realizing that it needed my unique mysql password.

Another issue that came up was when trying to configure eprints with two repositories. Here I changed my hostname to eprints324, the name of my new vm. I really appreciate all the help that the tech activity has offered, and when I find the solution through either Bruce’s or another classmate’s assistance, I’m trying to add as much detail as possible to the posts in the event that others run into the same issue.

I had a heck of a time finding private/etc/hosts on my actual host machine. This was a very interesting exercise in patience and I must admit that I learned quite a bit about changing permissions for these files on my host machine. I had little time to configure my Eprints site by the time I actually got it up and running, but alas both repositories are ready to have collection items added. I’m still very much partial to Dspace. I appreciate its user-end appearance over that of either Drupal or Dspace.

Unit 7: Capstone Project Musings

Since our blog discussion this week is a subject of our own choosing, I thought I would discuss my dream capstone project. While I wouldn’t mind working on a project at my home institution of the UCM Library, my dream collection would be the Adolph Sutro Collection at UC Berkeley. This collection to my knowledge has not as of yet been digitized. I know a few of the librarians at Berkeley, and I’m thinking that I need to start putting my feelers out there to see if there is any chance that I would be able to participate is such a project.

The finding aid on OAC shows that this collection is not currently available in digital format. I know this is a pipe-dream project more than likely, and I’m not even sure if there are any plans to digitize the collection in the near future.

Another possible project might involve a digital-humanities collaboration with the writing program here at UC Merced. I am involved in a group of mostly writing professors here on campus called the “Critical Theory Reading Group.” This group meets every few weeks to discuss readings by philosophers and cultural critics such as Jacques Derrida, Walter Benjamin and Siegfried Kracauer. I think that it would be really interesting to prepare an archive of digital objects related to seminars and projects sponsored by the group.

Dspace (Unit 6)

I had problems finding the webapps line during the dspace installation, the first time I used the control-w command (so happy to know about this search command!), it could not locate the file. So I went back a few steps in the install and edited the additions to the /etc/default/tomcat6. This time I left a space between the last line and the beginning of the additions (tomcat user & security). I saved, and when I got back to the stomcat6/server.xml I was able to locate the file for editing.

I think that some of my confusion stemmed from the fact that I didn’t know where to stop in the standard install and then begin in the Dspace configuration. Also I experienced some issues with the static IP I initially assigned. I'm not sure if this was behind my connectivity issue, however I was able to ping successfully after using the IP I originally used for the last VM.

I really like the Dspace interface overall, especially the organizational hierarchy of creating a community, then a collection, and then adding your items. However collaboration too is inherent in the organizational structure in that communities can share collections. I'm looking forward to adding all of my metadata fields as established in my application profile. I think this will make my collection items that much more accessible and the item records much more robust.

Lastly, I liked how easy it was to add a logo & images to my Dspace site. I had to reformat my logo a few times, and the process was very straightforward and quick. Perhaps it's just me, but I felt that Dspace was far more customizable, and that the administrative functions were clearer - there was one point during the Drupal customization that I felt the page looked very crowded and confusing to navigate. I did not have this experience with Dspace, but perhaps that's because at this point my metadata is pretty sparse. We will see...