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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Unit 13 - in retrospect

I learned a great deal this semester about configuring open source software to create a functional digital repository. I also learned more about managing repositories (both on the people and technology sides), while I learned a great deal about why it is important to digitize our cultural collections. I appreciated how many server configurations we were assigned to do, and I feel pretty confident now in maneuvering through the command line. I’m still struggling to find how everything fits together, and specifically with trying to grasp the overall management components necessary to effectively curate digital collections.

One of my favorite management readings of the course was the British Library’s vision statement. Yes, I know it is a study in careful marketing, but this document made me realize again why it is that I want to be involved in digitizing cultural collections. Specifically that the immediacy and accessibility of historical digitized content may have a profound impact on content creators via the ability to "revisit" history through such artifacts.

Another part of the course that I really enjoyed was exploring the larger federated repositories of Trove & Europeana. Both of these search engines mine the “deep web” and I was able to find new information from collections that I’ve visited before. I also enjoyed the faceted searching and the variety of ways in which to search for information that both of these sites offered. I especially appreciated the exhibits that were available through Europeana, particularly the Art Noveau exhibit.

Best of all was configuring Dspace & Omeka. Eprints was probably the most painful for me to configure (lots of troubleshooting), however I was quite pleased with the end product. I encountered few issues in configuring Drupal, however the interface was my least favorite; the high customization in creating the taxonomy (combined with a higher possibility of typos or less standardized terms) seemed less secure in anticipation of migration.

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