MySimmons - Simmons College Community Intranet

The ScanRobot in Action

Posted by Christopher Markman

http://www.youtube.com/user/bookscanner

Yeahhhh, that can't be cheap.

Posted: September 7, 2008 2:24 pm | 0 comments
Tags: digitization, oh my, scanrobot

Link: Sarah Palin, would-be banner of books

Posted by Christopher Markman

Check out the article via BoingBoing > Librarian.net > Time Magazine

This also got some mention in a recent NYT article:

"Shortly after becoming mayor, former city officials and Wasilla residents said, Ms. Palin approached the town librarian about the possibility of banning some books, though she never followed through and it was unclear which books or passages were in question.

Ann Kilkenny, a Democrat who said she attended every City Council meeting in Ms. Palin’s first year in office, said Ms. Palin brought up the idea of banning some books at one meeting. “They were somehow morally or socially objectionable to her,” Ms. Kilkenny said.

The librarian, Mary Ellen Emmons, pledged to “resist all efforts at censorship,” Ms. Kilkenny recalled. Ms. Palin fired Ms. Emmons shortly after taking office but changed course after residents made a strong show of support. Ms. Emmons, who left her job and Wasilla a couple of years later, declined to comment for this article.

In 1996, ... more »

Posted: September 3, 2008 5:02 pm | 0 comments
Tags: censorship, election 2008, palin

LibX and Ubiquity: Librarians Best Friend?

Posted by Christopher Markman

http://www.libx.org/

http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/

Just an idea / not tested in the wild yet.

The internet is turning more and more into a command line interface. Think about that.

Posted: August 28, 2008 9:05 am | 0 comments
Tags: extensions, firefox, LibX, mashups, so web 2.0 it hurts

This one hits close to home

Posted by Christopher Markman

Ok, maybe not that close to home, but still:

Historic Maine Library Destroyed by Lightning

I was working during that storm!

Posted: July 30, 2008 5:42 pm | 0 comments
Tags: fire, maine, swan island

Is there anybody out there?

Posted by Christopher Markman

Just noticed my posts are taking up like 80% of the "recent posts" area here.

Umm...hello world!

Posted: July 28, 2008 8:33 pm | 3 comments
Tags: hello world

Some thoughts following last week's CCAHA Conference

Posted by Christopher Markman

It's hard to summarize my thoughts for a lot of reasons. For one, this was a great experience in that I realized how much I already knew about audiovisual preservation, particularly the problems archivists face in terms of media boundaries. Secondly, it was a chance to meet with other professionals in the field, or at least see them in action. Thirdly, the whole event was a chance to visit my sister (she and her roommate were nice enough to lend a couch for those few days) and that meant a great time in Boston, period.

I already plan on writing a more formal post in the Team Miro Blog because they were nice enough to pay my way into the conference and I see a huge opportunity for collaboration there. So yes, this is more of a personal post but I'll spare the commentary on what I ate for dinner.

There were a lot of great presenters and speakers at the conference, and I have to say overall I thought the whole thing was very well put together. The end of the first day felt like a cliffhan ... more »

Posted: July 28, 2008 8:22 pm | 0 comments
Tags: CCAHA

More to Come

Posted by Christopher Markman

I'm just sitting around waiting for the train to take me home. Should have a more detailed report of the conference written up by tomorrow -- feeling kinda burnt out after this crazy week.

Here's a few more one liners I saved as a personal homage to Overheard in NY, try to guess the context:

• "Is to be, presumed to be, or sold to us as being?"
• "Analog is dead, ding dong"
• "Bakin' the tapes"
• "That sounds like an excellent marketing ploy"

Posted: July 25, 2008 9:49 pm | 0 comments
Tags: CCAHA

Lunch Break aka Updates!

Posted by Christopher Markman

Despite the lengthy lunch break we were provided I'm going to have to make this fairly short. Buckets of rain made the café line especially long, not to mention the fact that the real cafeteria is under construction right now. But I digress...

I wrote a bunch of notes on my iPod as the presentations went on, which sorta turned into a Twitter bullet point scenario. It'll take a while to sort through everything, but here's some highlights, mostly paraphrased, and probably more funny in full context:

• "Chances are your boss was paper-trained"
• "Later we'll formalize our interesting relationship"
• The Silver Scientology Fallout Shelter Story
• The "munchkin" effect
• "That's certainly a definitive test" (as he broke a record)
• "VD as in 'Visual Density"

Posted: July 24, 2008 1:34 pm | 0 comments
Tags: CCAHA

Blogging Live from CCAHA Conference! Today!

Posted by Christopher Markman

People are filling in right now!

(no one told me there would be OJ!)

Posted: July 24, 2008 8:12 am | 0 comments
Tags: Audiovisual Preservation, CCAHA

I guess there's a first for everything

Posted by Christopher Markman

I'll be here this week at the "A Race Against Time: Preserving Audiovisual Media" conference. Hey anonymous internet reader, maybe we'll run into each other?

Posted: July 19, 2008 1:42 pm | 0 comments
Tags: Audio-visual preservation, Boston, CCAHA