Some more "23-Things" things

Well, back to the 23 Things before I post more about my life in archives.

Thing 7 was all about Twitter. I have used twitter for well over a year now but never on a more professional or serious basis. After I signed up I found out that only few of my friends actually use twitter and that none of my fellow students have a twitter account. Their lives are all on facebook. A few months ago I read about a study which found out that twitter gets used by 'older' people (i.e. those in their late 30s and older) and not really by the current student generation. Therefore, I always considered a library twitter account somewhat useless if it is aimed at students. I think that twitter is more useful for spreading links and news to other librarians. Given that so many Cambridge librarians signed up on twitter and connect to each other, makes twitter quite a powerful network - if people keep using it after the novelty character (or 23 Things workshop, whichever happens first) wears off. Here's a screenshot with some of the library 'tweeple' I'm connected to now:

Thing 8 is all about tags and categories. Discussing these and the article by Shirky made for some interesting comments and disucssion on the web, given that librarians work with these on a daily basis to get some structure into libraries and resources. I especially liked Library Wanderer's entry about this. In repsonse to Shirky's post I would argue that we all categorise the world according to our own cognitive preferences which are shaped by internal (genetically determined, e.g. right handed or left handed) and external (shaped by our experiences) factors. These individual categories have a major impact on the way we think and operate. When categories are created with the aim of sharing them with other people, these are - by its very own nature - compromises. Therefore, they will always be imperfect for the individual but hopefully meaningful for most.
As for tagging, it reminds me of the Library of Congress entries I use when cataloguing books: You just have to get it right, otherwise your entry won't be found and will be lost forever (slightly exaggerated, but you get my point). However, I would argue that it's more about the quality of tags rather than the quantity. Therefore, I won't add more tags to my blog but rather review the existing ones and substitute them by more suitable ones where necessary.

The first actual archive post

Well, "23 Things Cambridge" certainly kept me busy. So busy, in fact, that I haven't managed to post anything about my work at the Centre for South Asian Studies (CSAS) yet. At the moment I am cataloguing the archive of rare books in preparation of CSAS's big move to its new site on West Road next year. I did my first round of cataloguing early this week and luckily, most books were already catalogued and only needed updating. So it was an easy start.
I would like to use this blog to say a few words about books I catalogued and that caught my attention for one reason or another. In this week's lot there was one book about Railways in India. Now, I find railways highly fascinating (my father used to work for a railway company, so I basically grew up with and on them). This book does not only give a very detailed and interesting account of the history of railways in India but it also contains numerous pictures. I find the idea of transporting elephants by train particularly intriguing.


The tracks look rather wide. Will have to check the book for any information on this ...

Thing 5 and 6

Moving on to Thing 5 and 6 at the "23 Things Cambridge" workshop. The first of these tasks is to get to grips with Doodle which is an online tool for scheduling events. I am already familiar with this tool because we used it at my rowing club (Cambridge '99) to schedule our training. Very useful if there are 8 rowers a cox and a coach involved, or a whole squad, as it were. I think it is equally useful for scheduling all kinds of meetings whether library related or not. Dominique ("News from Nowhere") set up a doodle page to schedule a meeting for a few of us, so let's see how it will work out. I've already ticked all relevant boxes.
Thing 6 is creating a google calendar. I already make use of this tool and also have shared calendars with friends when planning holidays or using equipment at my department. Again, very useful but on a daily basis I prefer my paper diary.

Library Blogs

It took me a few days but I've browsed almost all of the blogs of "23 Things Cambridge". What I found were very interesting thoughts and discussions, lots of information and new ideas. At the moment it seems as if most people look at blogs of people who they already know (at least that's what it looks like from the comments). But I guess that's the way interaction develops, you start with what you know and feel safe about and then move on to new adventures. I am absolutely delighted about the first two comments I received. These are very much appreciated and I hope that more will follow. I - at least - will continue "blogging".

iGoogle and RSS feeds

A blog on Thing 1 and 2 (in case you're wondering what "Things" I'm going on about check out http://23thingscambridge.blogspot.com/). Well, that's not so easy. Thing 1 was setting up a Google ID and an iGoogle page. I've already had a Google ID but so far I've managed to resist Google's attempts at taking over my privacy (after all, I've already sold my soul to Facebook), but - there you go - all in the name of progress:

I guess iGoogle makes sense if you want to have one central place to store RSS feeds and links (i.e. Thing 2). For this purpose I've used "protopage" so far which does basically the same that iGoogle does, though not quite as colourful and it also gives a reassuring sense (or illusion?) of anonymity since it is not directly linked to email accounts. However, protopage does not have any applications and that is something I quite like about iGoogle, especially the Copac search and Cambridge Libraries Widget. Given that there will undoubtedly be more potentially useful applications in the future, it is likely that I will make use of my iGoogle page more regularly.

Getting started ...

This blog exists mainly because I participate in the "23 Things Cambridge" online workshop. Through this workshop I hope to learn how web tools can be useful in library and archive work. I am an active user of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Before this media were available I created and maintained my own website. I am new to blogging because I don't think my life is exciting enough to entertain other people, so I'm not going to blog about my life.

Incidentally, I am about to start cataloguing some of the archived collections at the Centre of South Asian Studies. Anybody who has been fortunate enough to visit the centre will know about the wealth of information, be it books, microfilm or audio/video recordings, the centre has to offer (most of the latter ones online, but more about this later). However, only very few people will know about the "hidden" archive, i.e. those items that aren't available in the library and many of which haven't even been catalogued yet.
Rachel Rowe (the Smuts Librarian for South Asian & Commonwealth Studies) and I thought that some of you out there may be interested in
1) What's in these collections,
2) How work on cataloguing the collections is progressing,
3) What kind of difficulties a junior archivist/librarian encounters and
4) How she manages to solve these problems.
Overall, this blog might be of interest for anybody interested in libraries, archives, collections and anything related to South East Asia. So another thing I hope to get from the "23 Things Cambridge Workshop" is some feedback on my posts from experienced librarians and archivists. Any comments will be highly appreciated.