Thomas, Web Applications
It's quiet in the library for a few more minutes. The staff will start to arrive around 9, the first school tour will flow in around 10 am, soon enough the doors will open for researchers, and then at 5, we'll strike the set and prepare for tomorrow's symposium, "Digital Cultural Heritage and User Experience".
There are all sorts of reasons to be excited for this event. It's a great lineup of our smartest friends, digging into the way we work now. There will be notes and remarks to follow on the website and live responses all day on Twitter and Facebook. The symposium marks the culmination of a substantial three-year project to make Brooklyn's photographic and visual materials more easily discovered.
Beyond the excitement of the day, I'm proud that we're holding it here in the Othmer Library, a 132 year old library in a 150 year old historical society. Sure, we picked the venue because it's the one of the most beautiful rooms in the city, but we're on the list in the first place because Brooklyn Historical Society has been a key partner in Brooklyn Visual Heritage.
Technology is an integral part of our work now. It guides our big aspirations (a new website, new interfaces for exploring BHS's collection and research, new ways for people to contribute to the study of Brooklyn), and it's part of our everyday business. This quarter, we reached more people for reference and research assistance through email than in person and with no real change in services or outcomes, we've been telecommuting one day a week for the better part of a year. The fact that we've made BHS work in this way means that 150 is not a capstone, but a new foundation.
The other point of pride has to do with the people who are putting on the show. This symposium builds on the work of 18 graduate students from Pratt Institutes' School of Information and Library Science, and their professional mentors from the staffs of Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, and Brooklyn Historical Society. Julie May and Leah Luscutoff from the BHS staff have done great work over the last three years training a cohort of exceptional librarians, developing our imaging and metadata standards, and deploying the Brooklyn Visual Heritage website. (And it's important to say that they did that alongside with shifts on the reference desk, bringing in new collections, curating exhibits, and a host of other projects and responsibilities.)
At BHS, this projects has been instrumental in making the library into a laboratory and workshop, and the people involved in bringing Brooklyn Visual Heritage online and putting this symposium together embody what it means to be a professional librarian. They've done high quality work day after day, year after year: every image digitized to specification, intellectual property rights defined, metadata assigned consistently, words spelled correctly, collections described thoroughly. They've built a network of people with common cause, by writing, attending conferences, sharing their knowledge, and asking questions. They've ultimately made something that will last beyond themselves, and made themselves better librarians in the course of doing that. This kind of process and consistency and competence doesn't make a lot of headlines, but it makes me awfully proud of my profession and my colleagues.
There are all sorts of reasons to be excited for this event. It's a great lineup of our smartest friends, digging into the way we work now. There will be notes and remarks to follow on the website and live responses all day on Twitter and Facebook. The symposium marks the culmination of a substantial three-year project to make Brooklyn's photographic and visual materials more easily discovered.
Beyond the excitement of the day, I'm proud that we're holding it here in the Othmer Library, a 132 year old library in a 150 year old historical society. Sure, we picked the venue because it's the one of the most beautiful rooms in the city, but we're on the list in the first place because Brooklyn Historical Society has been a key partner in Brooklyn Visual Heritage.
Technology is an integral part of our work now. It guides our big aspirations (a new website, new interfaces for exploring BHS's collection and research, new ways for people to contribute to the study of Brooklyn), and it's part of our everyday business. This quarter, we reached more people for reference and research assistance through email than in person and with no real change in services or outcomes, we've been telecommuting one day a week for the better part of a year. The fact that we've made BHS work in this way means that 150 is not a capstone, but a new foundation.
The other point of pride has to do with the people who are putting on the show. This symposium builds on the work of 18 graduate students from Pratt Institutes' School of Information and Library Science, and their professional mentors from the staffs of Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, and Brooklyn Historical Society. Julie May and Leah Luscutoff from the BHS staff have done great work over the last three years training a cohort of exceptional librarians, developing our imaging and metadata standards, and deploying the Brooklyn Visual Heritage website. (And it's important to say that they did that alongside with shifts on the reference desk, bringing in new collections, curating exhibits, and a host of other projects and responsibilities.)
At BHS, this projects has been instrumental in making the library into a laboratory and workshop, and the people involved in bringing Brooklyn Visual Heritage online and putting this symposium together embody what it means to be a professional librarian. They've done high quality work day after day, year after year: every image digitized to specification, intellectual property rights defined, metadata assigned consistently, words spelled correctly, collections described thoroughly. They've built a network of people with common cause, by writing, attending conferences, sharing their knowledge, and asking questions. They've ultimately made something that will last beyond themselves, and made themselves better librarians in the course of doing that. This kind of process and consistency and competence doesn't make a lot of headlines, but it makes me awfully proud of my profession and my colleagues.
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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