Nirak.net

Tonight I am trying out the new Mozilla Ubiquity plugin. It is very experimental, to be sure- I have found lots of things that don’t work (especially in Linux) but the things that do are amazing- especially for such an early prototype.

A few commands I can imagine myself using right away and on a regular basis:

twitter: You can post directly to Twitter, or select text and insert it into twitter using the word “this”

calc: useful for quick calculations

add-to-calendar and check-calendar: I’ve been wanting an “add to calendar” function for google calendar for a long time. I can’t get this to work quite right, but it’ll be useful once I figure it out. The check calendar command is really useful too.

define, wikipedia: I am constantly looking up words, so this will definitely come in handy. The wikipedia command lets you see things in a little more depth.

edit-page, highlight, stop-editing-page: This combination of commands has the potential to be REALLY useful. For instance: say there’s a page you end up going to a lot to get a bit of information. With these commands, you can edit the page to highlight the information so next time you go it’s very visible. Not sure what happens when they edit the page, though. (EDIT: I found out what happens when you annotate and save a page: you always get your annotations, even if the page has changed. I think this is pretty dangerous, since you can miss updated information this way. Use with care!)

email, last-email: The email integration looks like it has a lot of potential, but I couldn’t get it to work for me in my quick tests. I could use the last-email function, which was a nice way to quickly peek at your inbox (provided you are using gmail.)

link-to-wikipedia: This could be a huge help in blog posts, and one could imaging a host of other such commands. Basically, you highlight a word, invoke this command, and a link to wikipedia of the search term you highlighted is automatically inserted. I used this to insert that last link to Wikipedia.

map, map-these: map is already working- more or less. map-these is experimental. With map, you can highlight an address, invoke map, and then insert that map in a new email, etc. I could see map-these being really powerful combined with firefox 3’s ability to select multiple areas of text.

This little plugin has amazing potential. You are sure to hear a lot about it in the coming weeks!

karin :: Aug.27.2008 :: Uncategorized :: No Comments »

For an explanation of this post, see here. I’m just daydreaming here, but it is fun.

by royblumenthal on flickr

I have long daydreamed about being an Artist in Residence somewhere. Imagine being paid to paint-without the normal art selling cycle! Bliss. Of course, artist in residences are hard to come by, and especially the type I would want- one tied to an organization doing digital work.

I look to Alex Itin’s work as the artist in residence at the Institute for the Future of the Book for inspiration on how a new model for artistic residencies could work. Not only does Itin’s work lend a creative force to the institute, but it informs projects and starts conversations. Alex’s work is central to the work of the Institute.

I imagine an artist in residence at a digital humanities center would work for similar reasons: he or she would bring diversity to the staff, giving them another creative person who may have a different perspective. He or she could inform projects and, perhaps more importantly, help bridge the communication between the fine art faculty and the center. I’ve talked about bridging fine arts and digital humanities before, but never really came up with any solutions. This could be one such solution. This bridge would be even more useful if the artist in residence had some stake in the fine arts department- say, by teaching a class there or serving as a consultant.

What about funding? As I mentioned in my first post on fine art and the digital humanities, the funding agencies for fine art and other humanities are different.

There’s the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEH has many initiatives to support digital work (see the new Office for Digital Humanities), while the NEA- well, I don’t think it has much in the way of digital initiatives (please correct me if I am wrong.)

Despite that, though, I think there could be funding opportunities here. Local arts grants might support this, as might internal grants from institutions. One grant from the NEH that might be able to support such a project is the Fellowship at Digital Humanities centers, offered this year for the first time from the Office of Digital Humanities.

Here are a few pertinent quotes from the fellowship page (emphases are all mine)

Awards are for periods of six to twelve months. The intellectual cooperation between the visiting scholar and the center may take many different forms and may involve humanities scholars of any level of digital expertise. Fellows may work exclusively on their own projects in consultation with center staff, collaborate on projects with other scholars affiliated with the center, function as “apprentices” on existing digital center projects, or any combination of these.

The aims of the program are to 1) support innovative collaboration on outstanding digital research projects; 2) expand digital literacy and expertise; 3) promote the work of digital humanities centers; and 4) encourage broad and open access to the humanities.

One requirement of the above NEH fellowship is this:

Provide a clear explanation of how the project will use digital technologies to accomplish its goals. Detail how the project’s approach is unique or builds on existing models, and how the ultimate project results will be of value to scholars and general audiences in the humanities.

NEH views the use of open source software as a key component in the broad distribution of exemplary digital scholarship in the humanities. If either the start-up project or the long-term project is not predicated on generally accessible open source software, explain why and also explain how the Endowment’s dissemination goals will still be satisfied by the project

I imagine an artist in residence that is technically savvy, and able to inform the possible implementation of online exhibitions, digital artwork, and other ways to use computers to explore the fine art realm. In other words, in order to serve the goals of this particular program, it would help to have someone who can act as a consultant rather than just an artist in residence.

I don’t know if the ODH would accept such a proposal (it might not be what they had in mind) but it’d be interesting to find out.

Finally, I don’t think this kind of residence is limited to a digital humanities center- a museum might benefit from this type of digital artist in residence too, bringing a viewpoint that may be hard to get otherwise.

What might the actual job look like? Well like any artist in residence, the primary duty would be to create art. The art may have to do with the work being done at the digital humanities center. Artistic visualizations of data sets, processing based works having to do with a specific project, paintings that draw inspiration from the vast visual media produced or processed by these centers. The artist in residence would have other responsibilities though: consulting on visual problems like visualization, design, etc.; perhaps (as I mentioned above) teaching a class through the fine art or art history department; or collaborating on software applications for fine artists. (what would a Zotero or Juxta for fine art look like?) Finally, if open access is an issue at the center, the visual artist could experiment with how open access, creative commons and the like, might impact fine arts.

karin :: Aug.14.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

Way back in August of 2006 I posted an entry called Creating Work in which I talked about a possible ideal job. That was only one possibility, though. Now, two years later, I can think of many, many other ideal jobs. In fact, it seems like I can’t even scan the job ads without seeing at least one job that makes me do a little jig. (I’m not qualified for many of these jobs, but someday…) So I’ve been thinking about what my ideal job would be. In all honesty, there is no one perfect job. There’s no one thing I want to do for the rest of my life. There’s lots of things I’d like to do for 5-10 years, though. Luckily, I have time to try out a bunch of different things and see where I really fit.

Since job searching is on my mind a lot lately, I’m going to do a series of posts on dream jobs- jobs I think I would really enjoy. Please note that not all of these jobs are things I would be immediately qualified for, but they’re things I can aspire to. I think the exercise would be useful in narrowing down what it is I’m really looking for.

By the way, I’d love to hear about others’ dream positions- maybe you’re already living the dream!

First up is a totally fantasy position that combines my Fine Art background and my love of digital humanities: Artist in Residence of a Digital Humanities Center

karin :: Aug.14.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »

Sorry for the long absence, everyone. School and my practicum ruled my life until last Friday, and then I had a bunch of personal stuff to catch up on- you know, the stuff I put off because of vacation, ALA, and school.

In the last four days I’ve had no school, I have been…. cleaning. Organizing, really- I have not even started on the down and dirty cleaning work that needs to be done. Oh, I played a little Rock Band and read some and even tried out World of Warcraft (it runs on Linux! and there’s a librarian guild!) but the majority of my time has been spent moving from room to room in my home and dealing with the piles of junk and paper that have accumulated this summer. (That free stuff from ALA kind of exploded all over my house.) I’m finally starting to feel like I have some control over my home environment.

I don’t exactly like cleaning, but it does give me a chance to take stock of where I am. Actually, it forces me to do so. It’s hard to look at a pile of junk and not ask myself “why?” and “what now?” Cleaning also inevitably gets me thinking about moving. I don’t know if this is normal or not; I assume is stems from the fact that I have never lived in one house for more than three years up until now. (Going on FIVE years in the current house!) I also think about moving because I recently applied to a couple of (long shot) jobs out of state.

As I clean my environment, my mind seems to get less cluttered. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

Anyway, now that I have three glorious weeks off, I can start getting in the habit of posting again. I have a bunch of thoughts, many of them about new professionals, career paths and applying for jobs. I suppose it’s only natural that these are the topics that would be on my mind right now, after all, in only a few months I will graduate.

In addition to posting, I have a few other projects:

I am posting on the new ALA READ blog, so keep an eye out for me there. I’m a big fan of the READ posters, so this is exciting for me. I will probably post about design and Photoshop tips for using the READ CD Software, and maybe even some photography tips. I also have some ideas for campaigns a library could run with the aid of the READ CD Software.

My blogs over at OS-agnostic.com and free-artwork.com will see a revival too. I have a few new pieces to post to free-artwork, and am working on some new paintings.

I am working on a couple of presentations coming up in October for the Nebraska Library Association annual conference.

Come August 25th, I’ll be back in school for my final semester. I’m excited about my classes- Libraries and Copyright and a class on Web Application Development.

So, that’s it for me. How is your summer going?

karin :: Aug.06.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 3 Comments »

I’m realizing how repetitive my day is, and how little I get to concentrate. Well, I already knew that, but keeping track of time like this really points it out. Need to find some way to carve out some solid work time for myself.

Thursday

7:30 am-8:00 am – Yay! I finally got to work on time. Spent this half hour doing my time card for the two week period and submitting my vacation time.

8:00 am-8:20 am - Met with boss. No more meetings to set, but a change to an existing meeting.

8:20 am-8:50 am - Email and a phone call

8:50 am-10:15 am - Went to the Nebraska Library Commission to present my web design to them. I think they mostly liked it. Came back with a list of changes to make, which I will do this Saturday.

10:15 am-11:30 pm - Went through email some more, stopped that to get someone access to our web server so she can do her work. In the process, made a “how to log onto web server” page on the wiki, complete with screenshots. Then back to email, was able to handle most items quickly but one involved setting another meeting and another required me getting clarification from another person.

11:30 am- 12:00 pm – Trying to figure out, with the computer person, why my computer and others won’t burn DVD’s

12:00 pm-12:30 pm – Lunch.

12:30 pm-1:30 pm - Meeting minutes, still the meeting from last week. On day three, which was shorter, but messiest.

1:30 pm-2:00 pm - More meeting stuff, including figuring out where my boss’s 2:00 meeting is at, since the person’s address is listed differently in 3 places.

2:00 pm-4:15 pm - Server stuff. Trying to install a couple of programs, but the going is slow because I’m unfamiliar with the flavor of Linux and I REALLY don’t want to mess anything up. Also a couple of phone calls and errands in here.

4:15 pm-5:00 pm - The weather turned nasty, so I spent some time getting all my electronics into plastic bags so it wouldn’t get wet on the way home. Also replied to emails and did some cleanup around the office.

Friday

7:30 am-8:00 am – I opened my email inbox, even though I told myself I wouldn’t. Tabulated meeting responses.

8:00 am-8:15 am – Met with boss. Not a lot to talk about today.

8:15 am- 9:15 am – More email, and catching up on reading minutes and news from other areas of the library.

9:15 am – 11:30 am – Finished server installations from yesterday. WordPress gave me particular trouble, not because of the software, just because I kept doing things ever so slightly wrong. After I had it installed, I played with the themes some, and installed a few necessary plugins. Also answered some phone calls and got the mail.

11:30 am-12:00 pm - You guessed it! email. Getting so close to getting one meeting set. I hate setting meetings across time zones, and I really hate meetings where people have to fly or drive for several hours to get here.

12:00 pm- 2:00 pm - Working on the minutes some more. Very close to being done.

2:00 pm- 3:30 pm - Design work! I worked on concepts for a couple of logos. Didn’t come up with anything good. Will keep some ideas rolling around in my head over the weekend.

3:30 pm- 5:00 pm - Getting everything ready for next week. This included: reviewing my to do lists and moving some items off, getting my inbox back to zero, checking boss’s calendar and then printing out a version for the office and emailing it to some people, ordering some supplies, and straitening up. I’d like to say I did a “weekly review,” but it really wasn’t that systematic.

What I learned

Documenting my day was an interesting exercise. I saw a lot of places I can improve what I do and how I go about it. On paper my day sounds pretty boring, but I really enjoy this job because it lets me do a variety of things. The only thing I wish there was more of is interaction with the public. During the summer, especially, it can be really quiet around the office- in fact, on Friday we had no students in working at all, which is pretty unusual.

karin :: Jul.18.2008 :: Uncategorized :: 2 Comments »