VCA Metadata Project

This year I've been doing some volunteer work for the VCA school of film, for it's 50th birthday. I've been collecting metadata about previous graduates and their final films, and filling in the information that I've gathered into a Google Sheet. It's quite simple work; I've been given two sheets, one with the information that the school already has on the film, and a different sheet to copy this information into, and to add any other material that I discover. There are some overlapping information groups, but the idea is that I need to find more information about the films and the filmmakers themselves. It's interesting work, and it's using some of the searching skills that I've developed through my studies.

My group of filmmakers all graduated in the years 2006-2010. So far, I've found an Emmy winning filmmaker, some freelance filmmakers, a couple of journalists, a convicted pedophile, and a few others who don't seem to have done anything film-related since graduating. I've been doing this since February, but it's great because if I have a lot of homework, I can put it on hold. I can also do it from home, which is ace.

The one issue is the number of graduates. Turns out there are over two hundred of them, and as each one takes me about twenty minutes, I'm going to be doing this for ages. It's fairly simple work, though, it's really more about Google searching.

Here's one of the graduate films which I thought was fairly appropriate for a blog about library studies, Bibliomania:

Information Literacy

One of my subjects this semester, Information Provision, is about being able to teach and to share your own knowledge with others. Information literacy is the key phrase here. It's being able to be information literate yourself, and then able to teach that knowledge on.

What is information literacy? According to the Alexandria Proclamation, which was a conference type thing, information literacy 'lies at the core of lifelong learning. It empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goals. It is a basic human right in a digital world and promotes social inclusion of all nations.' (link is here)

Librarians who are working in the information literacy field need to:

• recognise a need for information
• determine the extent of information needed
• access information efficiently
• critically evaluate information and its sources
• classify, store, manipulate and redraft information collected or generated
• incorporate selected information into their knowledge base
• use information effectively to learn, create new knowledge, solve problems and make decisions
• understand economic, legal, social, political and cultural issues in the use of information
• access and use information ethically and legally
• use information and knowledge for participative citizenship and social responsibility
• experience information literacy as part of independent learning and lifelong learning

All of these bullet points are from Australian and New Zealand Information Literacy Framework: Principles, Standards and Practice. You can find it here, it's quite an interesting read if you're into information literacy business.

It's all basically saying that it's not enough for a librarian to know how to search and do things on the Internet and help people find information; it's important that people are taught how to do these things for themselves. A librarian, it turns out, is an educator as well. Lucky I've got a Dip Ed!

Back at Uni

The semester has started for the new year, thank god. It's too long a break, I really missed it. I didn't do any of the things that I was planning on doing over the holidays. I did do a bit of interesting course-related voluntary work, but I'll discuss that in another post. Instead, all I did was
work, read, lurk on the internet, watch television, and not much else. I didn't start running (still don't have the pants), I didn't do Codeacademy (I feel bad about that one; I really should have done some of that), and whatever else I was planning on doing, I didn't do that either.

So, new subjects for school! I'm doing two subjects this semester: The Information Professional, and Information Provision. The Information Professional is about working in the Information Management world, and for this subject we need to do a three-week placement. RMIT organises the placement for us, which is totally amazing, we just need to submit a preference list. Here's my seven choices:

1. National Gallery of Victoria (NGV)
2. ABC: Archives and Library Services
3. Parliament of Victoria: Library
4. Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine
5. Alfred Health
6. Museum Victoria
7. Supreme Court of Victoria: Law Library

As you can see, I couldn't decide on a particular field that I wanted to do, so I chose a range. I picked the NGV as number one because I have a background in Art History and I really want to be able to have a wander around in the archives. I would be happy to do any of them though, they all would be interesting I think. So now I have to submit my resume and wait for RMIT to organise it for me. 

Interesting things

I've been having trouble keeping this blog updated over the school holidays, obviously. It's hard, because I don't really have anything library-related to write about. I haven't been learning anything, I've only been working in the cafe a lot. So I've decided that I'm going to try to update this blog every couple of weeks, with some links to things that I've been reading or listening to.

First up is The Untold Story of Silk Road, a two-part article written for Wired Magazine by Joshua Bearman. Silk Road was an online black market, where people could by drugs, or guns, or other illegal stuff. In class we covered the Dark Web a little bit, and the lecturer touched on Silk Road, but she strongly recommended that we never go on there. This article examines the creator of Silk Road, and how he was tracked down by the police. Part 1 is here, Part two here.

Serial podcast is back! I'm super excited about it; I loved season one, it was my gateway podcast that introduced me to how amazing they can be. Season two is focussing on Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. soldier that walked away from his base in Afganistan and became a hostage of the Taliban for almost five years. After a case last season that no-one had heard of, it's interesting that they have chosen such a high-profile case for the second season. Serial can be found here.

Something that is more linked to library action is an article from American Libraries Magazine on Melvil Dewey, called 'Melvil Dewey, Compulsive Innovator'. It turns out that Dewey was a massive weirdo, obsessive about numbers and a bit gross towards women.

Summer Holidays

So I finally finished the semester, which is a great relief! I just found out that I got an HD on a scientific report, and I'm super-chuffed about that. I feel like I'm finally improving at writing reports. Now I have four months off Uni, and I need to find stuff to keep me entertained. I'm going to keep playing around on Trove, and I'm also going to learn JavaScript. Codeacademy, who I have talked about before and love, has a whole bunch of different courses that you can take online, all of them free. It's really good for someone like me who has never done anything like coding before, because it is simple, easily understood, and also updates in real time so you can see exactly what you have done.

After I've done that, I'm going to help a friend build an online store. She wants to sell all the vintage clothes that she has collected, and her brother-in-law was supposed to make her an online store, but I've known her for a couple of years now and he hasn't done it in all that time. So I'm going to do it for her. It shouldn't take too long, hopefully, and it will spur her on to get organised.

Other things - I'm going to take up running. I've never done it before, and I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to read a book called Sleepwalkers, about the first world war. I'll give my house a really, really good clean, which is boring but needs to be done.

Here are two digital information interesting things that I found this week: an article on The Atlantic, by Walter Kirn. If You're Not Paranoid, You're Crazy is about how pervasive digital technology has become, and how it's listening to us, and it totally feeds into my own concerns about information and privacy. Also, Internet Live Stats shows you in real time how many web sites there are, how many emails were sent today, as well as instagram, google searches, and other internet related items. It's pretty amazing to see the numbers tick over so rapidly.

End of School

The semester is almost done, which is a great relief! I've finished my classes, and now have only assignments to do. One I handed in on Tuesday, and now there is just one left, due on Monday. All that's left for that one is a bit of editing. It's been a tough semester, a pretty boring one, so I'm glad to be nearly done!

I'm sick of talking about what I've been studying, so instead I'm going to talk about podcasts. I love podcasts! I listen to them quite a bit. It all started with Serial, which I think happened to a lot of people. From there, I found a whole lot of podcasts to subscribe to. I listen to a couple of history podcasts, Hardcore History and Emperors of Rome.  This American Life is also terrific. But I've chosen a couple of podcasts and episodes that have relevance to what I'm studying to highlight here.

Note to Self is a podcast about technology and "finding balance in the digital age." One episode that I found really interesting was on Turnitin, which is the software used to find plagiarism in student's work. They use it at RMIT, and it's pretty amazing technology. Here's the direct link to that episode: judging your originality in a cut and paste world

Another podcast that I listen to a lot is Radiolab. It's a show about science and technology, and sounds incredibly boring, but it isn't, it's really good. I picked one episode that has more relevance to digital stuff; called darkode, it's about hackers holding your computer for ransom and also about the website, part of the dark web, where hackers can share information and code.

Reply All is all about the internet, and has a funny segment called "yes yes no", where the hosts explain to the producer of the show what some meme or topical internet thing means. I've been finding that I understand a lot more of what they talk about now, which is kind of amazing.

Droning On

I can't even tell you how sick I'm getting of talking about drones, studying drones, reading about drones. Everyone around me is fairly over it too, I think. Currently I'm trying to figure out the justification behind the drone Makerspace, but I'm struggling to find authoritative pieces. Everyone says that they're good for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths) learning, but where's the evidence? It's annoying. I think it's because Makerspaces are a fairly new concept, and personal drones are a new technology, that there hasn't been any definite research on the project.

After I've finished that section, I then have to develop the stakeholder matrix, which is basically describing the users and businesses and community groups and government organisations that have an interest in the project, and then deciding how often they'll be updated on the progress of the Makerspace. That part of it isn't very difficult, it's really just forcing myself to do it. However, I have decided that I really, really don't want to be a Project Manager after the work we've done this semester.

Anyway, here's another drone video, this time an eagle vs. a drone: