Grant is in

Hey, the grant is in. It is a great feeling to finish something like that. Hope we get good news. I'm working on my Bloglines/Grazr assignment now. It is so nice to have help from the other students on the discussion board. It really helps.

Grant-writing blues

Well, I'm slogging through another grant proposal. Actually, this is the third of four for the same project (indexing an historical local newspaper), so it is a breeze compared to the others. I'd just rather be doing my other homework or garage sale hopping! The two-year old wants to go to "sales" too! The indexing is interesting. We are doing a grant for "traditional," that is, people driven indexing. However, I want to create a database that is accessible from remote users, so that the indexing process can occur in more than one place. In addition, the controlled vocabulary for subject terminology will be created ahead of indexing, so the indexers will choose from the available terms instead of having to create them. They will be able to suggest new terms and also to directly input corporate bodies or names. Eventually we want this to be a database of several regional papers maintained by an appropriate body interested in regional history. ("We" here is the Titusville Historical Society). Yes, digitization of the paper is coming soon, but an index will help more people to find what they want for subject searches. OCR for historic fonts is much better now, but it still yields multiple false hits, even on name searches. The average person does not want to slog through large numbers of false hits. We hope to integrate new and old technology by linking digitized or scanned texts, such as obituaries, to indexed entries. Each newspaper article is indexed by subject, but listed by article title under the subject.

Blogging tags and petting zoo

Well, you missed a real show if you did not drive through historic Titusville today. Our local library hosted a petting zoo and it caused a real traffic jam on Franklin. It actually is a lot of fun and my kids enjoy the hands-on experience. Meanwhile I'm trying to go back and tag my blog entries in order to make the ZoomCloud work. I am not enrolled in LIS 2000, so I'll have to find another 2 sources for my cloud(s)?, though I did do 25 Connotea tags for an earlier assignment. Perhaps I'll just add 25 more and use that one like the rest of the class. HOpe that's ok.

World Digital Library

Here is another look at the World Digital LIbrary Initiative

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World Digital Library

The Library of Congress and the National Library of Russia came to an agreement about the formation of a World Digital Library. Here is an early article on this in Russian. There are others in English on the LOC homepage.

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National Digital Library of China

This is a fascinating website. So much is now available, even in English, to the historian and/or researcher.

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Working on Zotero

I'm working with Zotero more today and trying to learn all the possible utilities. I want to be able to find a bib program that can handle alternate scripts, so I'll play around with that today. Happily, most of my garden is in, so I don't have to dash out to the yard today like the last couple of days. Already, the garden is late, but, perhaps we'll have some sunflowers yet. Tomatoes went in a couple of weeks ago.

Creating a custom search engine

I was excited to create a custom search engine that allows for
quick updates on news concerning Russian archives and libraries. What
really struck me as useful was the process of deciding which web sites
would be most helpful. Of course, I included major archival and
library sites, but I also added sites such as PBS and NPR, which often
do pieces on the changes in Russia since 1991. The searches I've done
using "Russian archives," for example, are very fruitful. I also took
the opportunity to re-discover some of the English-language newspaper
sites that monitor daily events in Russia. Overall, I'm very happy
with this tool and will be using it on a regular basis. Check it out!



Russian Library and Archive Information

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Neat bookstore

While checking out some of the online magazine searches available via online libraries, I found an article on collector books that might appeal to library types. The frustrating thing about these sites is the constant disruption of the flow of information - one is constantly prompted to join this or that and the ads at the top, side and bottom of the pages distracts as well. On the other hand, some information will be available through these sites that a conventional library just won't have. Enjoy the book site.



Collector Books Library Bookwatch - Find Articles

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Libraries and tagging

I've been reading a lot of the articles I'm tagging about social tagging. The implications for libraries are pretty interesting. As a person who prefers a systematic approach to indexing, I was first unsure as to how the tagging would work. It seems so haphazard. But, after reading through many articles, I can see how tagging would be useful, especially in a collaborative research setting or to locate kindred spirits in the research world. (Please, forgive my constant referrals to Cyrillic and Russian libraries, but that is my research area). Especially when looking at Russian-language sites and who tagged them, how they were tagged in other languages, it was very interesting to find the large internet world suddenly became smaller and created a kind of community in which I could participate.

Interesting article on metasearching

(Meta)search Like Google - 2/15/2007 - Library Journal

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I've been having trouble with Scribefire...

I've been posting the same information over and over, trying to get it to link properly, but finally got the info I needed. Thanks.

Neat website for Russian library

Try this site for a neat overview of Russian digital efforts (in English and links to Russian too).



National Library of Russia

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Russian National Library Site

I love this website. It has links to Russian digital library holdings in English and in Russian.

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Photos of Romanovs on a Russian Archives Site - in English

It seems everyone enjoys the history of the Romanovs, especially the mysteries surrounding their tragic demise. Here is a site with some interesting photos and a little history.

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Russian Digital Library site

This is a neat site with links to many electronic texts.It uses the term "digital libraries" on the page. Even if you cannot read the words, you can see the similar structure to American websites, with sponsors, email links, feeds, and hyperlinks to texts.

Русская виртуальная библиотека / Russian Virtual Library


I'm still not getting the links quite right, but getting better.

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Using add-ons

I've been trying to use some of the add-ons to add to my blog, but am still struggling with some of the technical details. In the meantime, I stumbled onto a Firefox extension to toggle to Cyrillic keyboard. I downloaded it and it has made googling so productive for Russian-language sites. I am able to access far more information, particularly bibliographic information, for my research topics than I have been able to through sites that require transliteration. It is amazing what resources has popped up in the last few years in Russian that just were not there before. The library links are really developing, including a lot of digital libraries. I'm appreciating this opportunity to explore the technology.