Review of Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement

Oral History and Digital Humanities: Voice, Access, and Engagement by Douglas A. Boyd
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book after hearing a talk by Douglas A. Boyd. It is an interesting and detailed exploration of oral history. The chapters are written to show good examples of what is possible and in some instances to show what could have been done better (like not reducing the background sounds). Ideas such as Creative Commons licensing, are included.

The importance of long format oral history is discussed, and that the length of the interview and the detail recorded add value and provide much research potential. Oral history is not about snappy sound bites. The importance of oral history being online, and searchable (through the use of methods such as OHMS) is also covered. That oral history is listened to, is also highlighted. It sounds obvious, but when much access has been via transcript, sometimes that it is a spoken method can be forgotten. There is good coverage of the importance of access to the recordings so it is important for non-digital formats to be digitised, catalogued, indexed and made available for people to research and listen to for other reasons.

"I believe in the primacy of the recording for our professional practice, while fully understanding and acknowledging the role of text to facilitate discovery and access" and looking for "sustainable models to connect archival users to the online primary sources".

It is a book I will have to reread, and keep thinking about the ideas raised in it.





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lovely ways to suggest reading - from CSIRO

Have you been wondering why your friends and family have been looking wistfully off into the distance - like this #Emperor #penguin here? We think we know why: they're secretly hoping you'll get them a book from our ‘Twelve books of #Christmas' list. We have the perfect range of books to satisfy the cravings of any #science fan, from #bugs and #birds (including penguins 🐧, of course) to Ned Kelly and ocean faring research vessels.🚢 With so many options, you'll surely find the right #gift to put under the #tree 🎄🎄🎄, but in case you need some more convincing we’re offering free shipping as well - no need to rely on Rudolph and the gang. Make sure you get your order in before 16 December, so the gift will be delivered by Christmas. Click on the link in the bio for more information. Image: Graham Blight #christmasgifts #xmas #xmasgifts #christmasgiftideas #deepthinkingpenguin

A photo posted by CSIRO (@csirogram) on Dec 2, 2015 at 8:29pm PST

CSIRO has many good ideas, and this promotion of reading is one. I know they are suggesting buying books, but it could be a lovely time suggesting borrowing, so that people do not accumulate more stuff and participate in a sharing economy. It could be a time to give a library card.

Museums and interactivity, part 1

Boott Cotton Mill Museum had some very interesting features. They were part of a national park hashtag promotion


They also had an area with comfortable seating where you could explore books about the area. These books were also available for sale in the museum shop, but it was nice to have this area to have a read.

Denver Art Museum has a very interest mix of museum interactivity, with many of their exhibitions having spaces (just after the exhibition), to explore the ideas to try out creative responses and to make things. One of the art works was added to by the visitors. This was a high degree of interactivity. Some of it was targeting children, but some of the making and learning was targeting adults.
This area was for children and was connected to the Miro exhibtion

This art work could be added to

This was an area to make a post card,


This was a different kind of touch screen

This space followed and exhibition of American Indian Art

This one was connected to a textile exhibtion

and you could explore weaving

You could also play with Hieronymus Bosch puppets

This museum was providing lots of space to think about the area you were seeing, as well as to have a better understanding of how it was made, but also to see some of the inspirations for the art. Some of the interactions were digital , but many more were with marbles, paper, or wool. This is something to consider for libraries too. It was also great to see so many opportunities for adults to make and interact. There were also places to read about art

Desks at services points, and roving services

This has been an interest of mine for many years because it is about taking the services to the clients.

Library 21C had small desks encouraging staff to rove



Arapahoe Libraries at Koelbel had small desks, also to enable roving

and

They were also making it easy for their clients to find things

At Anythink Brighton service desks are also compact

As are the ones at Anythink Wright Farms

Denver Public Library had signs about roving. They were working with an older, large building and this is one way to inform clients about what is possible, as they staff will not always be visible.

Nice features in spaces for children in libraries: part 2

This continues the earlier post about spaces for children in library.

Phoenix Library has step into reading in Spanish


and English



Cambridge Public Library had gerbils


an amazing ceiling,

meeting rooms

and a fun stairway


Boston Public Library, had lots of spaces for parents and children to sit, off by them selves, or with others

and ways for children to navigate under the shelving. This does mean it is fixed shelving so there are some disadvantages to this.

Fox Library, MA had a children's reuse area for funds, use and to support the library,

lovely signs for children,

Watertown Public Library had an interesting classification of picture books

This is not an exhaustive list.

British Museum and #askacurator Storify

British Museum did a lovely Storify of their participation in #askacurator.  This highlights some lovely use of both the hashtag and Storify.  It was lovely to see how different curators were featured.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Other examples of #askacurator happening on other days... Musees d'Angers had their own day a few months ago

About Star Wars costume from the Smithsonian

International games day 2015 #igd15 on storify

I saw this lovely Storify by Matt Finch

It inspired me to do this not so lovely Storify bringing together the photographs and tweets from around the world. It was lovely to see the range of libraries involved, the range of games and the range of people.

shareable web pages

This should not be hard to do, but it seems that sometimes it is.  I have just been looking at a webpage from a national organisation in Australia (and I won't out them), it is about exciting things coming up, and I thought I would tweet the page.  There was no share option.

Yes, I know I could have copied and pasted the information.  It isn't hard, and often I do this.  In this instance that the page was not easily sharable undercut what they seemed to be trying to achieve.

This is also a great page showing lots of social media options, but I can't find the share on this page either.  I really like the way the social media is brought together on this page - but it still needs to be shareable.

In case you are thinking I am being unreasonable in wanting to share webpages - have a look at how easy NASA makes it with share right next to search (on every page at the top right).  They also have an amazing range of share options.

Some nice features in spaces for children in public libraries: part 1

This post is a collection of interesting features from library spaces for children.

Koelbel Library, part of Arapahoe Libraries had the children's area refurbished and added some acoustic treatments (the blue and white noodle like attachments to the ceiling).  I think these look sculptural, and rather lovely. They apparently work very well too in deadening sound.


Koelbel Library, have the pull out drawers (also at other Arapahoe Libraries) to help children explore books for themselves. This is really showing thought for your library clients.


The collection is organised in a way which makes sense to children - note the animal sign

This photograph shows another  example of the same classification - at Southglenn
Anythink Wright Farms had trees in the children's area

and a lovely outdoor space for play and learning

The Anythink Libraries had prompts for play and thinking, like this one at Anythink Brighton

and Anythink Perl Mack (although this was for anyone to connect to)


This shows some of many lovely ideas.  There will be more posts on this theme.

Mesa County Library in Colorado seeking crowdfunding for local studies app

I read this article Wild Colorado Wildlife Discovery App : Mesa County Libraries develops app with state Parks and Wildlife agency and then found this This is local studies. It is also an interesting partnership. It is also information services.

Join Ralph McDaniels to Celebrate Hip Hop History Month! | Queens Library

Join Ralph McDaniels to Celebrate Hip Hop History Month! | Queens Library



This is lovely.  This is a celebration of music and culture and it is also local studies.  Great to see this happening.  Make sure you read the article at the link above.

Where photographs end up...

I tripped across a Storify of photographs I tweeted from a tour of the Library at the Dock, in Melbourne.  The tour was after the Library stars seminar in 2014, and as I was there for work, I tweeted the photographs - so I could share what I was seeing.  I put photographs on my Flickr account when I take them in my own time.

If I am there for work they may go on one of the official work social media accounts, or if they aren't going to go there they are like these in the Storify, reporting on a seminar I went to (and not into my Flickr account).

Think about how you share the photographs you take. Are you happy for people to re-use them?  If so, make them easy to re-use.

This post came to my attention (thanks to an rss feed incase of scary things being said) as did this one, this one, this one, and this one.  These last photographs are from my Flickr stream (and so are taken in my own time).

My review of The Invisible Library

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a good solid three stars, and highlights how wide the three star rating is for me.

I enjoyed reading this book.

Maybe it was not good to read it so soon after The Aeronaut's Windlass but that is how my reservations came in at the library.

This book is about a library (or rather The Library) and the collection policy for it which does not appear to be written down anywhere. Okay, that is one interpretation of what is it about, but it is what drives the story forward - how to obtain a very specific book for the collection. As we see how one book is obtained, we hear stories and rumours of other items being obtained in similar or different way.

There are librarians (or actually Librarians - the capitalisation is important) who travel to parallel worlds, collecting near identical editions (mainly of fiction). There are a range of procurement methods, including theft, and this becomes a slightly discredited method through the book. This theft is off putting (and I don't agree with libraries using theft or theft like practices to develop their collections, and yes I know this is a work of fiction).

There is a dragon, stylish dressing, zeppelins, vampires, werewolves, fae and some very interesting action sequences in the steampunk mix. All of the characters can deliver surprises (and I won't mention exactly what they are because of spoilers). There is character development which works well. This also turns out to be yet another political thriller in my accidental year of reading political thrillers.

It is the first in the series and I will be very interested to see what happens next and look forward to reading the next title.



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Is your social media mentioned on vehicles?

I liked this, it was simple, and clear. The social media was consistently present on promotional material - see here for some more examples.

Instameet at the USA National Archives

This is a lovely story in so many ways. It is a lovely use of Storify, it is great to hear that the USA National Archives ran an Instameet, and that is was so successful (judging from the great photographs). It is very much about the building architecture, but that is fine.

Finding out about online resources in library buildings

When I visit libraries and other places I like to see what I can find out about their online presence when I am onsite.  These are just a few examples.

Denver Library made it easy to find out about their local music


their ebooks and other online services as well.


Arapahoe Libraries had promotions including for ebooks, and zineo posters and screen savers


Robbins Library tells about the Massachusetts wide ebooks collection


Boston tells people about their renovations

Central Park encourages people to share their playground images

The Blood bank encourages sharing on social media

and the Australian Museum provided a hashtag (as well as other information not shown in this photograph)

Discovering collections discovering communities (DCDC) 2015 a Storify thanks to @C_Fryer

This has some great ideas for and examples from local studies collections (as well as many other collections as well)

My review of A little book of craftivism

A Little Book of Craftivism by Sarah Corbett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The title sums it up well. The reader is given the background to Sarah Corbett's involvement in craftivism, and that leads into the rest of the book. There are some strategies about how to be most effective in craftivism, and also information about how to cross stitch. There is wit in the strategies as the aim is to engage. There are some very good strategies, many involving action and patience.

This is very much a personal view (but that is kind of the point of this book). I would suggest reading it as a companion piece to Craftivism: The Art of Craft and Activism but it stands alone too. I read it because I had been following the author on social media.

It is an engaging and quick books to read. It is also a book to go away and think about, and to look back at.

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