Walker Brown
walk227@gmail.com
Blog/Reflections
Reflections on Program Overall
August 19th, 2021
The content of the program was pretty different than what I originally expected from it. I mostly thought that the program would focus on just cataloging, and while that was a good portion of the program it also spent a lot of time talking the use of computers. Another thing that I didn't expect was the focus on the user as the center of library work, which makes sense now but I had never really thought about what the focus for acquiring items was. This isn't to say every thing was surprising I expected my earliest classes to go over the history of the profession and engage with ethics.
Reflections on Group Project in INFO 5223
August 18th, 2021
Going into the Metadata class over the summer I was worried about the final project since it was a group project since I didn't know how helpful my partners would be. Instead the group was one of the best that I have ever had with a group project even if we only met twice before the presentation. One of the other group members had even visited the National Gallery and took pictures of the paintings that the project was making entries for.
Reflections on Practicum
August 17th, 2021
I was finally able to start my practicum during the middle of July, this was a pretty big relief since I had been looking for a practicum since last January but due to Covid I wasn't able to find anyplace that was open. My practicum is with the Interurban Railway Museum in Plano and I've really been enjoying the practicum it's quiet, I can work at my own pace, and I get to research the items I'm working with. I've also learned a lot about the interurban railway mostly that Dallas actually had a public transit system in the early 1900's then it went bankrupt in the 1940's due to the automobile. It probably didn't help the Interurban Railway that a really bad crash happened in 1949 when the company was at it's worst point.
Reflections on Research Work Done During Practicum
August 16th, 2021
One of the things that I most enjoyed the most so far about my practicum so far was researching Z.L. Lowe in order to fill out his entry in the database. There was just something fun about going down little rabbit holes to find obscure information about him. Like I found out that he had been married twice and worked as a farm hand at a farm that delivered flowers with through the interurban. It was kinda like solving a puzzle there is all of this information scattered around that starts to fit together as you find more.
Thoughts on my Workload over Summer 2021
July 31st, 2021
Starting on July 15th I started having to work my job, work my practicum, do my classwork, and update my e-portfolio.The only day that I actually have off is Sunday so its been kinda hectic for me dealing with each of these things at once. The workload is really just a coincidence if the practicum hadn't started in July I would have a lot more free time. Thankfully I'm in the home stretch so once December rolls around I'll have a lot less things I'll need to worry about and can take a breather.
Practicum
July 31st, 2021
I was really worried about whether or not I would be able to get a practicum for fall since I had been trying to get one for the summer since February and no one was getting back to me. I was starting to feel like I wasn't going to get one until spring at the earliest. However the Plano Interurban Railway Museum contacted me for an interview and offered me a paid internship starting on July 15th. It has been a little difficult having to juggle two jobs, classes, and working on the e-portfolio but it means that I'm getting to the end of my program which is really exciting.
Thoughts on Metadata Record Assignments
July 30th, 2021
I was a little worried about the metadata record assignments when I first started them since I wasn't too sure what they were going to be like. Thankfully a lot of the stuff that I learned from my cataloging and HTML classes carried over to the assignment. It wasn't a complete walk in the park but it was familiar enough that I wasn't starting from scratch.
Thoughts on Classes in Summer 2021
July 29th, 2021
When I started the summer semester I figured that it wouldn't be that much different from the rest of the semesters that I have done albeit a little truncated. The only other big project I would have to focus on would be finding a practicum. Thankfully I was able to get a practicum for the fall unfortunately they wanted me to start around the middle of July so I had to juggle all three of those during July. Thankfully I'm pulling through without much problem I've got a high B in my class and getting to work on time so all well that ends well.
Copyright Thoughts
May 29th, 2021
I had another term paper this semester where I was able to choose the topic and so I again did a paper on copyright law. The focus this time was on Open Access being a possible solution to the strictness of copyright law since it allows for an opt-in system and allows for other to use works to create derivative works more easily. I also was able to clear up some of my misconceptions about copyright law like there being no federal copyright system for audio recordings the CLASSICS Act that was passed in 2018 actually puts audio recordings under federal copyright law and has provisions for orphaned works. Over the course of researching the paper I did find out that a digital privacy and net-neutrality group was created because the Secret Service seized the computers from a tabletop gaming company because they believed they had government secrets on their computers.
Thoughts on INFO 5295 Discussion Post
May 28th, 2021
In one of the module in my Topics of Digital Imaging class we had to read a number of newspaper articles about an archivist that was caught stealing books from the archives he was in charge of. I found myself feeling really conflicted about the story on one hand he betrayed the trust of the archives he was working at and made it harder for many people to access the texts that he stole but also when talking about the archives he said he did it to "make ends meet" and to pay for his 5 kids college tuition. It really made me think that he had a higher salary he might not of turned to theft. Ultimately though all I can say is that thousands of dollars of rare books were impossible to access because of his actions and that is frankly unacceptable.
Thoughts on INFO 5210 Research Paper
May 26th, 2021
I did the Intro to Cataloging research paper on the difficulties with cataloging languages that don't use the Latin alphabet. I actually really enjoyed learning about different techniques that are used to enter information into online catalogs in languages. The main one were efforts by public libraries in Canada to catalog texts in Inuit languages. The biggest issue they faced was figuring out whether or not to use the native syllabary, which would have to be entered with Unicode every time, or to transliterate the non-English words. It was just interesting to learn about a subject that isn't often times talked about.
INFO 5815 Topics of Digital Imaging
May 27th, 2021
The digital imaging class that I took was very different from any of the other courses that I have taken over the course of the program. It was mostly self-directed, each module had us do a reading in the textbook and then do our own research on the topic. It was really helpful to find the information myself and then write down what it meant it let me digest things more since I was the one explaining the topic. I was a little worried a the beginning of the class since I was having trouble adjusting to the different format but with the professor's critiques I was able to get through the class with almost an A
Website Development
December 28th, 2020
I found the Website Development class that I took this semester to be really helpful for me. One of the things that I see as a weakness for me in any information profession is my lack of knowledge about computers. I really didn’t know anything about computers going into the class, so it was really cool to see myself build a website out of HTML and CSS over the course of a semester. To be honest I was pretty worried about how I would do in the class since I was new to all this computer stuff, but I wound up doing the best in it out of all of my classes this semester.
Thoughts on INFO 5000 Term Paper
December 28th, 2020
I really liked my INFO 5000 term paper a big part of which, was being able to focus on a topic that I actually enjoyed learning about rather than a dull but important topic. I did copyright law and its impact in information professions as my topic for the paper and it was really interesting learning about all of the misconceptions that I had about copyright law, like there not being a federal public domain for audio recordings or copyright applying from the moment of creation. It was also really interesting to learn about orphan media and all of the problems that it causes for archiving.
Thoughts on Career Development Project
January 2, 2020
I wanted to do volunteer work or an internship for the Career Development project but unfortunately due to Covid there weren’t any opportunities open in any nearby archives. Instead I had to attend web conferences, which was still useful since I hadn’t done anything like that yet. I also learned a bit more about some subjects, mostly computer security and budgeting, but I wasn’t able to get experience working which is what I really wanted to get out of the Career Development project.
Thoughts on Information Hunts
January 2, 2020
The most interesting assignments I had this year were the information hunts for INFO 5600. It was really cool looking for information on topics on my own and learning about subjects I normally wouldn’t be interested in. My favorite part of those assignments was definitely the evaluations at the end where we found an information resource on our own and had to judge how good it is. I had a lot of fun evaluating information resources that I already knew about and like to use like, Wolfram Alpha and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Thoughts on SWOT Assignments
May 2020
The SWOT assignment was a good chance to practice what I had learned over the course of the semester. It was cool to look at a library and go over its issues when I don't think that I would have recognized that they had issues at the beginning of the semester. I also enjoyed being able to explain why something was an issue and what the library could do to address the problem before it became too big. It just was really interesting to have an assignment that showed me just how much I learned over the course of just a semester.
Archives and Manuscripts
May 2020
The assignments that I believe were the most useful in helping me understand what archival work is really like were the Case Studies in my Archives and Manuscripts class. Before hand my impression of archival work was something along the lines of a caretaker of artifacts and records for study. While that is definitely a part of archival work it is only a very small part of what archives do. The case study that really stands out for me was the one on community archives, namely how these archives rather that serving an academic purpose they exist to provide access to marginalized communities as well as being proof of these communities existence in the face of those individuals that wish to excise them from history.
How I Became Interested in Working in an Information Profession
May 2020
While this wasn't part of my coursework I feel that it is important to talk about how I realized that I wanted to work in archives. During the summer of 2019 one of my cousins got married in Hungary and my family decided to use it as an opportunity to take a family trip in Germany before heading to the wedding. While we were in Germany most of our time was spent visiting museums and going on historical tours. I realized that I really enjoy researching and learning about history, especially when it involved interacting with artifacts. At the time I was dissatisfied with my current job and unsure of what I wanted to do and so this allowed me to realize that I wanted to work in archives.
Thoughts on Information Organization Project
May 2020
When I first started the Information Organization Project I knew absolutely nothing about databases of any kind, I wasn't even sure that my topic would be feasible. Over the IOP I got a crash course in everything related to databases from what types existed to how they are set up.Toward the end of the semester I got a text from my sister asking what databases are used besides the Dewey decimal, I quickly shot her back a text that Library of Congress is the only other one really used in the US and every other database is used for specific types of collection, like art or architecture. It's kinda felt good to go from knowing nothing about a subject to being able to answer other peoples questions about it.