Unit 12 My Blog

Blog Assignment – Week 2
Although the files are large, it’s possible to create a working virtual machine for download and playback in your Virtualization software (although in practice, it’s almost as much work and sometimes difficult to troubleshoot). In your blog, discuss the possibility of downloading a pre-installed VM versus building your own, from a learning and pedagogical perspective. Would preconfigured solutions provide more time to concentrate on the collection? Or, do you think you are losing the opportunity to learn about how a repository is structured and modified by not building it from scratch? Would you have a preference for one or the other with respect to your current computer skills and learning preferences

My comments

A pre-installed VM would save a lot of time on the “preliminaries” and allow us to really get into the features of Omeka, DSpace, EPrints or Drupal. Chances are those of us who are fortunate enough to work in a digital or institutional repository will not be called upon to install or configure the software to the server. IR server chores will be the responsibility of campus IT and or the Network Admin not library staff. Library staff will be left to figure out how to use the repository software and how to best add deposits to the collection, embargo items and comply with IP laws and rules, and add metadata to collections. Appraising items, planning projects while also constructing special vocabularies will all be on the agenda of the IR staff. We spent some time on these things during 672 and 675 and since we are all working professionals, a lot of the metadata creation and planning responsibilities are things we are doing for items in our print or analog collections. These skills should transfer well to digital collections work.

On the other hand learning about the configuration issues of digital collections, using our linux command skills , or writing some code to get things done rather than waiting for IT are all really excellent competencies for successful managemet of a digital repository. The logic and thinking behind OAI-PMH would be difficult to understand unless we had installed the harvester and then harvested metadata. How metadata is stored and retrieved and rearranged would be fairly opaque without having first explored MySQL and learned how to build tables and databases. Maybe a future class could do both although I can't see how any more material could fit into this course.

Not sure where I land on this, but I am really am grateful for having experimented with installing Ubuntu servers on my VM and then downloading and installing the repository software on the VM. Without doing these chores and getting under the hood of the IR , I would be a whole lot less sophisticated about how digital repositories work, the limitations of certain software and the resources available to solve problems .

I will have to experiment a lot on my own to try to improve my repository software competencies. The weekly technical activities instructions will be a great reference resource to look back at and equipped with what we have learned in this class I can take that knowledge and build on it.