Web tools

I'm about to begin starting another processing job, but that means I have to clean off my desk. It's turned into a disaster over the past few weeks what with preparing for a conference, maintaining two websites, coming up with projects to keep my poor student assistant interested (I owe her since she just completed entering dozens of pages of a handwritten index into Archivists' Toolkit), and generally jumping from task to task. As one of the masters of procrastination, I've been delving into Google Custom Search which in turn led to the Google Webmaster Tools.

At the last conference I attended, one of my colleagues was extolling the benefits of the custom search. I'd been told not to add it to the pages I maintain because searching is one of the features they're planning to build into our flashy new site. I've been hearing about this flashy new site for a couple of years now. Our finding aids will be fully and locally searchable! Uploading changes will be automated! It will even look good! I'm in favor, but I also know that the project the digi folks are working on now has a deadline two years into the future. That doesn't bode well for instant gratification, hence the revisiting of custom search.

I logged in and tried it out. So far, it doesn't seem to search our PDFs, even though these turn up in a standard Google search for the same terms. It did, however, find a result in a document I somehow uploaded in XML over a year ago. It does not find a result in the corresponding HTML document. I thought this might be because our HTML and PDF files are not uploaded to our web content management system. They live on a server and we link to them there, in part because that's where everything lived when we used Dreamweaver and in part because it makes for easy updates. Simply generate the HTML document in AT and save it over the earlier version. Doing this saves me the trouble of logging in to the CMS and going through the 5-step process for uploading each file. After I've generated the HTML document in AT and saved it over the previous version, no less.

I'm really missing Dreamweaver right now.

Result!

I've only updated a sampling of finding aid pages with the Google Analytics code, but I'm pleased with the results so far. People are finding our pages and not leaving them immediately and not all of those people are me (I did visit each page after I added the code so that I would be guaranteed at least one hit). I suppose that now I need to update the rest of our finding aid pages, then learn how to use custom reports so that I can actually analyze the data.

Meanwhile, I'm using MarcEdit to pull catalog records into Archivists' Toolkit from iii Millenium. The process is a little clumsy but faster and more accurate than typing. If a collection isn't in Archivists' Toolkit already, I pull the entire MARC record in to create a resource. If the collection is in AT, I just pull the name and subject headings. There's always some cleanup and sometimes some duplication, but this way, I know the catalog matches AT and that our headings are consistent. As with anything, there's probably a better way, but without a lot of tech support, this is what works for now.

Google Analytics

I don't know a whole lot about XSL stylesheets, but I had a hankering to get some tracking information on our finding aids. It turns out that it is very easy to add the GA code to a stylesheet. I tend to get a bit geeky about statistics, especially use statistics, so the promise of extra knowledge is making me darn near jittery with excitement.


Oooh, and I passed the exam by 18 points! Bombed the preservation and protection domain, though. That's embarrassing given that I'm on the board of a preservation organization, but I'll get over it. I would never trust myself to set up temp and Rh parameters without a lot of research anyway.

Passed!

According to an email from the ACA, I passed. I'm not quite sure I'll believe it until I see the hard copy, but I'm excited right now. I finished my processing job as well, so it's been a good couple of days.

Fun with folder titles

I was recently assigned what I thought would be a delightful little processing job, but my previous experience with late 20th century collections in no way prepared me for how long it takes to preservation photocopy 4 cubic feet of brittle paper with a photocopier that thinks it knows best (28.75 hours in case you were wondering). At any rate, I photocopied the last piece of dark, crumbly groundwood paper yesterday and now I'm numbering folders and entering the titles into Archivists' Toolkit. It's so much fun to see it all come together and know that I was responsible for all of it!

Moved that map case, too. Now I just have to move some other things and fill it up. 

Lose 10 to 17 pounds in a week!

A co-worker just handed me a gem of a diet plan, found in an accession from the late 1980s. It's printed on medical office stationery and was supposedly used by the secret service and military. It must be good, right?

Some of the highlights:

The first day: All the fruits except bananas. "Should you eat the melon, your chances of losing 3 pounds in the first day are great."

Second date [assuming the first date went well, of course]: Vegetables! Lots of 'em! "Stay away from dry beans, peas and corn. These vegetables are good for you but not as you are trying to reduce your caloric intake. You may have a large baked potato with butter."

Fourth day: "Eat as many as 8 bananas and drink as much as 8 glass of skim milk." That's all, though you can supplement with a vegetable soup made of onion soup mix, cabbage, onions and tomatoes if you want.

Fifth day: "You can have 10 to 20 ounces [up to 1.25 pounds!] of beef and six tomatoes."

Seventh day: "Brown rice, fruit juice (unsweetened) and vegetables. Again, stuff, stuff, stuff!!!"

Should you desire a salad dressing, a recipe is provided. Simply combine a pint of imitation mayonnaise with a pint of lo-cal cottage cheese and 2 packages of dry salad dressing mix.

I think I'll stick with regular exercise and a turkey and hummus sandwich. And maybe I'll do some strength training in the guise of moving a map case. Maybe.

Sigh of relief

Well, the test is taken. Now all I have to do is wait for the results. All those people who say the exam is tricky? They're absolutely correct. Very few questions were obvious, regardless of how much reading you did or how long you've been working as an archivist. The part of me that admires good work has to admit that this is a well-crafted, if slightly diabolical, exam. I wanted to explain so badly why I chose certain answers over others, knowing that I wasn't choosing incorrectly but that I may not have discovered the best answer according to the ACA.

Reading the Archival Fundamentals II series proved to be a very good move on my part and I'm seriously considering buying my own copy of Ritzenthaler's Preserving Archives and Manuscripts. All of the AFS books were well-written and informative, but I consumed that one like I would a novel. And I've just requested the Photographs: Archival Care and Management book through ILL because I really don't know enough about photographs yet. 

Meanwhile, I now go back to my pre-exam life of full-time work and part-time grad school with a little bit of fun thrown in to keep things interesting. I think I'll move a map case next week. Why we have one set stacked two high and one set stacked four high is beyond me, but two stacks of three seems like a good goal if I can get enough hands together to safely shift the beastie.

Domain 7

I completed Benedict's Ethics and the Archival Profession yesterday. Even though it's framed around the 1992 Code of Ethics, the substance of the updated 2005 Code of Ethics is essentially the same so the book was definitely beneficial. The case studies were probably the most helpful to me. I recognized my own institution in several of them, which wasn't exactly heartening, but at least our shortcomings do not encompass any of the illegal or even questionable activities covered in the case studies. To the best of my knowledge we're above board but should probably work on closing some loopholes in our donor agreements and a clear collection development policy wouldn't hurt us either.

19 days to go. Planning to finish Selecting and Appraising this weekend and starting Managing Archival & Manuscript Repositories if I have time. My new lunchtime reading is Cook's What is Past is Prologue.

I'm also training for an 8k run. Only 22 days until that one. Fortunately, the regular training runs are helping with my energy and attention levels.

ArchivesSpace funding

As an Archivist Toolkit user, I'm very excited to hear that the ArchivesSpace project has received development funding. Read more here.

CA Reading List

There is, of course, no way I'm going to read everything on the Certified Archivist exam reading list. A co-worker is trying, but I would implode if I tried. So I decided to start with the SAA Fundamentals Series:

Managing Archival and Manuscript Repositories by Michael J. Kurtz
Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts by Kathleen D. Roe
Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts by Frank Boles
Providing Reference Services for Archives and Manuscripts by Mary Jo Pugh
Preserving Archives and Manuscripts by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler
Understanding Archives and Manuscripts by James M. O’Toole & Richard J. Cox
A Glossary of Archival and Records Terminology by Richard Pearce-Moses

The Ritzenthaler book isn't on the list, but the 2nd edition is recent and I think it will have good information. Still waiting for my ILL copy, though, and it's a long one, so I may not get around to it. Roe's book was really good for me to read since I don't have a classroom education in archival anything. Instead, four different faculty members with four different approaches have given me varying instructions depending on what project I'm working on. It's no wonder I've been confused. It was refreshing to start with the basics. I asked for, and was granted, a small collection to process on my own from start to finish and I worked my way through Roe and the collection at the same time. Doing so allowed me to develop my own path and reinforce my belief that my department needs a processing manual.

The glossary is a reference, of course. Someone suggested that learning the terms would almost guarantee a pass. Sure, and I'll just memorize the dictionary while I'm at it. I am using it as a companion so I don't feel like an idiot when I read some of the books. It's been good to me.  

Several authors reference Terry Cook's What is Past is Prologue and I hope that the history contained in that article will allow me to skip, say, Selected Writings of Sir Hilary Jenkinson which is lurking somewhere behind me as I write this. I'm planning to skip the Dutch Manual, too. If they seem to be essential reading for a pass, then I suppose I'll get to read them when prepping for my next attempt.

I'm currently working on Selecting and Appraising (at home) and Karen Benedict's Ethics and the Archival Profession (during lunch breaks - it's pleasantly concise) which provides an overview of SAA's 1992 Code of Ethics with ample case studies. While the Code was updated in 2005, the case studies still seem to apply.

I've also looked over Providing Reference Services but the information seems to parallel what I learned in library school (my emphases were reference and special collections) and what so I've decided not to worry much about that section. I'm pretty confident in my preservation knowledge as well, but I hope to get to some of those materials before August 24.

The Certified Archivist exam

I'm going to take the CA exam for the first time ever in oh, what is it now? A month? Yep. Just under. This is the first year I'm both eligible and living within a couple of hours of a test site. When I applied, I wasn't convinced I needed or wanted the certification. What does it mean, really? It seems like a lot of people have pondered that very question and I haven't seen any really good answers. I asked co-workers who have the certification and got a few eloquent shrugs. So why am I putting myself through this?

I'll admit, when I first heard about the certification, I was new to my job and had high hopes for moving upward. I thought it could only help to be certified. Four years later, the stars have aligned so that I can actually take the exam and I feel a lot more jaded. I don't need the certification to keep my job and the competition is fierce for the few jobs out there right now. I haven't seen much call for the certification on job postings, though it does appear under preferred qualifications from time to time. I know a lot of people who didn't pass the first or even the second time. The reading list is lengthy. The $50 application fee in and of itself was almost a sufficient deterrent and, if I pass, the $150 certification fee will hurt. But I wrote the check and sent it in because I am looking for a professional position and what if - what if - this is the little thing that pushes my application over the edge? I need that hope and the opportunity to feed that little bit of hope is well worth the study time and the drive to the test site and the application fee.