The Tech-Obsolescence Paper

Well, it was well worth the effort. The professor thought it was excellent: “Very detailed and well-researched!” He had a few helpful comments and constructive criticisms which I’ve incorporated into the paper, posted here for your perusal: current issues paper . Please feel free to comment.

The Annotated Bibliography v.2

I did find the time, so here’s the improved version: bibliography v.2 .

The Annotated Bibliography

Here’s an annotated bibliography related to my paper on technological obsolescence and the Kodak side projector. After spending hours formatting, checking and re-checking the citations [now I wish we had that RefWorks lab!], I realized that the annotations are a bit thin. They should probably be more substantive rather than just quick one-liners; so, if I have time,  I may try to beef it up and replace it. But, I want to stick to the original April 20 deadline. So here is the bibliography .

Citations

Enough said.

One final article

Well, one document retrieval saga has come to a successful conclusion. Essentially, I found a new article – Metadata quality in digital repositories: A survey of the current state of the art – through the St. Johns library website and read it. The next day, I could not access it again even though I knew the title, the periodical, the author, the date, etc. Emails with the reference desk were exchanged. They were able to access it; but I still could not even by following the exact steps they were using. I asked them if they would be authorized to email me a pdf; since this was now almost midnight on Friday night, they had to check. But, voila, it arrived this afternoon. I wanted to work in a quotation from it because it’s an article that was literally just published; in fact, the physical copy of that periodical is not available yet.

What an interview!

Katherine Haskins turned out to be a goldmine. Over a several year period, she oversaw the conversion and archiving and storage programs for Yale’s 35mm slides [as well as photographic prints and glass lantern slides]. I think the content and insights she gave me will greatly enhance the paper. I can’t wait to finish it.

A promising interview

I asked a friend and classmate [who currently works at the Yale Art Gallery] if she might know someone at Yale who could give me any insights regarding how Yale has managed the demise of the slide projector. Well, tomorrow I’ll be sitting down to chat with Katherine Haskins up at Sterling Library. Oh, and the circulation folks got that book to Manhattan for me on time. Bravo.

An actual book!

I realized that the research for my paper is almost done and I have not ventured from the sofa in my home library. In the interest of using an actual book for the paper, I’ve located one – Moving theory into Practice: Digital Imaging for Libraries and Archives – at the Queens campus of St. Johns and have arranged for it to be delivered to the Manhattan campus by tomorrow evening so I can pick it up when I’m there for class. We’ll see.

A Huge Art Database

Following my threads on libraries coping with the demise of the slide projector, I found ARTstor. This art database is now up to about 1 million images and over 1,000 institutional member/users including St. John’s. I think it will be one of the key components of the replacement of the humble slide.

Further Esoterica

If I thought writing about the demise of the slide projector was somewhat esoteric, I think that people making art exhibits in homage to the device have got me beat. There was even a film made called the “Last Slide Projector” which was shown [to uncounted audiences] on at least two continents. In that connection I came across this idiosyncratic blog entry complete with a quotation from Godard.