Maine Media Library

Maine Media Library
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Wednesday, September 21st

Today was another sunny clear autumn day in Maine which found me traveling on the road from Blue Hill to the Camden-Rockport area to work on site at the Maine Media College. I arrived on the campus around 9:30 after stopping in at the Ed Center in Rockland to print some inventory forms. After saying hello to Chris Urquart (who continues to be a phenomenal contact for me there - getting me set up with housing and free meals, and connected to IT personnel like Peter Kuhns who issued me a complimentary laptop today in order to work) I jumped right in and went to work. My first objective is to take an inventory of the current collection, getting an idea of what kind of order it is in while becoming familiar with their classification of books. The collection seems to have most everything classified as TR = Photography (using the Library of congress classification system- instead of a more detailed Dewey Decimal organization which separates books by type and topic more than the general designation of "photography". While sorting through the very interesting yet haphazard shelves of books, I culled the Rare Books (as per the advisement of Charles Altschul) and placed approximately 10-12 rare books in his office where they will be safely stored until we can purchase some type of lockable book case which will display them nicely. I told President Altschul that I will keep my eyes open for yard sales and estate sales, looking for an affordable yet distinguished piece of furniture in which to store the laudable collection of rare books.

Tonight I am weary from the drive and from working a waitressing shift this evening. The call to study math and biology fades as my heavy eyelids answer the beckoning voice of sleep. I have a lot to do tomorrow and am so happy with my progress today though I will be more focused on my project next week when my hours at the waitressing job are cut back to a minimum.

When Peter Kuhns issued my laptop today we had a chance to discuss my objective to create an online presentation of the print collection and photo collection using Omeka. He suggested that I research using the college's current proxy which is Drupal instead so that whatever I do will be integrated with the college's website. It makes perfect sense and by using Drupal he may be able to help me troubleshoot and implement open source API's as necessary.

I have a lot to do tomorrow! Stay tuned!


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