Here there be dragons.
…or at least, there might be; this little gem of a town, where I’ll be spending the next month cataloging a small library, is pretty far off the end of my current map of the world, experientially as well as spatially. The current year-round population is 14 people, and in the 1990s they switched mail delivery from donkey to vespa, since no cars can get up to the town. It’s not that it’s old; it’s just that the most recent remodel was probably the church, during the Renaissance.
It will be interesting to see whether I can rise to the challenge of 4-hour workdays, walking into the market every day, learning to garden, and taking enough pictures. Of course, I’m also supposed to be in charge of organizing a smallish library (“How many books are there?” I asked. The reply: “Um….?”) Applying, interviewing, receiving the internship, and leaving for Italy are all basically taking place within the space of a month. Before I leave (6/28), I hope to have a) decided what sort of organizational scheme to use…or at least plan to use…and b) chosen a software or application in which to base the work I and the three other interns will be doing.
I’ll give a few periodic progress reports, but right now the considerations and possible challenges I’m thinking of include:
- what it’s like to have the role of (reluctant) “expert” bestowed on one, and the best way to approach the project
- perhaps most importantly, balancing power and future usefulness with convenience and efficiency now
- finding an acceptable software or application supported by both PCs and Macs. This means Microsoft Access is out of the running, and consensus seems to be that while there are applications in NeoOffice and OpenOffice that can be made to accomplish similar things, they require a bigger investment of time and effort to create. I’m also looking at LibraryThing, Filemaker Pro, and even Bookhound.
- the ability to access the database from multiple computers at once
- how to incorporate metadata standards—AACR2, or RDA if it’s out and we have access. (and VRA Core? There are also some architectural drawings they’d like catalogued.)
- classification schemes. Will Library of Congress really be useful for the purposes of this collection? They do want it to eventually be accessible online for other researchers.
- copyright issues if we want to make cover images accessible.
For now, then, ciao!
~Rachel
