My work this week at ZSR has continued much as last week did. It was somewhat interrupted by my snow day Wednesday, as you can see by my beautiful Tuesday afternoon view from the library's sixth floor (somewhat distorted because of the screen). To continue a theme from last week, much of the past few days, for me, have been focused on time. I have come to appreciate the amount of time it takes to show each individual file the love and care it deserves. Ok, that may be a little bit facetious, but I do think it's important for me to realize the time investment that goes into converting and uploading individual files (in my case, the PDFs for the Old Gold & Black project), because it highlights the virtues of batch processing. It also underscores how investing the time in discovering ways to process batches of files is actually a time-saver in the long run.
The internship this semester is coinciding with my Leadership and Management for Information Organizations class. Being in a new working environment has certainly given me the opportunity to reflect on previous experiences and to observe some of the ideas we are learning in class. One of our first required readings is First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. As a rule, I am somewhat skeptical that these types of books can offer any wisdom that would be applicable in the "real world", but I have been pleasantly surprised. The book is based on years of workplace and management studies conducted by Gallup in companies across the United States.
One of the themes in the book is (can you tell from the title?) to shy away from conventional management practices, which have a tendency to focus on the weaknesses of an employee's performance which usually cannot be changed. Certainly in my experience, the negatives have usually gotten the most attention (the squeaky wheel syndrome?), with the best intentions for improvement of course. But the book tells managers to instead focus on the positives and match employees' strengths with specific job duties. It is nice to see this in action in the digitization lab at ZSR.
As my work with evaluating materials to include in the Secrest Artists Series digital exhibit continues, I look forward to exploring some of the issues related to large-scale digitization and copyright. Look for a post with all my amazing insights next week! Oh, and don't forget to see the progress of the OGB project in the keyword searchability progress chart.
The internship this semester is coinciding with my Leadership and Management for Information Organizations class. Being in a new working environment has certainly given me the opportunity to reflect on previous experiences and to observe some of the ideas we are learning in class. One of our first required readings is First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently. As a rule, I am somewhat skeptical that these types of books can offer any wisdom that would be applicable in the "real world", but I have been pleasantly surprised. The book is based on years of workplace and management studies conducted by Gallup in companies across the United States.
One of the themes in the book is (can you tell from the title?) to shy away from conventional management practices, which have a tendency to focus on the weaknesses of an employee's performance which usually cannot be changed. Certainly in my experience, the negatives have usually gotten the most attention (the squeaky wheel syndrome?), with the best intentions for improvement of course. But the book tells managers to instead focus on the positives and match employees' strengths with specific job duties. It is nice to see this in action in the digitization lab at ZSR.
As my work with evaluating materials to include in the Secrest Artists Series digital exhibit continues, I look forward to exploring some of the issues related to large-scale digitization and copyright. Look for a post with all my amazing insights next week! Oh, and don't forget to see the progress of the OGB project in the keyword searchability progress chart.