Unit 3: Thoughts on Taking 2 Classes

Taking two classes has definitely been much more challenging, especially because the majority of the students are adults with families and professions. Someone it is a much more unique than the undergraduate experience of a par-time job with no kids and other responsibilities. I have to say that what is most noticeable to me in the amount of reading that is done each week for each class. The technical portion of it I find to be less noticeable, I believe because I enjoy this aspect of the course. So as far as the pace of the technology assignments I think the pace is appropriate. The reading may be reduced a bit, but then again it may seem like a lot to me because both courses are requiring quite a bit. I think more discussion on such topics is more interactive instead of one specific discussion question and it will make it more interesting.

I know I have already this before, but I appreciate the clearness of the instructions when we are doing our technology assignments. The steps are very easy to follow and the fact that you provide the reason for such commands makes grasping the concepts and commands understandable.

Unit 2: CMS Article Discussion

In reading CMS/CMS: content management system/change management strategies I quickly related to the change concept. This is because the Phoenix Public Library is in phases of changing its virtual presence. Just like the article stated a "committee" has formed to make strategical and tactical decisions in the direction the virtual library presence will take. For this reason different people, at different levels and outlooks were selected as part of this group. Prior to this there was another group that was established with the best interest of the website. What ended up happening was that the meeting turned into brain-storming seminars about the cool things for the library website to employ. The problem was that this structure lacked fulfillment and responsibility to execute. Many ideas died at the table with the agreement that it was important and in addition upper management was not invested in the major direction or presence that the virtual environment had or could have. Now there is more fulfillment and execution with a priority in making this the best experience for the public, just like they value the experience of going to a physical branch.

If a content management system can help create a virtual environment that easily and conveniently facilities it target audience, the Library needs to invest resources, through finances, personnel and initiatives to create an understanding and support movement that such change is necessary because ultimately the goal is to provide the best experience and service level to its visitors, even if it is a virtual experience and electronically delivered service. In involving key people in the decision-making group, these change agents can relay the importance of the change and also express the other point of view to a management team that in many respects may be a bit divided between reality and their own agendas. Additionally, in agreement with the article, the CMS implementation needs to reflect an overall purpose not just an implementation of technologies and an outpour of databases and collections. It should be a reflection of the entity and its missions, community and also a coordinated and organized reflection of all its resources. What message, usability factors, and other elements are of value and needed to the users? I enjoyed this article very much.

Unit 1: Digital Collection - E Prints

The digital collection I have collected is comprised of digital images of my children. I like to have images of special occasions and holidays. I would most definitely access it the most for reason such as enjoyment, editing the images and updating the collection. My husband and I would love t share this collection with our immediate family and intimate friends. The term of access would be very strict. There would be a short list of people that would have complete viewing access, an even shorter list (just my husband) who would be able to manipulate and manage the database, and fewer people could receive special privileges as granted by us (for example long-lost family members).

Unit 13: PHP

When the course started I was at a superficial level, mainly because it had been years since I put any of this into practice. Like they say of you don’t use it, you’ll loose it. I think this could not be more true when it comes to technology, especially because there is tons to be on top of in terms of change and understanding. In the curriculum for my Computer Information Systems degree, a lot of these topics were covered and topics such as programming were covered more in depth, but again, I had not put them into practice so this was a good refresher for me.

I can honestly say that when I was earning my CIS degree at no time did I ever really associate it with a library setting. Through this course I can see that technology is in every realm of businesses and organizations and that people with this know-how are needed to bring their entity’s forward, or they will stay behind and in a sense be useless because people are demanding everything digitized, electronic and more importantly…fast and now!

As a result of this being a technology course that applies to libraries, I have most defiantly heightened my understanding of the role technology plays in libraries carrying out essential functions in today’s’ world. More than anything, I am almost scared that there are not enough individuals with a strong technology foundation in librarianship. In order for us to remain vital and survive, we need to able to support and fight for such technologies that the public is expecting now, we have no choice if we want to remain relevant as an information institution.

Unit 12 - Review of Articles

The main point I interpreted from the article was immense need for project management using a specific style. It was interesting to have the message and examples brought out about how an academic library was piloting such management technique to not only smaller scale projects but to larger ones as well. The testimony at the end that this was the best way they could have gone and this is the way that they will go when implementing projects is very powerful coming from a person that did not use it before, used it and loved it. It’s kind of like a before and after. All the articles relayed pretty much the same message, project management is necessary and library projects are not exception, it no longer just applies to corporate projects or only to large scale projects.

I particularly enjoyed reading the article about why you should not use project management. It is catchy and you are able to discern the necessity of implementing different technique and following and adapting to style to reach success. Otherwise it easy to see how many components can effect you project and even cause its failure. I like the point by point, it made it easier and more interesting to read. All in all I also understand the responsibility and complexity of being a project manager, don’t know that I envy that responsibility.

Assignment 13 – SQL

When I am doing the video tutorials, everything seems to make sense, They always seem to be a great supplement with the readings. From last weeks assignment when we had to create the ERD, I noticed that when I get tot the point of conceptualizing a database, I seem to be over thinking it and making it more complicated than it should be. What has been more of a challenge for me is remembering that designated SQL keywords associated with a specific action. It is obvious when I see it done, but because I do not have tons of practice, at the moment when I sometimes try to think of unique scenarios I find it difficult to remember the syntax and what word/phrase goes where in the query. I can see how SQL is very powerful to a company because you can’t keep a separate database for each type of information you want to provide, instead creating a maintaining a good database will provide you with more useful information because the type of information needed may constantly change especially as the data changes also.

Remembering the syntax and being able to apply keywords to more complicated queries is where I need to take more time and practice. In particular, the SQL GUI user interface, like Webmin, are obviously more comfortable to me because GUI’s are what I am used to, but the conceptualization whether I am using a GUI or not is the underlying foundation for a good database.

Unit 10: Thoughts on DB's

There are some items that I find a bit confusing, I am sure that with more practice it will make more sense. I am thinking that the image collection I created which is of my family is a “is a” type. I am still a bit confused about the attributes for the daughter, sin and husband tables, in the sense of if they are supposed to incorporate the Person_ID, considering that they are all a “person”. I am going to have to further study this type of relationship through readings to see how this is explained so that I can apply. I am going to go through one additional tutorial to get a better grasp.