Augmented Reality Apps & Libraries

Tweet You may be familiar with augmented reality apps for the iphone. They've been around a few years.  One of my favorites is an augmented iphone application that shows you information about nearby landmarks and historic locations on your iphone's viewfinder. Point at the Washington Monument, for example, and you will see the Wikipedia entry over the landmark.  The app is called Cyclopedia and relies on 65,000 entries on Wikipedia that are geotagged.  One golfers would find useful is Golfscape GPS Rangefinder.  It covers 35K+ courses and displays the distance from front, center or back of the green.  See descriptions of these and other 38 other augmented reality iPhone applications at http://www.iphoneness.com/iphone-apps/best-augmented-reality-iphone-applications/ 


 Some wonder, though, how we can take advantage of augmented reality at work.  Now we have one answer for librarians. Miami University's Augmented Reality Research Group has developed an Android app that reads a bookshelf with an AR overlay, flags those books that are misplacaed and even points to the correct place on the bookshelf so the book can be re-shelved correctly and easily.  Read more about this awesome augmented reality app at http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/awesome_augmented_reality_app_could_save_librarian.php

ARMA International Educational Foundation annouonces new research report: "Mergers, Acquisitions, Divestitures and Closures: Records and Information Management Checklists"

Tweet Revised and updated with new research, this report continues to focus on a major problem for the RIM community.  As Executives form Merger and Acquisition teams, Due Dilligence processes are initiated, business consultants are retained, and Legal Counsel becomes involved, the Corporate RIM Program must reach out to accomplish new record keeping objectives while working within constrained resources and time frames. The goal of this report is to provide a ready reference that can serve as a starting point for Records Managers and their Programs in discussions of the record keeping challenges that will arise. By exploring issues in advance of problems occurring, organizations will be able to assure that records required for quality decision-making and long-term retention are identified and properly preserved.  The report written by John T. Phillips, CRM, FAI, CDIA+, and CDIA, can be downloaded from the AIEF website at: http://www.armaedfoundation.org/report3.html

Sunshine week: Nashua reviews public record keeping -- Practical reasons for records retention schedules

Tweet In this digital world with our seemingly unlimited capacity to store information, some think we should just "keep it all."  Archivists may prefer this because, as one colleague likes to remind me, "you never know what will be of value to future researchers."  But the article on the challenges of public record keeping brought to the attention of municipal employees in Nashua, NH, this week (Sunshine Week), provides rationale for using a records retention schedule for two purposes: 1) ensure public records will be retained as required by law, and 2) outdated or unnecessary records are destroyed in a systematic, thoughtful way.  

The second important message from this article is that there is such a thing as Sunshine Week to underscore the importance of a citizen's right to know. According to the Nashua Telegraph, "Newspapers are watchdogs of government because of laws protecting the public’s freedom of information. Sunshine Week is an annual examination of government’s responsiveness to citizens. The Telegraph participates with newspapers from around the country."  A link to Sunshine Week-related stories brings up some interesting titles, including C-SPAN's archives brings history to life, Open Government for more than just a week, and Unlocking data in Washington.

Virtual worlds, the hypergrid, and where are all the avatars?

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During a presentation in Second Life March 14, Alexina Proctor (Heather Ebey to those of us in SLIS) discussed the number of virtual worlds beyond Second Life and described one in particular, InWorldz.  According to Alexina, InWorldz had 18,485 user accounts in early October 2010 and has added 10,000+ accounts by January 2011.  She describes the inhabitants of all virtual worlds as "pioneeers and entrepreneurs, adventurous and independent, building worlds with their own creativity."  

Learn more about InWorldz at http://inworldz.com/ 

The group was left with this quote from Thomas Friedman, MIT Milestone Celebration (2008) keynote:

The most important competition is no longer the competition between one country and another country, or between one company and another company. The most important economic competition is between you and your own imagination.

 Virtual Worlds present an opportunity for you to explore your own imagination! 

Presidential Libraries, Budgets, and Cost of Digitizing

Tweet Presidential Libraries are spread across the US and preserve pieces of history for citizens in the context of their home towns or regions of the country most relevant to each president.  While established with private funds, the government is expected to staff and maintain 13 bricks-and-motar sites.  It's not surprising, then, that the $77 million required to keep them running each year is under scrutiny.  Recently, a House Infrastructure & Oversight Joint Committee met to discuss the value of the Presidential Libraries, the papers contained therein, and the potential for digitizing the 8 million documents to allow citizens to access them online.  Read the entire document at http://www.westbranchtimes.com/article.php?id=6782.  Learn more about the Office of Presidential Libraries that administers the 13 facilities at http://www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries/about/office.html

Brabant Historical Information Center Leverages Social Media and Crowdsourcing

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Christian van der Ven, archivist of the Brabant Historical Information Center, addressed a captive audience during a presentation in Second Life as part of the Archivists of SL March 6th Meeting.  He described how the Center, a large regional archives in the southern part of the Netherlands, uses social media to enhance its image and reach out to patrons.  Christian had many ideas to share with those wondering how to use social media to benefit their own organizations. Christian's page: http://archives20.ning.com/profile/ChristianvanderVen   View the slides at http://www.digitalearchivaris.nl/

The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping: a reader (and a review)

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It's been a while since I posted. Time goes by quickly when you're having fun!!  Currently I'm nearing the end of a 'reader' edited by Jennie Hill that I hope we'll use as one of the required readings in the MARA (Master of Archives & Records Administration) program.   The Future of Archives and Recordkeeping was published by Facet Publishing in 2011 (available through Neal-Schuman and AMAZON here in the states).  The opening chapter written by Jennie HIll and Victoria Lane sets the stage for the remaining 10 chapters which deal with defining archives, shaping a discipline, archive 2.0 - archives in society, and archives in the information age. This last section asks the question, "Is there still a role for the archivist?"  And, of course, the answer is yes!  But exactly what that role should be is the question.  Chapter 9 by Adrian Cunningham on the 'postcustodial archive' gives us a clue.  Archivists will continue to accept, protect, and make available objects within physical spaces, but they will also be responsible for managing digital artifacts in both centralized and distributed environments. Although I did not intend to turn this into a recommendation, I do highly recommend that you read this book if you are a serious student of archival studies and wish to understand how some of the archival scholars view the role of the archivist now and into the future. (ISBN: 1-85604-666-4)