¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 I’ve been given the title of “Documentarian Lady” which will mean a few things…
¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Officially, I am taking on the role of Lead Metadata Specialist (burgeoning professional interest) and a bit of the Community Manager and Documentarian role originally outlined by Jenna in her proposal. However, after our first out-of-class meeting on Saturday, I also volunteered to take on the initial task of evaluating project management software and will be doing a closer look at providing guidance on a data management plan. More about this will be shared on our group blog post, but we will be collectively deciding on Wednesday on what program to use in order to keep us all on track. The immediate contenders are Trello, as recommended by the DiRT Directory and Taiga as found through an OpenSource.com article. I’m also working on a Google Site.
¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Although Alex has been designated as Lead Developer, we did discuss that each of us would like to gain experience with building the catalog and Alex has already disclosed that his programming experience is very basic (however, more than the rest of us). I find this component of the project to be most daunting, but I am glad to have the support of my fellow group members in this undertaking. We discussed our plan for reaching out to various parties such as course instructor, digital fellows, Jenna’s cohort of contacts, etc. should our technical know-how be limited.
¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 So far, I am impressed by the group’s commitment to and excitement about the project. We already have a plan for meeting most Saturdays during the semester and have worked out some of the deadlines for making progress on the project (of course, these will be tweaked as necessary). We’ve been contributing to a GoogleDoc so far where our meeting notes are currently living. It has been interesting to be part of the early stages of a project when roles need to be designed and expectations set.
¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 In the fall, I had hoped that Jenna would propose a project around her work with Zines and was very happy when that hope was realized. I found all the project proposals to be interesting, but this project has the most professional resonance with me. I think that building this catalog will strengthen my technical skills as a librarian and I will learn about various DH tools and project components for use in future collaborative projects. Jenna’s openness and willingness to take others’ ideas into account is really inspiring and I I feel strongly that our group will be able to make progress with this project and have a working prototype to debut in May.