What a year, 2005….I can say with absolute certainty I am glad to have all the work I put into 2005 behind and I am looking forward to more challenges in 2006. I just had an interview at the Computer History Museum today and I am happy to say I got the internship! It is actually a paid internship (hence the hour interview) although it is a very small stipend, but not the reason for doing the internship. The CHM is conveniently located almost directly across the street from the MS campus which will mean Reeves and I can carpool again to work! I will be there Wednesdays and Thursdays starting February 1 and working for 3 months. I am excited about this position as I will be using more of my archival skills as well as incorporating technology into the mix.
School starts again on 1/25 so I am really relishing the time free since last semester was so hectic. This semester however is going to test all my computer skills (and probably Reeves’ patience with me as I pepper him with a million questions). I am, however, excited to get down and dirty with technology and really understand what all my more computer savvy friends are talking about at parties. (yes, we are all geeks in case you didn’t get that before)
One of the classes will cover the following:
Information Technology Tools and Applications
We will focus on modular Web site design and DHTML (Dynamic HTML). Dynamic HTML uses (X)HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript as the building blocks for Web sites. Students will be introduced to XML and PHP. In this class students will:
(1) Understand the client server relationship and work with a Unix server
(2) Design conceptual and practical strategies for presenting information on the Web
(3) Create content in XHTML format
(4) Design interfaces using CSS
(5) Incorporate features such as images, frames, interactive forms in a cgi directory, image maps, internal search engines, and Perl scripts
(6) Work with JavaScript, PHP, and XML
(7) Study design, accessibility, and cultural issues
The second class will cover Digitization (as a form of access and preservation) – that is the process of taking a physical item (paper typically) and transforming it into a digital record – not to be confused with digital preservation which is the process of managing the life cycle and preservation of digital objects which originated as digital information.
In summary, I will have 2 classes and the internship. I really thought I was going to have an ‘easy’ semester, but with these two classes which will both be a challenge to me, and an internship which requires double the time I was doing last semester, it is going to be another busy 5 months. Well that is the new, back to the old…..
I also wanted to quickly review some of the events of 2005 for which I would like to remember (since I like to use this as a diary of sorts) and they are: (and please forgive me if I forget something, but it was a very busy busy year):
1) Fabulous trip to St. Thomas with the family (which we get to go back to in April)
2) Spending Valentine’s day and Reeves’ birthday with friends in Tahoe
3) My first Archives conference, in Las Vegas none the less!
4) My friend Leslie getting engaged to a great guy, Jason!
5) The amazingly beautiful wedding of our friends Dick and Trina
6) The wedding and mini family reunion of Reeves’ cousin Nancy & Chuck
7) Amy visiting here and our Napa valley adventure
8) Mike’s 40th Birthday Bash in Vegas with ‘the crew’
9) My visit to New Orleans for the Society of American Archivists conference while also visiting my Mom who lives in the area….and leaving only 5 days before Katrina hit….
10) My internship at Stanford’s Hoover Institute
11) Finishing a total of 7 graduate classes in one year!
12) Celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary (with artwork J )
12) Visiting Goshen, NY and NYC for the 2005 holidays
That is all that comes to mind at the moment, but I really hope I can be better about blogging as I really enjoy keeping a record of my life, even if there is no one who is really interested in reading it! J