This blog comes late partly because Microsoft Word 2007 and
Dropbox colluded to rob me of my precious prose. On Sunday night I transferred
my two page blog about the Society of American Archivists conference in San
Diego to Dropbox only to see on Monday that it no longer was there. “Hmm…” I
thought, “perhaps the transfer didn’t complete after all.” I opened Word and
selected the “IMLSblogWk10” only so read that the document file path no longer
existed. Having frequently attempted to open Dropbox documents from Word before
this error was not new. This time however I had correctly checked Dropbox first and
THEN Word. I finally checked the original file’s location and—Huzzah!—located the
shortcut! But, wait, oh no, the file path isn’t working…
My file is in the limbo of the hellish PC and the Dropbox in
the clouds with litters of unbaptized babies—or so my 21st Century Catholic
upbringing compels me to believe.
Since I didn’t close Windows without saving, I can’t auto
recover. Since I don’t back up my computer every three hours, I can’t pull it
from my external hard drive. Simple searches for the exact title of the blog in
Dropbox and the PC yield nothing. Nothing in my recycling bin, nothing in my temporary
files, nothing, nothing, nothing. Frequent readers of my IMLS blog (there must
be some, no?) will understand that I pour my heart and soul into these. They are
an expression of my deepest feelings through the universal sieve, winnowing the
coarse granules of life from the digestible, nourishing bits that give us
reasons to live. Except for week nine’s blog—I had a serious case of "writer’s blog"©
and phoned it in. You wouldn’t expect me to repeat the same anguish and heart
for another post, would you?
Instead here are some bullet points:
- ·
San Diego has a lovely downtown and its homeless
population is plentiful but non-aggressive. Very much representative of
California as a whole I suppose.
- ·
I appreciate every opportunity The HistoryMakers
provides. On our first night we dined with previous THM fellows and a fortunate
sequence of events landed me next to Kelvin White of the University of Oklahoma
library school and IMLS administrator Kevin Cherry. Kelvin explained the depths
of the LIS Ph.D. programs and Kevin, a sweet, sweet white man from North
Carolina who shares my love of plaid shoes, bowties, and urged me to enter the
Ph.D. academic-verse. There is a lot of colorful nuance to this story, most of
which concerns his delightful sense of humor and a our rapport, and it’s
obvious that Cherry wants more blacks in the information business. In the world
of archives connections are currency and right now I feel rich.
- ·
Every conference I attend increases my ambition
by 50%. This immediately drops by half of that, approximately 1/8th
of the totality of my ambition. Doing the math that means my ambition is now
304%--just over four times-- where it was in March 2010 before I attended the
Midwest Archives Conference. I feel like I could conquer the entry-level
archives world! The fellows will try and piece together a panel or poster
presentation as our experiences merit and hopefully SAA and the regional
archival associations will see a lot more of me in the future!
- ·
Sessions were a mixed bag. I mostly attended the
technology minded or K-12 outreach panels. I see digital curation as an
important (obviously!) development in archives and K-12 education is important
for my placement at the Maryland State Archives.
Below are some pictures of my adventures.
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| Planes fly dangerously close to the cityscape, threatening the masts of nearby barques |
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| Packers lose a pre-season game to the Chargers, whose stadium is not noticeable from my hotel room. Petco Stadium, home of the Padres, disappoints. I approve of the Chargers victory. |
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| Panel discussion on "living archives" composed primarily of THM fellows |
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| The USS Midway |
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| A model of a contemporary prop plane engine |
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| The captain's bunk on the Star of India at the Maritime Museum |
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| A non-contemporary sign designating the modern chamber pot |
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| Porthole view of a Soviet sub from the bathroom. I will not say where I am standing relative to the the toilet |
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| A mock-up of the HMS Surprise, as used in "Master and Commander" |
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| The Star of India from the Surprise's bow |
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| Sleeping quarters in the Surprise |
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| A B-39 Soviet submarine |
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| Planes fly dangerously close to the skyline |
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| Nate Sowry is co-winner of the Gerald Hamm Scholarship. A UW-Madison student, Nate is an exceptional representation of the school and its values. 'Nuff said. The last Hamm Scholarship winner was also from Madison but did not bother to show up to accept the award. Odd, since SAA last year was in Chicago--just a four hour bus ride--and Nate traveled half0way across the country... |
