Getting Started

After my first couple days at Jefferson Library, it is clear that there is a lot going on and a lot of work to do. It's exciting to feel that I can be a part of work that matters to people. It is also a little daunting. Getting started on projects is always a mixture of anticipation and trepidation for me as I settle into my own system for doing things. My first technical services task was to swap out text in some source code in order to make a book list available in Monticello's Thomas Jefferson's Libraries site. The 'Burwell list' contained Thomas Jefferson's suggestions to Nathaniel Burwell in 1818 of titles appropriate for female education. This task also involved cleaning up existing source code here and there. I don't have a lot of hands-on experience with HTML, but the more I work with it, the more I like it and take pleasure in understanding its operational functions. My supervisor, Endrina, has mentioned some of Jefferson Library's XML coding as well. We spent a good bit of time in J707 discussing XML markup, and it is great to hear its real-world applications in a specific context.

I am now beginning a more involved project of cataloging within LibraryThing. I will be cleaning up some existing records in Thomas Jefferson's library in order to get them up to the standards decided upon by the folks driving the Libraries of Early America project. Part of this task will also be to make sure there are links to help users navigate from LibraryThing (specifically George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson in LT) to manuscript images at Monticello, Massachussetts Historical Society (key players in LEA), and the Library of Congress. In J730, my cataloging course, we talked a little bit about 'cataloging 2.0' and what future tasks of the cataloger might be. I think this is a good example.