Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Spotlight on Michelle Turner, PMH cataloger

And now for something completely different... the perspective of a cataloger from the Pasadena Museum of History! How does it feel to be a museum worker collaborating with librarians? What unique challenges are presented when digitizing museum collections? Today's special guest Michelle Turner elucidates.
Kelli Hines: What is your role within the collaboration?
Michelle Turner: PMH Art & Artifacts cataloger; social media and outreach
KH: What excites you most about the project?
MT: Having most (or a good portion at least!) of Pasadena's digital historic resources in one place.  I think researchers and the general public really like to look at what everyone has before deciding which institution to visit.  It also allows us to easily do online exhibits using the resources from multiple institutions, which is very exciting.
KH: How has the collaboration changed or evolved since the beginning?
MT: The focus of the project since the beginning has been photographs, but recently we've started putting art and artifacts into the database.  PMH has an impressive art collection, particularly California plein air art, and I'd like to have a small selection of it up by the end of this year.
KH: What was behind the decision to start adding art and artifacts into the database? Are there any unique concerns for digitizing these types of items?
MT: Including art and artifacts was always part of the plan.  Eventually, we plan to include other holding as well, such as manuscripts.  We began with photographs because it's the biggest common denominator between the institutions, and we all have such large photograph holdings.  The biggest concern has been creating a separate metadata schema.  3-Dimensional objects are so different from photographs; we could not use the same metadata schema for everything.  However, we still had to make sure that everything mapped to the Dublin Core in such a way that visitors could cross search through all of the collections.
KH: What has been the most challenging for you?
MT: Understanding Dublin Core and where fields should be mapped!  Luckily, we have an expert or two in our group for that.  Another small challenge has been managing PDHC's Facebook page.  When we have eager interns or a big project, a lot's happening and there's plenty to tell people about.  But even if we haven't added anything new in weeks (which can easily happen with our busy schedules), I still need to post to Facebook regularly to keep our followers engaged.  A lot of people "like" us (over 300), but I'd like to see that double in the next year.
KH: Tell me about a time when you overcame a difficulty in the project.
MT: Well, when I first started attending the PDHC meetings, I realized that I would need to quickly become fluent in another language - librarian!  Everyone from PPC and PPL have MLIS degrees.  I have an MA in Public History / Museum Studies.  It took me 10 minutes in my first meeting to figure out that "LCSH" referred to Library of Congress Subject Headings (I'm used to the Getty Art & Architecture thesaurus and the Nomenclature for Museum Cataloging).  With all of the acronyms the librarians use, I still occasionally feel like I'm in one of FDR's cabinet meetings!
KH: How do you create a balance between your other work and the work for the PDHC?
MT: Balance is hard.  Basically, I keep a running "to do" list.  About once a week, I take a look at my list and decide if the items need to get reordered.  Occasionally, the PDHC makes it to the top of the list, and I get some things done.  It also helps that with my job I'm usually cataloging/accessioning objects, which means that the metadata for objects is already done when I get around to cataloging in Content DM.
KH: What do you wish you had known before starting the collaboration?
MT: The amount of time involved!
KH: Is there anything you would have done differently?
MT: I would have liked to have done a user survey earlier in the process.  It's great that we have so much up, but I want to make sure it's easy for people to find what they're looking for.
KH: If you could be granted any one wish for the project, what would you wish for?
MT: $$$, which would hopefully equal more staff time.  At the moment, I think we are all just squeezing PDHC into our schedules.  It would be nice to have someone dedicated solely to the project to manage things.
KH: From your lips to the grant committees' ears!
I hope you have enjoyed today's interview segment. More to come over the next few weeks....

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