X Close

DIS Student Blog

Home

Department of Information Studies

Menu

#libday8- Sunday

By Minerva K De La Garza Gil, on 5 February 2012

As usual, I woke up rather early. I enjoy the early hours of the day … how quiet they are, especially when it has been snowing, it is in these hours when I get a lot of work done. Being a part time student, and working full time hours during the rest of the week, every single pocket of ‘available’ time is of precious value.

This morning was spent in the company of D.F. McKenzie and Joao & Bebel Gilberto, whilst giving the finishing touches to an assignment due next week. I am now at the point of wrapping up my taught lectures (I am currently in my second year) for the MA LIS and have just planned the skeleton for the two remaining written assignments. Somehow I feel partially ‘free’ to continue my work on the dissertation. I am already looking forward to many hours of research and typing in this rather small space (my secretaire desk), but surrounded by music, and films; how big it feels then!

It is here, in this small cabinet, where I look for and process information, where I organize notes, schedules and action plans. Speaking of which: I have known for some time now, that I work in 1-hour-rhythms … as I am now planning my MA research, I am taking this bit of information into account. I even informally trialled it this past week by setting an alarm in my computer as I was starting a task (I set the alarms slightly over an hour each time, when starting a job) this past week was continuous cataloguing and copy editing (at work), and reading one single topic (at home and reading rooms) I am absolutely convinced this will help both my spirit and my productivity.  Even better! At work it means, that I can consciously intertwine some project planning –or just plain pause from computer work- whilst going through my normal workflows.

Later on the day I organized a forthcoming trip to Cambridge to attend the conference “Incunabula on the move” organized by the Cambridge University Library Incunabula Cataloguing Project and the EIRI Project of Keio University, Japan. I am extremely excited about this event and cannot wait to hear Paul Needham ‘live’ for the first time! I was also surprised (and daunted, of course) to discover I am writing about a topic that he has been thinking about as well. This came as a boost of energy after having to cancel going to another -very interesting- conference in Munich a week and a half from now: “Eine Experimentiertphase im frühen Buchdruck: Blockbücher des 15. Jahrhunderts”

And now I will sit down, pour a glass of ‘freshly bought’ Kölsch, and enjoy the rest of the Sunday in the company of my husband, either continuing reading Homero Aridjis’ “La zona del silencio” … or maybe watching “The fearless vampire killers”.

We haven’t decided yet. (I might have to persuade him with regard to the latter…)

Out of Bounds

By Anne Welsh, on 4 July 2011

Tomorrow MA LIS student Sian Prosser is presenting a paper at the Early Book Society and York Manuscripts Conference Out of Bounds: Mobility, Movement and Use of Manuscripts and Printed Books, 1350-1550. Sian’s paper is entitled ‘Used treasure: manuscript waste in the bindings of Ripon Cathedral Library, including a newly-discovered fragment of Brunetto Latini’s Livres dou tresor‘. She is continuing her research into the Ripon Cathedral binding fragments this summer for her Masters dissertation.

 

Image: from the Playing the Margins tumblog.

 

 

Digital Humanities Summer Institute

By Anne Welsh, on 12 June 2011

Research student Claire Ross has spent the last week at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute in Victoria. As part of her Digital Fundamentals course, she has been digitizing images of title pages for us to use in teaching Historical Bibliography. You can read about the techniques she tried out – photography and flatbed scanning – on her blog, Digital Nerdosaurus.

Image: by Dr Melissa Terras for UCL Centre for Digital Humanities.

Visit to the Bodleian Bibliography Room

By Anne Welsh, on 16 March 2011

Slideshow of images and comments by students who attended last week’s visit to the Bibliography Room.

This was an optional field trip for the MA LIS, MA ARM and MA RAMI students who took Historical Bibliography (INSTG012) this year. From September 2011, it will be an option for the new MA Digital Humanities.

There is a full, reflective post on the UCLDH blog.