Hi Guys,

Hope you are all well...so here is my spiel...
I’m going to list my “top 5 moments / moments of realisation” on the course so far, in a kind of Reality TV programme fashion when after a series has ended they showcase the top 5 most horrendously awful / funniest moments of the series. But my moments of realisation are all good moments, as unlike I’m a Celebrity get me out of here, none of us have had to eat a kangaroo testicle...don’t ask... if you’re intrigued have a look at:
http://celebrity.itv.com/WatchVideo/day-1/i-scream-van-bushtucker-trial-part-two/


In the number 1 slot: The realisation that technology is not out to get me!

Technology instead of being scary has sort of defined itself in two camps for me – which is: Community and Information. All the Digital Media and Curatorship sessions and Ross’s recent database lectures, have definitely made it very apparent that the web and digital technology, were not set up to confuse technologically challenged people like me. Instead, they have been set up on healthy principles, in that they actually just want to allow people to share, be more open, more communal. These are all really positive things.
I think the best way this can be appreciated is by reading Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit, or, if you’re a bit lazy like me, watch the BBC adaptation series which is on BBC 1 at the moment. There are these great scenes in the BBC adaptation when Arthur Clennam “attempts” to find information in the Circumlocution Office. Believe it or not, in 19th century London, we are not going to find Object Orientated databases! 19th century systems of information management, as defined by Dickens, who was pretty intent on highlighting wearisome Government bureaucracy, are nightmarish. They are spaces full of paper floating about randomly as no one knows where to begin to store, organise, access information. There is no structure, no project management (to 21st century sensitivities this is pretty scary!)
So the reason behind my tangent is, even though technology expressed through data entry and data bases can sometimes seem a nightmare and slightly boring, (especially if you’re the sorry individual who has to enter all the information) at the end of the day, it is worth it. Especially when you and others have the privilege of accessing information you want, quickly....I think we are definitely starting to take that privilege for granted.

Realisation Number 2

That digitalisation can have such a positive relationship with the museum community. Xenia and Merels’ examples have already highlighted how exciting this relationship can be. The British Library website is really good at offering glimpses into their collections. I was reading The Collections for the Future Report, and one of the thing it says, is that the museum community need to: “take responsibility to open up collections if they are to be properly available for the public realm(...)all users would benefit if museums shared their collections more widely, as well as collaborating on collections management and collecting(...) continued investment in digitisation is vital. There will be users of digitised collections that cannot be imagined yet.” I think this is self explanatory: if the museum community is ever going to fulfil its potential of making all its collections accessible, it has to look to digital technology. The talk we had from Stephen Patterson, Head of Royal Collections Information Management, highlighted this really well. The vision of the European Digital Library attempts to put this vision into action.

Realisation Number 3

Realisation that we are right at the beginning of exciting things. Coming from a history / art history background, I’ve always had the privilege to be able to look back at everything in retrospect, which gives you the power of knowledge to assess things, find natural developments in arguments, so you can draw rounded evaluations and pretty much get things “straight in your head”. I find digital heritage slightly disconcerting in that we are at right at the beginning / middle of great things to come, so it’s hard to define what is going to happen, as everything appears to be changing so rapidly. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Ross’s prophecy about the semantic web got me very intrigued too – I have these mental images of gigantic spider webs of information floating around cyber space which is a little trippy but very exciting.


Moment Number 4
I was a computer geek for a couple of hours doing old school XML programming – I lived that dream!

Realisation moment Number 5
I will always be that person on the Pub quiz team, who can provide the holy grail answer to “Who invented the web?”....

So to conclude, digital heritage is good, I’m a celebrity is bad, and 19th century Information Management was ugly. Have a great weekend guys.

p.s.
Concerning the London trip, yes I do have a young person’s rail card, would it be possible to have a chat with someone at Tate Media?

p.s.s
Little Dorrit is on Wednesdays and Sundays at 8pm. Don’t worry; I’m not working for the BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/littledorrit/