I especially liked the idea of the ‘Shhh…!’ bags and the following they’ve built up! Check it out here I totally want one!

Business importance (i.e. how important the documents are and how much it would affect the company if they were not able to be retrieved)
Number of boxes the department has in the archive
Usage (i.e. archival and retrieval statistics per month)

I traced the activity for each department back for one year (as that is all the documentation that was available, there not having been a proper system prior to this). From this I was able to calculate the top ten heaviest users of the archive.

Using this data, I then prepared a report on the top ten users. This covered:

Each department’s statistics
Specific problems I’ve encountered with their archiving policy (or lack of it to be precise!)
Details of any backlog from that department (in some cases backlogs of uncatalogued boxes and files go back as far as 60 years!)
Possible solutions to the problems outlined along with costings in terms of how many hours of my time it would take to sort out. What they really need to do is give the department it’s own budget and a couple more staff, but one step at a time, eh?!

I’ve found this really useful in terms of seeing what needs to be done – the scale of it is actually scary! Now all I have to do is convince my bosses to dig deep….!

In one of my attempts to address this, I have started logging my time. This helps me to see where my time is spent on a day to day basis. For the first month I kept a detailed record of everything I did and how long it took. At the end of this month I studied the record and split the work up into 11 main categories, which I then used to create a bar chart. The spreadsheet is updated daily and the bar chart is set to update in conjunction with this so I can visually compare the amount of time I spend on different areas. I have found this a really useful exercise, not least because it allows for much more effective timekeeping! I am much more aware of where my time is going now that I can see it on a spreadsheet!

This will also be useful as after a period of a few months I will be able to create a report to show what my job actually entails and use it to make the case to my bosses that the archives has so much to do that it could actually do with employing an extra pair of hands instead of pushing the archivist to do other, unrelated, tasks. They look at the archives and see a service, they don’t realise all the work that goes on behind the scenes, and I hope this log will allow me to address this with hard facts in the future. Eventually I would like to see the archives made into their own department and this log again will help with creating job descriptions and deciding on staff numbers.

I don’t know if it will have the desired effect yet, but I will update here!

This is a great example of a company keeping up with consumer habits and going where the users are. Digitising their back catalogue will also be extremely advantageous to the business, allowing the stock to be easily searchable by editors looking for re-release possibilities, rights information, answering queries from staff or the public etc. As pointed out by Peter Bowron of Random House, digitisation will also allow more retail opportunities for the company – they will be able to sell their products in a range of media – an obviously advantageous move. It also works towards future-proofing and protecting their content – it will never be fire damaged or lost in a dusty old room. Alex Iskold’s article shows the scope of this new technology – for instance you can search the archive to find how many books and pages from the archive contain the word ‘Ulysses’. From experience this tool would be invaluable for responding to customer queries, which can be much more complex and much weirder than you’d think! I admit to receiving some and wondering why on earth they want to know such a thing! This article states that some public libraries are now able to offer Random House e-books as part of their collection, a move which has myriad benefits for libraries, allowing them to offer a wider choice of materials with less demands on floorspace.

As I’ve said previously, my employers (also a major publishing house) need their arms seriously twisted to spend any money on their archives, despite us trying to convince the head honchos of their importance. As it stands I can barely convince them to give us somewhere dry to store them! This may be the impetus we need in order to secure more funding – my employers may not be interested in digitisation – but their competitors certainly are – and if we don’t address this we’ll be left behind in the future. Businesses need to stop taking their archives for granted and realise their full potential. It’s an uphill struggle for us librarians / archivists, but hopefully we’re beginning to see a change in attitudes.

Congrats to Random House, it all sounds fab!

Once upon a time, TV was also something that linked people – colleagues would chat about what happened in Eastenders the night before, who’d seen the documentary about the man with no face etc etc. People watched the same things at the same times. Now, with new internet technologies like iplayer, 4OD, itv catch up, viewing times are much more flexible – which perhaps means that more people overall can watch the shows, but the communal aspect is gone.

TV on our own terms is great, but it does lose the ‘community’ aspect of everyone watching one thing at the same time. On Wednesday I was faced with the choice of cinema or The Apprentice – despite knowing I could watch it on iplayer when I wanted, I chose The Apprentice – if anything exciting happened I didn’t want to be a day behind, and I didn’t want to know the name of the evictee before watching. Sad? Very. I’d been thinking about blogging about it but decided I was too embarrassed to admit my couch potato behaviour – but then I read Mark Lawson’s article in the Guardian and now I know I’m not the only one!

Despite my reluctance to watch iplayer on this occasion, I think these technologies are great – it gives us the choice – whether to opt into the communal watching experience or not. Watching it later is better than missing it altogether!

I think this is a fabulous tool for education, and for making these people and their plight ‘real’ to us in the West. As well as images you can access information on where the refugees have come from and what problems they face.

Also I didn’t know that rescuers had used Google Earth to find people who were stranded after Hurricane Katrina – wow!

Bearing this in mind, I was extremely interested to see this article in Times Online. Bring on the age of the ‘Virtual PC’! Companies have realised there is a gap in the market for providing a ‘remote’ operating system and these are now beginning to pop up on the web. One of these is Jooce. It’s a new software which has been developed to allow people who do not own a PC to have access via the Jooce website to a customisable, personalised desktop on any computer – you just go to Jooce and log in. I’ve had a go and I’m initially quite impressed. It allows you to sign into a variety of IM softwares, importing your contacts at the click of a button, you can store music, save or share files (with unlimited storage), upload videos from YouTube onto your desktop…and that’s just what I’ve discovered in a 10 minute test drive! Although it’s not immediately user friendly and will probably take a bit of getting used to, it’s a good example of how – rather ironically! – Web 2.0 technology can be used to address the digital divide. Jooce’s tagline? ‘Power to the People’!

The positives:

I think public libraries, and also academic libraries could really benefit from software like this. Or even in school libraries – there’ll never be an excuse for forgotten homework again! I can see this being a real boon to study – how often did I get into uni only to discover I’d left my memory stick at home? In public libraries, it allows people who may not have a PC at home to benefit from the same perks as PC owners.

The negatives:

One foreseeable problem is that Jooce make their money by advertising and therefore if libraries begin to advocate such software they will need to make users aware that the advertisements are in no way connected to the library, however I feel the benefits outweigh the negatives here.

Another bugbear is the privacy issue. Jooce’s T&Cs can be found here It seems they pretty much use everything about you to tailor their advertising, and are not averse to sharing your information with ‘trusted partners’. Worrying.

At the minute I’m undecided – there are other similar softwares, and although I’ve not played with them yet I think it’s a pretty safe bet that they’ll have the same perks and problems as Jooce. However with safe and educated use, I’d say they could definitely be useful. I can see these developing in the future – who knows maybe someday someone will invent a library based one where your information is protected and you’re not bombarded with advertisements!