Day 116: So far so good

Pretty well all of us in McGill's MLIS program seem to share a kind of quirky personality trait: extreme unfounded anxiety. The vast majority of us blow every assignment out of proportion and panic about finishing it, panic about whether we've done it right, obsess, obsess, obsess.

Lesson 116: It's a good idea to have a quick and easy way set up to check your course standing.

I have an app called iStudiez Pro that will not only remind me of when my assignments are due and keep track of whether they're group or solo; it also keeps track of the weight of each assignment and allows me to input my grade for each one and see an up to date assessment of what my grade likely is in that class.

This is a Very Good Thing around the end of semester. With all the final projects due, it would be easy enough to panic and succumb to anxiety, so having something easily available that tells you "no matter what you do right now, you couldn't fail this course if you tried" is invaluable.

Based on the mark I got on my take-home portion of the metadata exam, I think I can hit at least an A- by getting 50% or better on the final paper.

Based on all the As I've gotten in web systems design, I just need to finish the group assignment and I'm golden.

That means that the only wildcards are Archives and History of Books and Printing. I've done fine on everything so far in Archives, but I still have two major assignments (term paper and take-home exam) to do. History of Books and Printing is a great course, but is only evaluated on one project, and I don't present mine till the last class of the term.

But all this to say, it's best to give my logical mind as much ammo against my panicky headless chicken mind as possible. So when part of my brain goes "OH GOD SO MUCH TO DO I'M GOING TO FAIL AT EVERYTHING AND BE A FAILURE" my logical mind can lay on the smack down and tell it to shut it's trap; there's nothing to worry about.

Day 112: This is the day that never ends... it just goes on and on my friends...

Yet another low-lesson day. But let me put it this way: Metadata is a trap. Don't fall for it! Don't do it!

Lesson 112: Encode an EAD finding aid in XML is not a test. It is not an exam. It is a race.

I did that paper.... which we wound up getting 24hrs earlier than initially promised (thank goodness), but with two books listed to reference for writing the discussion (for 60 people to use in a 48hr period??? WHAT?) that weren't even actually on reserve because they were out (due on Friday at midnight, meaning the request for them to be put on reserve was only submitted Monday, or even Tuesday). Luckily, she was informed (likely by about 40 people emailing in a panic) and put up pdfs of articles for us to use instead (thank goodness).

Can you hear that gong a-ringing?

Then into the in-class portion of the exam, the .dtd file we needed to use wasn't even actually retrievable from the MyCourses system. And once that was solved, it was less a test of skill, and more a test of how quickly you could type, copy and paste.

Listen to Admiral Ackbar. It's a trap, I tell you, a trap!

Teach yourself metadata using w3schools, and reading over dublincore.org. Learn to use Altova XML spy by encoding metadata for documents you find around the web.

You'll get all the learning with a fraction of the headache.

You're welcome!

... Now that my brain's turned to goop, I'm going home. Peace out.

Day 109: Metadata will be the death of me

They said at Access last weekend that "A URL is your contract with the world". By putting something up online, you're agreeing that it will always be at that URL, and if it moves, you'll leave breadcrumbs to lead the user back to the material.

Similarly, I've always understood that a syllabus is a professor's contract with their students. "This is the class, this is how it will be taught and this is how you will be evaluated". It can only be changed in exceptional circumstances and for very good reason.

Lesson 109: Good form or no, some people will break contracts no matter what.

We've been informed of yet another change to our course (or is it a change? no one seems sure).

We now have a take-home essay portion to our mid-term, due immediately before our in-class portion. And we'll have about 24 hrs to do it. Work? Class? Irrelevant. 24 hours. Make it work.

So basically, the majority of us are being told that we are required to pull an all-nighter to write the take-home portion before going into class to do the in-class portion.

Everyone seems pretty resigned to their fate at this point... *sigh*

Day 91: Post-St Patrick's Day Fallout

I am living on very much the wrong street for St Patrick's Day. After the parade yesterday, which left my right shoulder matching our school crest (white and RED; ouch!), my street didn't clear out until well into the evening. Absolutely marvellous weather though, and for now, only getting better (till the weekend anyways).

Lesson 90: The portions at McKibbons are absolutely extravagant. At Trivia tonight, I ordered the fisherman's chowder for the first time ever, but luckily had the foresight to ask what the size difference between "cup" and "bowl" was. The waitress told me that the cup was a regular sized bowl of soup, and the bowl was gigantic. The cup of soup that was brought to me was probably the equivalent of a full can of Campbell's Chunky soup!

Glad I didn't order that bowl!

On a more serious note, turns out my professor didn't appreciate my midterm example of reliability vs validity as much as I'd hoped, though I don't really understand why. But I still came out with a perfectly respectable mark.

Also, things seem to be just falling into my lap as far as next year is concerned. I may have lucked into a fantastic little apartment my friend won't be taking (the reason she won't be taking it? She just got engaged! Congrats, Laura! He's a lucky guy!). The apartment's not quite in the location I wanted, but next to a metro, so I can't complain. Might be nicer to stay out of the McGill bubble anyways; cheaper too.

I couldn't figure out a way to phrase this as a lesson beyond simply saying "course selection is haaaaard", but I'm also doing my course selection for next year. There are so many interesting courses that I'd like to take, and not enough time to do them in!

It looks like my biggest choice still to be made is Descriptive Bibliography (aka How to run a Rare Books collection) versus Cataloguing and Classification (Organization of Information, part two). My considerations are as follows:

• Descriptive Bibliography has the potential to be rather redundant given that I'm hoping to take History of Books and Printing, and Archival Principles and Practice as well.
• As much as I enjoy cataloguing, I don't know if I want to take another course about it that isn't going to focus on RDA, which as you may remember is meant to replace the current cataloguing rules right after my graduation (if they remain on track, big if).

Another course I'm not fully sold on is Database Design. Its focus is on Microsoft Access, and the course description states that it will also cover SQL which is what particularly interests me. However, I have been told that in practice, its coverage of SQL specifically is practically non-existent. And if I skip Database Design, I could take Language and Information instead, which is essentially about working in bilingual/multilingual systems which I imagine would be particularly handy if I want to stay in Montreal after graduation (which I would like to).

And of course, Knowledge Management comes hugely recommended, but I don't know that it's actually a course I'd like to take or that I would find particularly useful. Plus, I don't know what I'd be willing to give up in order to take it.

Other courses I'm hoping to take that I haven't yet mentioned:

• Metadata and Access
• Web System Design
• Library and Archival History
• Public Libraries

Choices, choices...