a personal record

I’ve encountered this very same problem a couple of times this week: there tends to be a very strictly reinforced dichotomy between “technology expert” and “technologically illiterate.” I consider myself to be moderately knowledgeable regarding computers, and I am finding it very difficult to be addressed at that level.

The seminar I attended Wednesday had two talks: the first, addressed to “managers,” I found to be mostly things I already knew. The second, addressed to front-line IT staff, went a bit over my head (perhaps in part because of excessive TLAs.) No big deal, though; that was just for interest’s sake.

Today, though, dealing with a software sales rep, exactly the same problem came up again, and this time it was interfering with my ability to do my job. When I’m being sold a “solution,” I’m not going to be very impressed by a shiny front-end, I want to see a bit of how the data is structured and what’s going to be involved in setting up and maintaining the thing. Instead I got this:

“Can you show me a bit more of how this is set up on the back end?”

“It uses Java. Do you know how to program in Java?”

“No.”

“All right, well, here’s a bit of the code, and our experts can do this for you, now here’s another look at the search screen that your users will see …” etc etc.

I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. I don’t think that just because I can’t write the code myself, I don’t deserve an account of what it is doing. This same vendor threw a lot of jargon at me, in an attempt (I think?) to impress me, and took issue with most of the comments I made based on my having got some of the terminology wrong.

So maybe this one is a bit of an extreme case. Still, I’m noticing this sort of thing all over the place. I deal with our IT department a lot, and with each new contact the first assumption is that I’d know next to nothing about what’s going on.  I’ve been able to “train” the people I work with frequently, but it seems like a new challenge every time. It’s a process, I guess.

At a seminar today I was asked one of the most frustrating questions around:

“Why exactly do you need a degree to do that sort of stuff?”

It’s not the first time I’ve encountered skepticism of this sort. Neither archives nor records management is really a high profile position (except in those television shows where people break into filing cabinets in dark basements to find all the answers) but I’ve even seen people wondering why librarians need degrees. And the public tends to know what librarians are.

It’s also a great question to be asked, because it means I get to give an answer. I’m never sure if the answer I’m giving is good enough, though — especially when it starts from a place where I feel defensive.

It may be the sort of thing that I should prepare an elevator pitch for: one of those pat, 30-second answers that sums up everything and that I don’t need to scramble for when put on the spot.

What is the best way to deal with this sort of thing?

Today being a stat holiday (and me being home enjoying the sunshine and fresh air) — means that we’re finished with all the big outreach events that have been going on this week.

Yesterday, nothing was planned except for tours, and we did indeed run those. Considerably more people turned up than had in the previous days. The main “what I learned” from yesterday thus was that scale is important, and that presenting the mini-exhibits to a group of 12 people is a lot harder than only 4 or 5 at once.

Haven’t got the official numbers yet, but it looks like there were close to 40 drop-ins yesterday, which is actually close to what I was expecting for the whole week. A few of those people also had their own particular research interests, that I was able to address. I know of at least 3 that are coming back next week to work. Another couple, based on what they read in the paper, brought in a family photograph and a story which augments one of the files we were discussing.

Part of me is thinking “this is what Archives is supposed to be” — at least, based on all available literature about outreach and engaging the public. This institution hasn’t had much opportunity to make that first step, in the past. There’s always a lot to do, of course, but for years and years it seems that getting control over the collections was the only priority.

I think that might be changing a bit. I’m glad to be involved in that.

Children!

And also, many many meetings.

And  drop-ins, which was neat, too. The press we had yesterday seems to have an impact — despite not starting the official tours until 1 today there were still more visitors than yesterday.

I’m a bit tired, though. There was a lot more running around — mostly in that I had to set up and take down one of the exhibits twice in order to make room for the meetings, and spent the extra time I had writing a press release for something unrelated.

The kids were great. They were pretty interested in all the old stuff, and were utterly thrilled by some things I wasn’t expecting: riding the freight elevator, wearing the white gloves, and using the microfilm machine. Though I suppose from the perspective of someone that young, microfilm is a weird, mysterious, antique technology. Same way I’d feel playing around with anything using punch cards.

Anyway, there’s one day left of all this madness, and it should be just regular tours with no extras.

As tired as I was by the end of today (also stayed 45 min late) I’m very, very pleased that we did this. It’s been great for the Archives, great for the public (I hope!) and a fantastic learning experience.

Fame!

Looks as though all the media contact yesterday paid off: last night the Archives tours were covered on the local news, and this morning we were also featured in the newspaper.

Of course, just for fun, it was the very same day that Thunder Bay made international news, and an excellent photograph of one of our staff was displayed on the front page right next to the “Runaway Pilot” headline. It was an interesting juxtaposition, I’d have to say.

The media coverage did us well: even though today’s tours were originally billed “for City staff” we had a number of members of the general public drop by — including one fellow who heard about this all on the classic rock station.

Aside from the increased numbers, today was pretty much the same. Tomorrow there will be children. I’ve also had to take down one of the exhibits to make room for a meeting tomorrow; I’ll then put it up again, then take it down again, then put it up again. (And I suppose take it down one final time once the week is finished.) There is something to be said for the simplicity of “lay it all out on a table.”

Got the mini-exhibits set up last week in a hurry, and began running the public tours today. So far those tours have included television, radio, and print media, a couple of “regular” researchers, a city councillor, and a single new member of the general public. A decent start, though. Later this week we have city staff, heritage committees, a Grade 5 class, and another day of “public.” By the end of it I’ll probably have some things memorized that I never expected to.

So what’s this table about, then? Turns out that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, stopped in Fort William one afternoon in 1914 and bought a piece of land on a whim. (It was an investment property — he was just that taken by the city’s potential. As far as I can tell he wasn’t in the habit of buying land in Canadian cities he’d never been to before.) The exhibit uses this property, and the famous name attached to it, to demonstrate the variety of resources that the Archives has for researching the history of land and buildings. People use these to find out who used to live in their houses. (Hint: not Sir Arthur.)

Incidentally, the place is now a bakery (and a pretty good one.)

We also have set up a display of maquettes of public art, a display of assorted visual materials (photos, maps, blueprints) and a couple of “strange but true” files (including one documenting the controversial move to accept Daylight Savings Time in painstaking detail.)

A full set of photographs can be found here, on my flickr account.

This afternoon I was able to harvest my first batch of high-potency compost from my indoor vermiculture bin. Exciting!

I didn’t really get into this for the end product — the intent was more to have a better way of disposing of vegetable scraps. Still, I’m sure the house plants will love it.

Pretty sure the wermz have multiplied, also. There’s got to be at least twice as many in there now as when I started. Makes me wonder whether there’s a maximum werm density, and if I’m anywhere close to it.

Things I have learned:

• to add food slowly and in small pieces
• to stir regularly, especially when there’s lots of food
• that “harvesting” the compost takes longer than I expected
• and that the cat should be kept far away from this process

And in a couple of months, I get to do it all again.

This season’s Discardia is March 20-26, and once again I am celebrating. Because I am that sort of a geek.

The point is, generally, to get rid of unnecessary things in one’s life; to clear out the clutter and the trash and emerge happier. My strategy is a little different. I do more.

The one thing that is the biggest problem for me is procrastination. I tend to pile up ideas, projects, and plans, and then leave them lying around in the corners of my mind to get worried about for months. So in fact it’s quite helpful to get that motivational kick in the head, in the form of an arbitrary calendar date, to actually start finishing things and checking the long-term items off the list.

Last March I moved to a new city and a new job. This time, it’s nothing so extreme. Fortunately.

Yes, I am one of those people who really does benefit from productivity tips. The ability to admit it is recent, and, I think, a major step in personal growth.

Walking to work yesterday morning, the sun was just a few degrees above the horizon, straight in front of me. It was cold and dry, and the sky was unflinchingly clear.

Everything came together in just the perfect condition for me to be able to see a steady stream of water vapour sublimating directly from the snowbanks.

Mornings like these make me wish I knew how to use a camera properly.

The past few days have been pretty unimpressive for me.

I’ve  been spending a lot of time doing things that bring me a lot of short-term happiness: reading and re-reading short fiction I’m already well familiar with, watching videos on YouTube, things like that. I know that it’s not the stuff that I need to be working on. But there’s this draw.

The problem is not because the other stuff looks so attractive to me. The problem is that the things that I’m meant to be doing are looking harder and harder.

And thus I find ways to avoid those things. It suddenly becomes very, very important to read everything that’s been posted on Boing Boing today. It would be horrible if I missed something neat, wouldn’t it?

The solution, I am trying to teach myself, is not to convince myself of how very important the things which actually are important are.[1] I know that full well. I am very good at feeling guilty and completely blithely ignoring those feelings.

The solution is to make those things that I need to do as exciting, interesting, easy, and fun, and as immediately satisfying as anything else. Bit of a challenge, yeah. I started writing this post at about 7 pm. And got distracted.

[1] Love the grammar, yeah?