Elias Tzoc blog!

We often think of summer as a time to rest/relax and take some time off -well, this summer doesn’t seem to be like that -at least not for me.

One of my top priorities is to create a DSpace theme for a newspaper collection that we’re migrating into DSpace, it’s coming along and/but we just thought about a new possible addition to the project; that is, a mobile experiment using the so popular iPads -we’ll see how things go with that. Other recent activities include: a trip to ALA Annual, a two-days seminar on “Privileges and Allies” at Miami, and (next week) a one-week Institute at the University of Minnesota. Additionally, this month I officially started a two-years term as co-chair of the Technical and Digital Services Interest Group (TEDSIG) of the Academic Libraries Association of Ohio (ALAO).

Regarding ALA Annual, I just came back from Washington DC where I had a poster session “Re-Using Today’s Metadata for Tomorrow’s Research” where I talked about the web-customization we have implemented for our digital collections in the last two years. I had about 20 visitors and at least four extended conversations -I was also happily surprised to learn about a possible opportunity to convert my poster session into an article, I really hope we can work that out sometime this year.

Right after ALA, I attended a two-days seminar at the Marcum Conference Center; the topic was about Diversity and Inclusion and was facilitated by Frances Kendall.  At moments, the conversation got very -touching and reflective- and  made us (me) realized that we all have received some sort of privilege in our lives, but that also implies/means that we all have some sort of responsibility to give something back to society.  In the end, I was very happy to have initiated at least two (possible) collaborative works for the MUL’s Diversity Cluster.

…and next week, I’ll be heading up to Minneapolis for the 7th biannual Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians from Traditionally Underrepresented Groups.  It does sound like a “life-changing” experience, I do look forward to meeting a new crew of people interested in the future of libraries in higher education –see you there!