Quality Rules

Here is a letter from our very own Paul Deschner, to the Harvard Library community (and—now—beyond). It was so well received here that we thought it worth sharing more broadly.

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Awesome Box Pilot

UPDATE: Awesome Box is now well beyond the pilot phase. Visit awesomebox.io to learn how to get one at your library.

The Harvard community now has the chance to declare something Awesome. Just by dropping it in a box. Amazing, useful and entertaining library materials can now be returned to the Awesome Boxes in Widener and Lamont.

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[podcast] Karen Coyle on modern data for modern libraries

Karen Coyle visited us today to talk with us about why it is time for libraries to move to a more modern idea of data, one that focuses more on the data and less on the records, and probably one that makes use of the linked data format that consists of links pointing at public sources. Here’s a 17-minute podcast with her.

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Library Test Kitchen

We just concluded class #2 of the Library Test Kitchen, our experimental seminar in the Graduate School of Design. The course is a collaboration between Jeffrey Schnapp (Professor of Romance Languages & Literature, Director of metaLab) Ann Whiteside (Director, Frances Loeb Library), Ben Brady (GSD) and me (Jeff Goldenson). It is the continuation of a seminar this past Fall entitled Bibliotheca, the Library Past/Present/Future. There are many other folks involved in the Test Kitchen—people from the Innovation Lab, the greater Harvard Library and metaLab, who are taking part, and we’re just at the beginning.

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