Puppet Library

I've decided to start a digital puppet library, of images, sound files, scripts and other artifacts related to puppetry. (Not digital puppets; digital artifacts of real puppets and performances.) I have access to a small collection already and it is definitely of interest to a limited and weird but passionate community of puppeteers and puppet appreciators. I am currently trying to see if there is anything similar out there, and I will likely use performance, art and sculpture collection sites as guides in developing the taxonomy of puppetlibrary.org, as it will be called and located.

There are 229 records returned in response to a search for puppet in ARTstor at http://library.artstor.org. Here is one ARTstor puppet record:



Information:

Culture	Javanese
Title	Shadow Puppet representing the Giant Kumbakarna
Work Type	puppet
Date	19th century
Measurements	66 cm high
Description	from Java, Indonesia
Repository	British Museum, London, United Kingdom
ARTstor Collection	Art, Archaeology and Architecture (Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives)
ID Number	03-07-02/70
Source	Image and original data provided by Erich Lessing Culture and Fine Arts Archives/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. http://www.artres.com/c/htm/Home.aspx http://www.artres.com/c/htm/TreePfLight.aspx?ID=LES
Rights	Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/ART RESOURCE, N.Y. Please note that if this image is under copyright, you may need to contact one or more copyright owners for any use that is not permitted under the ARTstor Terms and Conditions of Use or not otherwise permitted by law. While ARTstor tries to update contact information, it cannot guarantee that such information is always accurate. Determining whether those permissions are necessary, and obtaining such permissions, is your sole responsibility.

File Properties:

Image Id	LESSING_ART_10311440311
Download Size	1024,1024
Collection	ARTstor Collections
Accessibility	Public
Format	fpx
File Name	lessing_03070270.fpx
Width	5046
Height	6000
Image URL	http://library.artstor.org.ezproxy2.library.arizona.edu/library/secure/ViewImages?id=%2FThWdC8hIywtPygxFTx5RnksX30of10%3D&userId=gzdMejE%3D&zoomparams=

There are also puppet collections, like the Center for Puppetry Arts:
http://www.puppet.org/museum/VeWebsite/exhibit3/vexmain3.htm . Their taxonomy will certainly influence my collection metadata.

Many questions remain. I will limit the collection initially to what I have, but what I have includes modern puppets from puppet artists who are not well known. If I want to grow this collection, I will have to limit it more clearly.

Project Management, in case your manager didn't tell you...

Project Management is very complex! Let's simplify.

What is a project?
A project is an effort with some kind of measurable result, an effort that is definitely going to end.

What are the stages of a project?
These 4 stage are also known as the project "life cycle":

1. Initiation - defining objectives, critical factors, and success
2. Planning - breaking it down into tasks
3. Execution - carrying out the plan
4. Closure - completion and review

What is a program?
A program is a group of related projects. A program will only end if all of its projects are over.

What is an organization?
An organization is a group of people and resources employed together with the same objectives. An organization is not definitely going to end. However, an organization may employ people specifically for projects or programs. These people should know that their jobs may end when their main projects or programs end, even if the results of the project live on.

What is Project Management?
Most simply, Project Management (PM) is the use of models to manage the scope, time, and budget of a project.

What are the parts of Project Management?

There are 9 Knowledge Areas of PM and 5 types of processes in PM, often laid out this way:

	Initiating	Planning	Executing	Monitoring and Controlling	Closing
Integration
Scope
Time
Cost
Quality
Human Resources
Communications
Risk
Procurement

Why use PM?
Here are some of the risks if we don't use PM:

• "Scope creep" is adding new objectives as you go along, and it can seriously blur the original objectives.
• A lack of common understanding among team members always keeps them from performing well.
• Projects that take a while (and most of them do!) run out of steam if all involved don't know what stage it is in.
• Running out of money is such a drag!
• When there's trouble there's panic UNLESS the possibility of that trouble and a solution to it were addressed in the plan.

Do I really need to know all this?
This entire list is not something all staff members of every organization involved in projects need to know. However, the project manager should be sure that all staff members have a general idea of their roles in both the project and the organization.

Where can I find more information?
Look at http://pmi.org for more information, or if you're involved in a project, ask your project manager for a breakdown.

Technology, grade school style

At the beginning of this course it was difficult to know what we were learning the command line interface for, and it didn't really sink in until the last few units, when PHP and MySql were introduced. This I suppose is because I have a hard time reckoning with information until it is somewhat organized already, in databases. Then it is easier to say, This should be accessible to users and this should not; this is something that will be requested frequently, while this is a good area to let users structure their own commands.

My perspective on digital information at this point is a little frightened at the hugeness of that sphere. What I am wishing for is a poster of commands and examples for the command line, the sql monitor, of php and html code. A huge poster. Working in this field you of course become familiar enough with using these programs to get these things down.

Keeping it brief; have to work on that poster!

SQL is SoQooL

SQL is one of my favorite parts of this class so far, because the most difficult aspect of using a virtual machine has been struggling with how it is organized. I didn't make the directories and in order to see what is where I need to remember commands. But with MySQL I am organizing things myself, and when I query and recognize results returned to me I feel good. Powerful. Organized.

The conceptual organization of databases is the part I get stuck on sometimes, but as this is what I hope to do with my life, at least in part, I'm workin' on it!

SQL N ERD R Q!

(Q is my husband's textese for Cool)

Why is it that when I'm not in computer class I feel like such a geek for over-organizing every little object and interaction? Yet when I study database design I feel incredibly outgeeked?

In any case, I've adopted a tentative rule to keep up: If you've got a many to many, M:N, MN, or mucho a mucho relationship, just stick a bridge in between entity number 1 and entity number two. Borrow the primary key from each of those two entities, maybe throw on a date or time to make the bridge represent unique instances, and voila: normalization.

The hardest part for me has been to figure out what is and what is not many to many. We read of an example of plants and waterings. The author said one plant can be given many waterings, but one watering can only be given to one plant. This was confusing. I garden. I water more than one plant at a time. It's called the mist setting, a big cloud of water. Get outside database designer, experience the bounty of the mist setting!

But of course that author has a point. He's talking about an instance, a measured and clocked watering instance. The hibiscus got two cups of water at 1:32pm on June 24th.

I enjoy this parsing and labeling business very much, by the way. I've started wondering how I can find an internship that involves this kind of activity. I enjoy ERdiagramming too, and even decided to use a SmartDraw free trial. Unfortunately it's only 7 days, and it stamps a huge proprietary watermark on everything I create. Don't these people know I'm unemployed? I don't pay for software that irritates me, I don't even pay for software I like!

Tech Plan...or Toilet Paper

In his post Life is what happens to you when you're making other plans, Blogger Michael Schuyler calls the technology plan "a political document." You bet it is. Of course it's been said in other discussions of technology plans, but I like Schuyler's because it discusses one reason for the phenomenon, which is that most of the people reading a technology plan know very little about computer craft. Like those folks in Washington talking to the millions of Americans who know so little of statecraft (in addition to the few who do know a thing or two): you have to pack a real plan in its own mystique to sell it to those who don't get the science.

Technology plans remind me very much of grant-writing, and reading some of the poorer ones call back the days when I was a lowly administrative peon (which is less lowly than my current state of pure unemployment, but still). If you were like me, you may look upon the instructions for the E-rate tech planning with hope, thinking, let's use this huge document as a reason to remake our organization. But then the boss says, oh for heaven's sake just make something up so we can get the funds! And the boss is right--with resistance at the top, that organization is probably doomed to writing fiction to bring in funds. Once the funds are acquired, TP stands for toilet paper.

The best thing the administrative peon can do: Move on. Move up. Build a better organization, or at least start working for one, that embraces opportunities to improve.

xlink, xpointer, xml, xciting....

I learned quite a bit about XML in IRLS 515 last semester. But of course questions remained. One big one was answered by the following section from http://www.w3schools.com/xml/xml_usedfor.asp :

"--XML Separates Data from HTML

If you need to display dynamic data in your HTML document, it will take a lot of work to edit the HTML each time the data changes.

With XML, data can be stored in separate XML files. This way you can concentrate on using HTML for layout and display, and be sure that changes in the underlying data will not require any changes to the HTML.

With a few lines of JavaScript code, you can read an external XML file and update the data content of your web page. "

As fits best with my learning style, my remaining questions were best answered by searching online myself. I was wondering, how do you link xml and html documents together? I saw the examples of xml docs enhanced with css, and I know how to do that, but what about adding links and such? How do you link a photograph to its xml description?

Of course my question sent me right back to the W3schools site, to the xlink and xpointer tutorial. I'm working through it currently but you'll see a link to my use of it if I ever get there!