Data Compression: Wikipedia
I found this article to be slightly confusing, although I did understand the general gist of it because I used to use ZIP drives when I studied architecture and my brother would get a hold of my computer and decompress my files as well to give me more space. From my understanding of the article both lossy and lossless compression have their pros and cons, but neither one seems to be without flaws. I was also under the impression that compressing and decompressing files can me time consuming, inconvenient, and expensive, if you do not have the right tools and equipment to do so.
Data Compression Basics
This article made more sense than the wikipedia article, but as much as the author said they were not going to get too technical, I felt they did. I now have a fuller and more comprehensive idea between the differences between lossy and lossless compressions. I also thought it was interesting that the different types of compressing are used for different types of data, such as image, sound, and video.
Imaging Pittsburgh
I thought this article was great! It discussed different types of organizations, ie) university, museum, and historical society and how they can collaboratively go about and create a website for digital images of the area. All of the institutions have different focuses and agendas, but they seemed to make it work. I was curious how the whole project turned out and if it is still being used and or added to. I also appreciated that it relates to the professional field we are pursuing.
YouTube and Libraries
I thought this is a very interesting idea to use YouTube as a teaching aid in libraries. I was curious about the examples the author cited. She said that a few universities, such as the Georgia Tech Library and Williams College Library are using this method. The question I have is did this idea work? Are the students or patrons actually watching the YouTube for the library on how to use it or are they just watching whatever they like and it was just a waste of time for the library to take on this endeavor? She failed to cite any disadvantages to this idea, which makes me a bit skeptical.
Muddiest Point
What are the advantages and disadvantages to using a single user database versus a multi user database?
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2 comments:
It was a nice change to get an article with immediate bearing on the archival field. Not only that, it addressed the subject from the practical rather than idealistic/theoretical side. Projects always come together way different than envisioned, and it is beneficial to realize that.
I'm pretty comfortable zipping and unzipping etc, and yet the wikipedia article confused me. so much of the time with these technical things, i can grasp them if they are modeled or demonstrated, yet to read about them raises more issues than it addresses.
as far as the you tube thing goes: at one point there were two computers in my library that were on a different network, enabling people to watch you tube. and i never saw anything even remotely educational occurring at either computer. in fact, it only ensured that those two stations were monopolized by people that seemingly had no other obligations in life but to watch you tube all day at the library. i am pretty cynical about this article, but whatever, let her try to educate the masses via you tube. the masses will ignore her every time in favor of farting preachers and celebrity gossip
I also found the omission of negatives on Youtube usage suspect. I have a feeling that most students did not use the library video aid. Also, like Sean mentioned above, Youtube doesn't come off as an appropriate vessel for academic work.
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