 |
| Mangrove, Tortuga Bay, Santa Cruz |
 |
| Marine Iguana (asleep not dead!), Tortuga Bay, Santa Cruz |
What are you reading? What's the oldest book there? How does the climate affect the collection? What sort of technology do they have/need in order to preserve and disseminate their collection. Are their kids hanging about?
Are you DIY WODs?
Are you DIY WODs?
-------
I am currently working on Nino Ricci's The Origin of Species...of course not to be confused with the non-fiction title On the Origin of Species... by Darwin.
The oldest thing we have here is from 1535. It's actually an article written by Tomas Berlanga called Carta al Emperador Carlos V, Dando Cuenta del Descubrimiento de Las Islas. From my rudimentary translation skills, I believe it is an account of the discovery of the islands. Cool eh!
The largest issue with the climate here related to the collection is that we are having air conditioner problems. It is ideal to have a collection siting at less than 50% humidity and closer to 20-22 degrees Celsius. Right now when the dehumidifier turns off during the night it gets up to 55% and that is not great, and this is during the dry season. This humidity and heat can cause photos to stick together and just speeds up the process of deterioration in general.
Elizabeth, who is working on the archives here, surprisingly didn't discovered any mould in some boxes that somehow ended up being shoved into a tiny crawlspace where there was a lot of water around. So, although she bought proper archival boxes she isn't going to use them at the moment because she figures that if they didn't grow mould in corrugated cardboard under extreme conditions than why seal them up. When a better acclimatized space becomes available then she will use the proper boxes.
Elizabeths archival project will create a more robust archives for the station and the hope is that there will be a major digitization project done in the near future. That is going to need some specialized equipment for creating documents with the correct resolution. They also need the create a proper preservation plan, and that will involve the long term preservation of digital items...meaning good reliable storage disks and a file conversion strategy. Digital preservation is tough because it means that the items have to evolve with technology and that is hard to predict.
A faster, larger server is needed too. That's really the only thing holding us back from making the catalogue readily available on the internet. Right now, as far as I know the server can't handle the potential traffic. I don't think that this is just the station's issue though. They rely on satillites for the internet here and I believe this method is just slower and less reliable.
Kids! Ecuadorian kids are extremely cute. Yes, there are a lot of kids here. I´ve been told most people get married and have kids very young. A girl here told me she was considered an old spinster and she is only 23! haha.
I haven't done a WOD yet! I haven't found a moment of motivation...there are just too many other things to do! Imagine! It gets dark around 6:30pm here, so running in the evening is sort of out of the question...well maybe I should just go. It is pretty safe here.
No comments:
Post a Comment