Theme Song for My Sabbatical

Of course Van the Man has just the song for me to play while working on my projects. It is "A New Kind of Man", which I have changed to A New Kind of Woman. This song is on his "A Sense of Wonder" CD. Check out the lyriccs at:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/202925/Van_Morrison/A_New_Kind_of_Man

or http://www.emp3finder.com/dlyric.aspx?id=119113&rID=mO0iyc

New article on art web sites

This just came over the arlis listserv. Great article on image databases and art web resources:

http://www.infotoday.com/searcher/sep04/mattison.shtml

The end of the first week

This has been an interesting week adjusting to life on a sabbatical. I have received training from Kimberley on Infomine, and will receive advanced training next week from Margaret Mooney at IM. I have many sites I want to add.

I will be picking up the Little Bower fashion plates on Monday and taking them home so that I can create the finding aid. Tammy will edit etc...and then I should be ready to go w/ entering data into Content DM. Systems is trying to fix it so I can do this at home!

An especially nice benefit of being on sabbatical is my availability to Marianna who is in her first month of Junior High. I can pick her up after school and be sure she has a snack etc...before going on to her intensive soccer practices 2x/weekly. Her long day is Tuesday when she has school from 7:45-2:45 which includes choir, orchestra, jazz band practice at lunch, jazz band practice from 3-5 and soccer from 6-7:30 http://www.californiaodyssey.org/cysateam_u12gw.asp. I am tired just writing this!

Being wireless is a beautiful thing!

Other aspects of my sabbatical

I believe that there are spiritual, personal, and health aspects to a sabbatical. To this end, I get up w/ Marianna and do yoga and then walk the dogs. After motoring her to Alta, I then take the dogs to Starbuck's to get my coffee and where they are given whipping cream by the staff who adore them and go home. I am reading Phyllis Tickle's Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0385492863/qid=1094577150/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/103-4345361-6309416?v=glance&s=books&n=507846four times daily. These are updated readings/prayers based on Benedictine monks prayers. It is a great thing to do and puts me on a higher plane during the day. Here is a recent reading by the Jesuit, Jean-Pierre de Caussade:

All that happens to me becomes bread to nourish me, soap to cleanse me, fire to purify me, a chisel to carve heavenly features on me. Everything is a channel of grace for my needs. The very thing I sought everywhere else seeks me incessantly, and gives itself to me by means of all created things. In other words, if it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger!


Next week, I am beginning my free membership at GEMS (women's half hour weight training circuit) with Marianna and returning to WW.

In addition my dogs are getting much longer walks. Delilah is no longer considered overweight and Dr. Hill thought she looked the best ever!

Setting the groundwork for my sabbatical

It was challenging to go from vacation to sabbatical mode. I want to be very organized so that I can accomplish all my goals during my sabbatical. I had to totally reorganize my office and closet to be more productive. In addition, my brother-in-law spent alot of time making both Marianna and I wireless as well as updating my personal (not work) computer and even installing a wireless mouse!

Over the summer, I collected many readings on fashion plates as well as written material to help me w/ content dm, dreamweaver, and infomine. Here is what one of them look like from UW's Special Collection Library:
http://content.lib.washington.edu/cgi-bin/viewer.exe?CISOROOT=/costumehist&CISOPTR=198

Randy has digitized the Little Bower collection as well as our earlier fashion plate collection and I have the images on a cd as well as thumbprints in a folder.

My hope is to accomplish all from home!!!!!

Skill sets to master

I will be learning many new skills on my sabbatical.

1. I am learning Content DM in order to catalogue and input the Little Bower fashion plate collection. I met w/ Tammy Lau, Head of SC for an overview. I will go through the tutorials so that I can begin working on this project. The only worry is that I may not be able to connect from home. Patrick is looking into this and seeking a solution. I am also registering for the cdm user listserv which will help w/ my education.

UW has already used cdm for their 400+fashion plate collection. I have contacted Ann Lally, SC, to see if they used a specialized thesaurus for their plates. I will also use them as a model for indexing.

2. Dreamweaver. I have already taken DWI and will be taking DWII next month. I am using this software to create an online exhibit of the fashion plates. I also have also purchased Teach Yourself Visually: Dreamweaver MX 2004 to add to the documentation given from the ITS class. Randy has already digitized them in two sizes so once I get the collection catalogued I will start working on the display. To support the display I have many articles/books on fashion plates that will provide additional background knowledge for me.

3. Infomine. Kimberley is giving me an intro on how to input sites etc...this Wed. I will then have a conference call w/ my Infomine liaison, Margaret Mooney for advanced training. I already have a list of sites I want to add; but need to learn the technique for adding them.

It should be a busy week!