A productive vacation? That's silly.

I took my computer, books, and notebooks to the beach with me on vacation this past week...did I honestly think I was going to get both school work and job tasks completed? I forgot what a vacation is for: to get away from everything for awhile. So, while the trip was great and I feel recharged, now I'm back to trying to catch up and keep up with everything. Ah.

As a recent undergraduate, I'm a little thrown by grad school. I'm constantly watching lectures, reading books/articles, and doing supplemental work, and I feel confident that this is the right degree and career path for me. The things I'm learning are exciting and I look forward to doing the work; the tasks I need to complete are never a waste of my time (unlike taking a bio class requirement as an Art History major). It is just so overwhelming sometimes! Our class has learned so much in the past two months, but I get anxious every time I think about how much more is out there to learn about this new career path.

I am an optimist, so bring it on!

Procrastination

I'm slacking on the two posts a week requirement. For the readers out there (aka classmates and Mom), I don't want to blog just to blog and have it be a complete waste of your time. I'll leave this one short and sweet and just comment on our first quiz.

Even though we had all weekend to complete the quiz, of course I left it until Sunday night to do. Once a procrastinator, always a procrastinator. Ironically, (and luckily for me) procrastination usually produces my best work. Anyway, this was my first time taking a quiz online, and it was kind of difficult. I'm used to the quiet classroom with 30 other people and the clock ticking minute by minute. Instead, I took an online quiz sitting on my carpet with my dog sleeping next to me and time flying by. I think I did alright, at least I answered all of the questions, but I was constantly worried my computer was going to crash or the site would kick me off. Maybe being in a different setting (like a library!) for the next quiz will help me focus.

Jing-Zotero Assignment

For our assignment due 6/9 we had to create a brief presentation with audio narrative showing how to download and configure Zotero. Enjoy!

Now back to work on the LIS 2000 essay due tomorrow as well...

OED3

I just finished The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester, for LIS 2000. (Of course, as soon as I finished reading it, I realized I had taken three hours to read the completely wrong book for an essay assignment.) It's the history of the Oxford English Dictionary, which, as daunting as it sounds, was actually a fast and interesting read. The book mainly tells the story of the First Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which took 76 years to create and is twelve volumes. It mentions the Second Edition which came out in 1989 and is twenty volumes, and Winchester speculates on the Third Edition which is currently being created.

This third edition, conveniently shortened "OED3", expected to have forty volumes and could reach a million words. (http://cogscilibrarian.blogspot.com/2007/08/from-unregistered-words-to-oed3.html) Winchester brings up excellent possible disadvantages regarding the OED3, such as environmental waste and taking up too much space, and he throws out the possibility that OED3 might only be available online.

Is this a good idea? Should we even entertain the fact of printing such a massive collection or go straight to a digital version? (It might be a refreshing change of pace...at least there would be no arguments on the best way to digitize the collection!) The historian, romantic, and pack-rat in me would like to see a printed version just for the sake of having one created. Unlike local newspapers, hardly read novels, and barely circulated journal articles, there is no question on the importance of keeping a record of the entire English Language. No matter how many digital copies and formats we have, wouldn't you just feel safer with a printed version to keep in libraries and universities?

Luckily we have plenty of time to figure out the answer to this question...the latest estimated completion date of OED3 is 2037.