Service to the Profession

It's been a very busy year, as far as service to the profession goes. Since July 2015, I've been serving as President of the New Jersey Library Association's (NJLA's) History and Preservation Section (H&P). Besides representing the Section and NJLA at meetings and events, it's been my responsibility to develop a year's worth of meetings with tours and/or workshops, as well as plan for professional development opportunities for members and non-members in the archives, local history, and special collections fields. I recently gave the Section's annual report to the NJLA Executive Board. During the report, I spoke about our meetings and workshops:

1. Meeting and workshop: July 27, 2015 at swanky Lawrenceville School's gorgeous Bunn Library – after the meeting, we had a tour of the archive and had two 1-hour photo preservation workshops by The Better Image photo conservators (and luncheon).
2. Meeting: Sept. 30, 2015 our traditional meeting at the Monmouth County Archives/Library during Archives Week. The lunch meeting is sandwiched between great programs on local history and archives.
3. Workshop: Dec. 1, 2015, a concentrated, hands-on, half-day Photo Process Identification and Care Workshop, produced by and held at The Better Image in Milford, NJ. The conservators own a great old opera house, and even have an original theatrical background that was conserved.
4. Meeting:  Dec. 7, 2015 a meeting at the Morristown National Historical Park, Washington’s Headquarters, after which, we had a tour of the archive and viewed very cool samples of the special collections.
5. Meeting: March 14, 2016 meeting at Trenton Free Public Library in the Trentoniana Room, co-hosted by the NJ Caucus of MARAC (Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference), after which, we had a tour and saw the treasures of the special collections.
6. Workshop: March 22, 2016, a hands-on, half-day, Archival Basics for Librarians workshop, in Alexander Library’s Pane Room, taught by Rutgers’ Associate University Archivist, Erika Gorder. We received very good feedback from students who attended the workshop, and will likely make it an annual program.

I also spoke about the new About Us page, which grew out of an elevator-type speech that I put together to explain H&P to another "sister" organization. After the first draft had been sent to the Section for comment, we were able to post it online as the new About Us page on the NJLA H&P Section page. It's too long to include here, but click this link to view it for yourself. Please let me know what you think. 

Other significant accomplishments include Bylaws changes that create a Web Presence Coordinator and an H&P Archives Committee, as well as edits that simplified wording, clarified responsibilities, and updated areas that had not yet included electronic publications and social media.

Last, but far from least, the current P-E Carolyn Dorsey did a phenomenal job putting together the six sessions (and one pre-session) from H&P for the annual NJLA conference taking place on May 16-18 in Atlantic City. She did amazing work obtaining co-sponsorship (as you'll see below). Here's a bit about each, but check out the conference site and the individual links below for complete info:

• Municipal Records in Public Libraries, presented and moderated by Sarah Hull, Plainfield Public Library; Ellen Callahan, NJ State Archives; Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. Sponsoring Groups: History & Preservation Section, Intellectual Freedom Subcommittee, Reference Section, and Urban Libraries Section.
• Telling Your Library's Story, moderated by Janet Torsney, and presented by Tiffany McClary, NJ State Library; Ellen O'Keefe, Northvale Public Library; William A. Peniston, Newark Museum; and Michele Stricker, NJ State Library; Tuesday, May 17, 2016,-3:10 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Sponsoring Groups:  History & Preservation Section and Small Libraries Section.
• Fundamentals of Preservation Care Part 1: Book Repair Demo and Part 2. Presentation: The Fundamentals of Managing Preservation Efforts in Libraries; moderated by: Michele Stricker; presented by: Kim Avagliano, Monmouth County Library; Deborah Mercer, NJ State Library; Tuesday, May 17, 2016, 4:10 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sponsoring Groups:  College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, Small Libraries Section, and Technical Services Section.
• Starting from Scratch: The Challenges and Triumphs in Creating a Local History Collection moderated by John Beekman, Jersey City Public Library and presented by: Debra Schiff, Chester Library; Aimee Fernandez-Puente, Elizabeth Public Library; and Marian Bauman, archivist; Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, Reference Section, Technical Services Section, and Urban Libraries Section.
• New Jersey Authors Speak, moderated by Jessica M. Myers, presented by Maxine N. Lurie, Seton Hall University and Chair, NJ Historical Commission and NJ Studies Academic Alliance; Richard P. Carlin, Executive Editor, Music & Art in Higher Education, Oxford University Press; Richard Rockwell, Bloomfield Morris Canal Greenway Committee, Bloomfield Historic Preservation; Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, History & Preservation Section, and Reader's Advisory Roundtable.
• Keeping Up with Copyright to Protect Your Library moderated by Gary Saretsky, Monmouth County Archives and presented by Greg Cram, J.D., Associate Director of Copyright and Information Policy, The New York Public Library, Wednesday, May 18, 2016, 2:30 p.m. to 3:20 p.m.; Sponsoring Groups: Administration & Management Section, Emerging Technologies Section, History & Preservation Section, Intellectual Freedom Subcommittee, Reference Section, and Technical Services Section
• Yes, Our Collections Have Been Digitized: How Lyrasis' Digitization Collaborative Gets "Hidden" Collections Online, moderated by Debra Schiff, Chester Library and presented by Laurie Gemmill Arp, Director of Digital and Preservation Services, Lyrasis and Paul Martinez, Cataloging Librarian and Archivist, Sprague Library, Montclair University, Pre-conference Monday, May 16, 2016, 10:00 a.m. to 10:50 a.m. Virtual (Adobe Connect) – all conference attendees are free to attend. Sponsoring Groups: College & University Section, Emerging Technologies Section, History & Preservation Section, Reference Section, and Technical Services Section

I'm happy to be moderating one session and speaking in the other. My specific area in the Starting from Scratch session will be documentation. I'll be presenting a brief overview of all the documentation needed for a local history department. In preparation for the session, I created a "hidden" page on the Chester Library web site where attendees could obtain PDFs of forms I created for the Library and use them as templates for their departments. Essentially, I wanted to make it as straightforward as possible, so that no one would need to reinvent the wheel.

My experience with creating the documentation for Chester Library focused on reaching out to fellow archivists who had to create their own forms, policies, and procedures. I used the list servs, especially the Lone Arrangers Roundtable list because the members have always been so helpful. Also, because they're like me -- one-person shops, where you have to be all things to all people -- they were able to give me guidance and perspective particular to my situation. Fast forward to five years later, I'm able to do the same for others, and grateful to be able to do so.

Even though I'll be cycling out and becoming Past President in July, I'll still be connected to H&P. The Past President heads the Awards Committee. And, I'm always happy to mentor those who come after me, as I've done with the current P-E and Secretary. I can already see that they're well positioned to keep up the mentoring with those who come after them. It is gratifying to be part of that legacy.

Interview with the Artist, Karen Guancione -- "A Portable Constant Obsession"

Introduction

Over the years, I've had my share of fun and interesting side projects, but this year's project -- documenting a small portion of the work and life of a living artist -- could top the list. The artist Karen Guancione's work is wide ranging, from pocket-sized artists' books to gigantic installations of sewn plastic bags hanging in panels (and loads of other forms in between). The woman Karen Guancione is intelligent, energetic, focused, engaging, humorous, and inspiring. She fights for workers' rights and human rights at an international level, and takes an avid interest in her students' work.

Karen also is very generous with her time and committed to documenting her life's work, so when she said she'd like to open up the cases in the "A Portable Constant Obsession" exhibit at Rutgers, take out her art, and talk with me at length about the pieces and her life as an artist, I jumped at the opportunity. 

In previous posts, I've spotlighted some of Karen's local installations. For instance, I was incredibly moved by her "Found Journal" exhibit at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey in 2010. More recently, exhibit curator Michael Joseph gave me a tour of the "A Portable Constant Obsession" exhibit. 

Now, interspersed with beautiful photographs by Bruce Riccitelli (and a few by yours truly), here is the first in a series of my interviews of Karen Guancione. Note: In some cases, the description above an image applies to other images of the same piece. Those other images will immediately follow the one with the description above it. Additionally, some of the videos are a bit dark, and for that I apologize. 

Begin at the Beginning

We began our interview in the upstairs gallery, across from the entrance of Rutgers' Alexander Library. One of the pieces in the exhibit was Karen's first journal. Even at 7 years old, she documented the world around her.

The two photographs below show the pages Karen read in the video:

Untitled 
First travel journal created at age seven on family cross-country road trip.  Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

The Cacophony of Life

During the 1970s through the 1990s, Karen continued keeping diaries, which evolved into art journals, complete with collages of ephemera, drawings, paintings, and text. 

In the video below, she talks about the journals in a display case in the "A Portable Obsession" exhibit.

Aquiloni
Within the entire installation are smaller displays, often hung with Karen's "Aquiloni." In the video below, she explains just what the works are and the amazing effect they have on children.



Below are a series of photographs showing materials Karen referenced in the video above. Additionally, I've included the "Catalog Card Aquiloni" she created specifically for the exhibit, hung in the downstairs Special Collections gallery.

Aquiloni 
Letterpress (edition of 40), Hahnemuhle and handmade paper, acrylic paint, thread, w: 5-1/4 x h: 7 3/4 x 43 inches when open, printed and published by Edizioni Pulcinelefante in 2004. The text, "Quando sono stanco di camminare, VOLO" ("When I'm tired of walking, I FLY"), was written specifically for this book and the artist’s installations by the Italian poet Roberto Dossi. The book accompanies a large-scale installation of the same name. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

Aquiloni, Scuola dell’ Infanzia Ex-Lucca
Mixed media, with drawings of the artist’s Aquiloni installation made by 3 to 5 year old preschool children from Scuola dell’ Infanzia Ex-Lucca in Fiorenzuola d’ Arda, Piacenza, Italy. Translation of page shown: thank you from the children and teachers. Mixed media: handmade paper (wool, cotton and mixed papers), acrylic paint, small sewn photographs of students in the installation Aquiloni, linen thread, children’s original drawings and written descriptions, closed: h: 15 3/4 x w: 12 x d: 1 inch, 2005. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

Card Catalogue Aquiloni
Mixed media installation: old catalogue cards from Alexander Library, small pieces of handmade and hand painted paper, shipping tags, labels, coin wrappers, torn prints and other found materials hand sewn and suspended throughout the 2 galleries, size variable, 2012. 
Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Debra Schiff. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

In the following video Karen talks about how she was able to obtain all those catalog cards, especially when the library no longer uses them. She also talks briefly about her work, "La Jupe" and the installation.

La Jupe (The Skirt)
Found skirt, acrylic paint, created in Nice, France in August 2008, w: 15 x h: 36 1/2 inches ©Karen Guancione.

The photo below shows one of the letterpress books inserted into the case.

Gli Occhi di Santa Lucia (The Eyes of Santa Lucia)
Letterpress (edition of 43), wood engraving, Hahnemuhle paper, gold leaf, grommets, ribbon, metallic pigment, shipping tag, holy card and medal, w: 5-1/4 x h: 7 3/4 inches, printed and published by Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, Osnago, Lecco, Italy, 2007. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

Artists' Books
In the next video, Karen talks with me about the collaborative art project "Art Trash." Immediately following the video is a photograph of the letterpress cover.




TRASH ART/ ART TRASH
Letterpress (edition of 66), mixed media, Hahnemuhle paper, w: 5-1/4 x h: 7 3/4 inches, with Carmen Cheung, Asha Ganpat, Lisa Hasselbrook, Suzanne Reiman, Carolyn Salinas, Susan Valenza and Sally Willowbee, printed and published by Edizioni Pulcinelefante, Osnago, Lecco, Italy, 2004. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

Moving to the Special Collections gallery, in the next video, Karen and I talk about what might be her most famous work, "Guide de la Correspondance Amoreuse."



Guide de la Correspondance Amoureuse 
Mixed media, found materials, red bra and underwear, scraps from antique books and actual love letters, contains collage, drawings, paintings, closed: w: 13 1/2 x h: 12 x d: 6 3/4 inches, created in Nice, France in the winter of 2004-05, (view one: front cover, view two: back cover showing closure with bra). Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

Guide de la Correspondance Amoureuse 
Mixed media, found materials, red bra and underwear, scraps from antique books and actual love letters, contains collage, drawings, paintings, closed: w: 13 1/2 x h: 12 x d: 6 3/4 inches, created in Nice, France in the winter of 2004-05. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

In the next video, Karen shows me one of her most recent works, "Nice 1."

Nice 1 (2011)

Mixed media, handmade paper, found materials, 100 pages of collage, drawing, painting, cover: found tile shards, stones and glass, acrylic paint, w: 13 x h: 10 1/2 x d: 3 1/4 inches, with painted zippered bag, fabric, acrylic paint, w: 16 3/4 x h: 13 inches, July - August 2011.

Next, Karen talked with me about her serendipitous experience finding a different kind of medium to use in an artists' book.

This image shows a close up of the book's cover.

Pátzcuaro (number 3)
Mixed media, handmade paper, collage, painted communion hosts, found materials, 12 plastic baby and ceramic baby Jesus figurines on cover, 100 pages, w: 9 3/8 x h: 6 1/2 x d: 4 1/2 inches, December 2009 – January 2010. 
Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Debra Schiff. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

The following two photographs are © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

From Karen Guancione Art

In the following short video, she talks about using her body as a printing press to produce "Foufune."

During the interview, I asked Karen about her training. I was delighted to hear about her punk foundation. In the video below, she tells me about that exciting time in London, as well as her piece, "No Rest."



No Rest
Mixed media: wood chair, handmade paper, encyclopedia paper, recycled papers from artist's daily life, gold leaf, mirror, gold leafed cups, 40 x 17 x 18 inches, 1998. Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

Finally, Karen warns me about touching "No Rest," and talks with me about her "Garbage Books."

Spiral Bound Garbage Books
Found materials and over 400 spiral bound books made from decades of accumulated recycled trash, packaging and paper scraps from around the world, individual scraps are dated and each book numbered, ongoing project, 2007- present.  Artwork © Karen Guancione. Photograph © Bruce Riccitelli. All rights reserved.

From Karen Guancione Art

These videos represent most of the footage I collected during my interview of Karen on May 5, 2012. If you want to see more, please visit the YouTube playlist at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB889D867E48C3884&feature=plcp. Additionally, more photographs by Bruce (and me) are available on my Picasa Web Album for Karen's art here: https://picasaweb.google.com/debra.schiff/KarenGuancioneArt.

Coming soon, my next interview with Karen at her "Bolsas de Mandado" exhibit in Loveladies, New Jersey.

Documenting an Artist's Work

Recently, I had the great pleasure and honor of interviewing a living artist, Karen Guancione. The purpose of my time with Karen was to document her work currently on display at Rutgers University's Alexander Library and ask her about her experience as an artist. Earlier on this blog, I featured Michael Joseph, the curator of the exhibit (and Rare Books Librarian) talking about Karen's work. However, having the artist herself describe in detail the nature of her works in the context of her life opens up an entirely different window into the art on display.

I'd like to share with you these enlightening, revelatory, and amusing videos I recorded last month. The playlist is available on YouTube at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB889D867E48C3884&feature=plcp. Photos of the individual works will be forthcoming.

Curator's Tour of Karen Guancione's "A Portable Constant Obsession" Exhibit at Rutgers

Introduction
From the first time I experienced Karen Guancione's work at the Printmaking Council of New Jersey, I was hooked on her work. Karen has a background in fiber art as well as printmaking. Her work calls out unsung people, especially women, who do much of the hard work that goes into everyday objects, such as clothing. She also uses traditionally feminine objects (such as red leather high heel shoes and brassieres) to put a point on her feminist works.

Karen is especially interested in found objects, making hundreds of artist's books from other people's castoffs. Because I'm a big fan of artists' books and the artists who make them, I was excited to learn that Karen would be exhibiting some of her recent and early works at Rutgers' Alexander Library in New Brunswick (until August 31, you have a little time, but don't miss this exhibit).

Not only is Karen a working artist, traveling worldwide to exhibit and make her remarkable art, she also shares her knowledge as a lecturer and teacher of art and design at SUNY Purchase, as well as other schools.

The Tour
My host for the tour of Karen's exhibit, A Portable Constant Obsession, was none other than its curator (and my friend) Michael Joseph, the Rare Books Librarian at Rutgers. I first met Michael when he gave a presentation on artists' books during an MLIS course called Art Librarianship (taught by the wonderful Paul Glassman). He introduced me to an entirely new art form, and I later asked him to be my advisor for my independent study. It was great fun working with Suellen Glashausser's artists' books, and ensuring their preservation. That experience solidified my affection for artists' books and admiration for Michael's knowledge of book arts.

Note: My apologies for some of the noise in the videos below. The air conditioning in the downstairs gallery is quite loud, and the upstairs gallery is located directly across from the main entry of the Alexander Library. Suffice to say, it can be a noisy spot. I also apologize for the reflected lights in the museum glass of the exhibit cases. I hope to be there when Karen uninstalls the exhibits to take some footage without the reflective glass.

In the short video below, Michael introduces us to Karen's current installation in the upstairs gallery of Alexander Library.



In the next video, Micheal shows us more of Karen's recent artists' books, and talks about the influence of her feminism on her work.



In an exhibition such as this one, it is especially interesting to see an artist's earliest works. We are fortunate to be able to experience (in the video below) some of Karen's earliest artists' books displayed in rather a unique way. Michael speaks to the nature of Karen's display technique, as well as how these works helped her to make sense of her early life, below.



In the downstairs, Special Collections gallery, Michael shows us some of Karen's more recent artists' books, especially some in her Summer series.



In this case, Michael explains, Karen's Aquiloni are now part of books, not only suspended from the ceiling of the exhibit case. He also talks more about her books made in Nice, France.



In this next video, Michael tells us some of the history behind this large accordion-style artists' book.



We are very fortunate to experience one of Karen's best known works, Guide de la Correspondance Amoureuse. It's a fantastic piece bound in a scarlet bra. Below, Michael talks about the meaning behind this unique binding

 

Below, we see a multimedia installation that includes a video of women dancing and a selection of Karen's Garbage Books. You can see Karen smiling and dancing in the video.



Finally, Michael shows us Karen's Pátzcuaro and Foufoune works.



I encourage you to visit Alexander Library at Rutgers to see this extraordinary exhibit before it closes at the end of August.

Guest Blogger Ken Cleary on Ben Vershbow’s “Hacking the Library” Talk

Introduction
Ken Cleary always posts interesting links and ideas on the Rutgers SOURCE (the Student Organization for Unique and Rare Collections Everywhere) Facebook page. For that reason, I thought he would be an excellent candidate for a guest blogger. Ken is working his way through the Master of Library and Information Science program and expects to graduate in May. He also is co-president of SOURCE and serves as the current Archives Assistant for the University Archives at Rutgers. Suffice to say, his time is tight. However, he managed to squeeze in an article on his experience attending the March 6 “Hacking the Library” talk at Rutgers.

Please welcome Ken to Here and There. The rest of this post is his (except my Editor's Note), including the accompanying photos.

“Hacking the Library”
I recently had the pleasure of attending a talk titled, “Hacking the Library,” given by Ben Vershbow, head of the Digital Labs at New York Public Library (NYPL). He spoke to a small crowd of graduate students and faculty at the School of Communication and Information on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus. The phrase, “hacking the library” is certainly an attention-grabbing title for a talk, but Vershbow quickly clarified that his use of the term “hacking” is meant to convey a desire to make information more widely accessible.

Vershbow began his talk with a frank admission that he never expected to work at a library or as a “digital humanist.” However, after graduating from Yale with a B.A. in Theater Studies, he became the editorial director for The Institute for the Future of the Book. There, he immersed himself in an environment that experimented with how technology influences the ways people interact with information. This environment comprised a wide range of people, including new media gurus, literary scholars, gamers, writers, and philosophers. Their conversations and work explored such topics as the democratization of information, the book as a social object, the networked book, virtual environments, popular culture, blogs, and the future of reading and writing.

One of Vershbow’s notable examples was his customized blog for author and philosopher McKenzie Wark. The blog allowed for interactive, paragraph-by-paragraph public commentary of an early draft of his work “Gamer Theory.” Consequently, Wark’s online “editors” helped to refine his ideas and shaped revisions to the final text.

Below is a photo of Vershbow speaking at Rutgers.

From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary

NYPL Digital Labs
After spending four years within the eclectic and imaginative realm of The Institute for the Future of the Book, Vershbow joined the New York Public Library as part of a larger effort by NYPL to enhance their digital humanities services. At first, his work focused on overcoming cultural and technological barriers to implement a more open-source and decentralized information technology practice across NYPL. Finding new ways to bridge the gap between technology and collections is one of his top goals, and Vershbow said that his untraditional background helps him to more easily “work against the grain” to find innovative solutions. To support this ongoing process, NYPL created a digital labs unit where he and a small team could tinker with new ideas. Vershbow sees the lab functioning as a “hybrid space” that sits between the library technologists and the curators and archivists who care for collections, allowing his team to incorporate both points of view into their work.

According to NYPL Labs,

NYPL Labs is an experimental unit at the Library developing ideas and tools for digital research. A collaboration among curators, designers and technologists, NYPL Labs is dedicated to rethinking what a public research library can be and do in the new information commons. We develop everything from proof-of-concept pilots to fully realized web applications and digital archives, as well as hosting a variety of staff workshops and public talks.

Vershbow described the Labs’ recent work and how some of their successful projects were born. Many of the experiments began with an awareness that NYPL has a small, but growing, collection of digitized items that are displayed on their web site in much the same way as other libraries’ digital collections.

Vershbow could see information in the images of 19th century maps or century-old menus that was visible to the human eye, but which could not be discovered by searching the library’s catalog or Google. The digital versions of these objects only had a simple title and a very basic description, which limited the ways they could be searched. He then began to imagine how much more useful these images could be if all of the latent information could be transcribed into digital form, and thus become “findable” to a Google or library catalog search. The drawback was that accomplishing that task would be extremely labor intensive.

Even an institution as large and distinguished as NYPL does not have the resources to transcribe the information contained in tens of thousands of images. So Vershbow turned to a technique called “crowdsourcing.” This practice has been used by the scientific community (think bird counts during migration), as well as in libraries all over the world.

[Editor’s note: I’ve seen many examples of crowdsourcing, but most commonly, I see it in “tagging.” Instead of using uniform terms (such as those found in the Library of Congress authority terms), the user tags an item with terms familiar to them to describe objects. This method is intended to help other users familiar with the same terms to search for items in a more “natural” way.]

One way to explain crowdsourcing is to highlight an example of how the NYPL Digital Labs utilized it. The Library holds more than 40,000 restaurant menus dating back to the 1840s, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in the world. More than just an historical curiosity, the menus are a treasure trove of economic, social, and cultural history. As Vershbow explained, being able to search for the term “oyster” could be of great interest to scientists who are trying to connect the dots between culinary trends and data on the health of the oyster population. But the only way that the details on prices, ingredients, dishes, and more, can be transcribed is with a lot of help. So, the Digital Labs created a web site called, “What’s on the Menu?” that invited the public to help transcribe menus, one dish at a time. As of today, over 75,000 volunteers have helped transcribe 812,361 dishes from 12,796 menus, and the project is still going strong.

The Stereogranimator
The most recent project to emerge from NYPL Digital Labs takes crowdsourcing a step further by incorporating aspects of Vershbow’s previous work at The Institute for the Future of the Book. The Stereogranimator web site allows the public to choose from over 40,000 stereographs to create their own shareable animated gif or 3D anaglyph.

Below, Vershbow demonstrates examples of 3D anaglyphs created with the Stereogranimator.

From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary

Vershbow explained that the inspiration for the Stereogranimator grew from a patron who created their own animated gifs from NYPL stereographs and publicized them on the web. Vershbow emphasized that this is an important example of the library listening to its patrons and providing useful and creative tools for interacting with the collections.

The photo below shows Vershbow's audience learning how to use special glasses to appreciate the 3D anaglyphs created with the Sterogranimator.

From Guest Blogger Ken Cleary

Vershbow’s talk, including questions and answers, lasted for an hour and a half, but could easily have gone on much longer. Other projects that the NYPL Digital Labs have completed, or are working on, can be found on their web site. Many of the projects rely on public participation for their success, but if the response they have received so far is any indication, NYPL will be able to accomplish a great deal using this technique. I am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear Ben Vershbow speak and I will certainly be following his work more closely in future. I believe that the creative and thoughtful approach that the NYPL Digital Labs is taking towards the digital humanities is an excellent example of how technology can be harnessed to make collections more accessible and engaging to both researchers and the general public.

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Ken Cleary is a graduate student in Library and Information Science at Rutgers University. His digital calling card is at: http://about.me/kencleary.