Brief Personal History, Short & Long-term Goals

Personal History

I am a recent graduate of the School ofCommunication and Information at Rutgers University. I completed my degree entirely online, completed a digital libraries specialization, and graduated in October 2012. I currently live in Oregon with 3 cats and my domestic partner.

Short-term Blog Goal

I have been searching for a job since I graduated and thus far have been unsuccessful getting anything, much less something in my field. However today I spotted my ideal job. Despite the fact that this job is exactly the kind of job I was aiming for with my degree I find that I still lack desired proficiencies. Therefore short-term this blog will be about my journey in attempting to acquire those proficiencies and demonstrating them – all before applying for this job in the next three weeks. The things that the job is asking for that I feel I need to gain are:

Demonstrated experience working with UNIX or LINUX server platforms, related software, and basic administration utilities.

Proficiency in web-based object oriented programming languages like PHP and/or Ruby on Rails.

Experience working with APIs, mobile technologies, and web services.

Working familiarity with REST and SOAP.

Working knowledge of DSpace and Fedora.

Knowledge of linked data and its application to library and cultural heritage projects.

Working knowledge of SQL, NoSQL databases, and/or RDF triplestores.

Experience implementing and maintaining a search index such as Solr or ElasticSearch.

Ironically the only requirements of the job that I trained throughout my graduate degree that I feel I do already meet are:

Knowledge of metadata standards and digital preservation systems, and of course actually having the required degree.

Long-term blog goal

I want this blog to serve as a useful tool to anyone who is trying to get free knowledge and service from the internet. Whether they use this knowledge to help grow a physical library into the digital realm on a manageable budget, or are simply interested for their own benefit of using the free software, databases, or other information-discovery related content that I find and describe. I hope to post once every other week describing a free resource that can be utilized by any library or individual. There will likely be additional posts of other library related content such as my initial library job-search and resume building posts.