On Monday, October 25, Dr. Blythe Roveland-Brenton presented a
Colloquium to the Division of Library & Information
Science. Dr. Roveland-Brenton, St. John's University
Archivist, shared some of her experiences with students and faculty
on the Queens campus. In addition, she showed examples of
some of the holdings in the St. John’s archives. Highlights
of the collection include a letter written by Booker T. Washington
and a picture of the original university building.
Dr. Roveland-Brenton talked about her background and the career
path that led to her current position. She also offered
information about qualifications and interests necessary to work in
archives and manuscript repositories. She discussed some of
the challenges inherent in her field, including copyright laws,
online auctions, and digital library exhibits. She explained that
one of the difficulties with digital library exhibits is that
people do not necessarily plan in advance and think carefully about
the needs and the goals of such exhibits. They require a
great deal of work, and they should serve a more significant
purpose than as an attractive picture.
Associate Professor James Vorbach and DLIS Student Vahagn
Marabyan presented the final Colloquium of the fall 2004 semester
on Monday, November 29, 2004. The topic of their presentation
was “Designing Database Applications.” Dr. Vorbach provided
some background information about databases and database
applications. Vahagn then shared an example of a real-world
application, his database for the Archives of the Diocese of
Brooklyn.
Dr. Vorbach explained the difference between databases and
database application, and showed that the purpose of databases is
to solve a problem or improve a work process. He offered
examples of relational database and an XML database. He
showed the audience the dimensions of organizational databases and
the ways that they vary in terms of scope. He then provided
an overview of the design process, highlighting the differences in
perspective between users and designers.
Vahagn Marabyan then showed the database that he created for the
Diocese of Brooklyn. All of their information had been
paper-based, and the goal of Vahagn’s project was to automate the
process of finding specific records. Vahagn designed the
database to meet client specifications, such as search by name and
social security number. He also created a switchboard and
user manuals for the archivist. The project is currently in a
testing phase, and he will proceed based on user feedback.