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Hey, Datascapers! I’m happy to be back writing the first Tartan Datascapes of the year after a two-week vacation where I was consistently streaming Bob’s Burgers, playing a lot of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and, most importantly, sleeping.
After a full year of pandemic operations in support of CMU’s hybrid approach to teaching and research, the Libraries' services and the way our faculty and students have utilized them look far different than in previous years.
Here’s a brief look at some of the numbers, including some surprises, from our overall year and from the most recent fall semester. Click the image to view a larger version of the infographic.
I apologize for the cliché use of the “What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been” lyric from the Grateful Dead song "Truckin'" that can sometimes be overused to describe odd happenstances and situations over a long period of time, but it really is the perfect way to describe the year of 2020 for Tartan Datascapes (and really, 2020 in general).
For all you bibliophiles out there (a person who loves books and/or collects them), I’m certain that you’ll enjoy this blog post where I draw an irresistible connection between the front matter of books and README files. For the casual book user, I hope today's Tartan Datascapes not only increases your interest in README files, but also sparks a passion for all the lovely things that comprise a book.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been listening to a lot of YouTube ambiance videos (check out this one creating a soundscape of being in a cabin during a blizzard) and drinking copious amounts of tea, but I’ve had the word “cozy” on my mind for a few weeks now. What comes to your mind when you think of the word “cozy”? Soft blankets? A cabin with a fireplace? A basket of tiny, fuzzy bunnies? Being the data enthusiast that I am, a really interesting thing comes to mind when I think of the word “cozy”: data repositories.
This monthly installment features information on the upcoming CMU Open Access 2020 event on November 11th, a recent announcement of a nation-wide transformative agreement in Germany, upcoming CMU scholarly communication workshops, and the lists of the latest publications supported by Publisher Relationships and the CMU APC Fund.
On the blog this week, Curator of Special Collections Sam Lemley reflects on the legacy of Rachel McMasters Miller Hunt, the founding benefactor of CMU’s Special Collections and an important collector and scholar of early books on botany. CMU’s Hunt Library, named for Rachel and Roy A. Hunt, was dedicated 59 years ago on 10 October, 1961.
You might be reading the title of this blog post and thinking “Really, Hannah? Data management in a vampire mockumentary?” Hear me out, because not only is the 2014 film What We Do in the Shadows a phenomenal story about the trials and tribulations of daily life for vampire roommates in Wellington, New Zealand, many of the themes and plotlines can be translated to data management principles and challenges!
