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Dear Ceci, From what you've said here (already done some OAI-PMH harvesting and implementing a personal project as JSP), it sounds to me as if you're light years ahead of most people in your situation. So my first bit of advice to you is not to sell yourself short. In addition to all of the excellent ideas raised here, I'll suggest some additional strategies for implementing those on-your-own projects that you use to build skills and concrete outputs to show off. You might consider picking some existing OS software to implement, and then learning it, well and deeply. Then add features or otherwise customize it. For example, get Omeka (or some tool written in a language you have basic familiarity with or want to learn) up and running. Examine the code to figure out how it's put together - what's easily customizable and what's deeply baked into the current implementation, where does it rely on existing libraries and where does it start on its own. Add in a Google Map and/or a Simile timeline (if it doesn't do those things already - sorry I haven't been following that closely). Write some code to parse and load data from various sources (Amazon API, Freebase, any of the music services, MARC via library catalog, DC or other XML format via OAI-PMH) into the system. Revisit it again a year later to see how your implementation decisions have held up in light of changes in underlying technologies. Etc. There's a goal to these sorts of activities that goes beyond the obvious "learn about the mechanics of this programming language." They give you experience with implementing various tasks, not so that you can do exactly that again, but so that you can do it better the next time. You'll learn from these experiments strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to solving particular technical problems, and the ability to evaluate different ways in which you might solve a problem in order to pick the one that best fits your situation. With some practice doing this evaluation in relation to the code and requirements at hand, over time you can extend this analysis to wider technical and organizational infrastructures, and make good decisions about technical implementations given surrounding organizational realities. Doing some work inside a pre-existing software application I believe will help you work on these sorts of larger issues in addition to the mechanics of writing the code. Now I'm all inspired to drop what I need to be working on today and play with Omeka. I'm not a coder, myself, so I'm sorry to say my advice here does not come from personal experience taking this approach. It does come from spending lots and lots of time working with developers and driving digital library initiatives, and seeing where development initiatives go well and where they don't. The best developers I work with are the ones that know it's not just about the specific technical task at hand, but rather can talk intelligently (and not just to other developers) about the implementation decisions they've made and evaluate their effectiveness. Best of luck. It sounds to me like you're ready to take the next opportunity by storm. Jenn -------------------------------- Jenn Riley Head, Carolina Digital Library and Archives The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://cdla.unc.edu/ http://www.lib.unc.edu/users/jlriley [log in to unmask] (919) 843-5910 On 5/6/11 4:06 PM, "Ceci Land" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >I like this. Maybe it's because it's what I was already thinking about >doing. I have 3 project ideas twirling around in my head at the moment. >I can't do them at work, but perhaps the systems department could give me >a dataset to play around with in my spare time. I already have a good >dataset for one of the projects that I harvested via OAI-PMH. > >Do these spare-time projects get any respect from the "real world" when >it comes time to apply for a job? ....particularly if you focus on really >making it as polished as possible (within the limitations of a non-work >environment)? I remember building my own darkroom as a teenager and >doing B&W and color slide and print processing. (yes, I still love the >smell of D76 and stop bath. I can bring up the smell purely from memory >:) ). I did manage to work for a while in photography because of my >original personal investment of time and energy into it as a hobby. I'm >just concerned that the things may not work that way any more. Life was >not only slower paced back then, but having an exact skill match wasn't >required to get a foot in the door. Plus, I'm no Mozart so it's not >likely that I'll come up with something uber creative or so nifty that >it's used by a community at large. But I do good technical work. I >tinker...I make things "go". > >Thanks for the advice. I'm going to start playing with the projects I >have in mind. One is already done as a JSP, but I think I'll convert it >to something else and "clean up" the compromises I had to make to get it >done in a limited time. > >Ceci > >