This is the road where I start my journey to work each morning--descending from the foot of a mountain to the valley and the clouds. I used to deal with concrete things once I got to work: papers, printed photographs, folders, and acid free boxes. Now, I deal more and more with things in the digital cloud. On days that are more frustrating than others, I often think that it was so much simpler back then, but really it wasn't always. Some of the new technologies that I have learned to use make tasks simpler. I am finding that the difficult thing is knowing when to use this new technology and when it is advisable not to.This past week, I experimented with different tools for making simple on-line surveys and experimented with Google Docs. I experimented with Zoomerang, Survey Monkey, and SurveyGizmo. All of them were fairly easy to use for short simple surveys that you wanted to distribute through e-mail or by posting on a web site. Of the three, I liked SurveyGizmo the best. As is typical of most web 2.0 tools, they only offer so much for free and then as you try to use them for more complicated processes, you have to purchase the product or different levels of the product. I can't blame them for that--they are in business to make money after all. If you did a lot of surveys, it would probably be worth purchasing their product.
I have to wonder about one point. Who owns the data? Could you extract your data and perform other statistical analysis with it than are offered through these services? I haven't tried anything that complex and probably wouldn't need to but I wonder about it. I do think that they could be an excellent tool for evaluating public service through a web site. It could also be useful to gather information from your researchers, professional colleagues, or donors on whatever topic you were interested in learning about.
I really like the concept of Google Docs as well. It would be so much easier to edit group documents when members are scattered over geographic distances. I can also see how it could be useful in compiling reports even when the individual contributors are not scattered over distances. I intend to keep working with it and hope to really put this tool to use in the future. My first attempt to use it involves a book about my family. I inherited a host of family photographs from various households. I hope to upload selected photographs and mine the memories of selected family members to capture family memories that would be lost otherwise. This is something that I have been wanting to do for some time, but this exercise showed me a way to do it.
This is my last friday working in my current position. I have three days to work here next week. In July, I will start working on the other side of the mountain at Appalachian State University, but I still will be archiving in Appalachia. Basically, when I get to the bottom of the hill, I will turn left instead of right and cross the Eastern Divide. It will be a big change for me. I have been the director here for the past 22 years and have been working here even longer than that. It is a new beginning. I thought that I was at the end of my career, but now I am starting a new path. Hopefully, I have learned a few things along the way that can help. I hope to keep writing this blog and share about Appalachia and archives.
