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After more than a few late nights and long weekends, I'm proud to announce that I've completed my latest pet programming project. zgw.py is a lightweight Z39.50-Web gateway, written, naturally, in Python. None of this would be possible without the following Python modules: Aaron Lav's PyZ3950, the beast of burden; Ed Summers' pymarc, the smooth-talking translator; and web.py, quite possibly the best and most straightforward Python web framework available. I initially undertook this project as an excuse to play with PyZ3950 and to teach myself the workings of web.py; I'd played with Django, but it seemed entirely excessive for what I was working on. First, I should mention that zgw.py isn't designed to be a complete implementation of a Z39.50 gateway. There are many areas in which there is much to be desired, and it's probably not as elegant as some would like. However, that wasn't the point of the project. My ultimate goal was to create a simple client that could be used as a starting point from which to develop a complete web application.

I have no excuses for not updating this blog. I thought about forcing myself to comply some sort of resolution - you know, given the new year and all - but everyone knows how those turn out. Regardless, I have a whole backlog of things to post about, most notably being the countless Python programming projects I've been working on lately. Expect more posts to arise over the next few days as a result of this. Also, I have no excuses for botching up ArchivesBlogs temporarily by mucking about and wiping out some of WordPress's databases that make FeedWordPress, the plugin that grabs content for ArchivesBlogs, do its thing. The recovery was simpler than I thought it would be, but this is probably the largest amount of unplanned downtime we've had. Keep your eyes open, as a replacement for FeedWordpress may itself becoming along sooner or later.

Many of Web 2.0's detractors argue about it's real value, but given the wildfires in Southern California, I was happy to see it really put to good use. KPBS, a San Diego radio station, has been using Flickr and, even more shocking (at least for some), Twitter as ways to disseminate information and news quickly. The use of Twitter is particularly interesting as it can send out SMS messages. You might recall a few years ago when protesters in the Philippines used SMS to organize political rallies and warn of police retaliation. The California State Library Blog also has provided information from the California State Archivist about archives affected by the fires. In addition, information about disaster recovery for libraries and archives is available both on a regional level by the San Diego/Imperial County Libraries Disaster Response Network and on the state level by the California Preservation Program. Please hold those affected by the fires in your thoughts, and if you can, contact SILDRN or the CPP to help.

I've updated ArchivesBlogs to the latest version of WordPress, as well as the latest versions of the plugins that do the heavy lifting (FeedWordPress and Auto Delete Posts). In so doing, I found that the database structure of WordPress 2.3 is radically different, causing some of my elegant work to break (namely, the use of the Auto Delete Posts plugin, for which I wrote a patch). You may have seen duplicate posts, no new posts on specific feeds (language and blog type), and possibly other unpredicted outcomes. Everything seems to be working properly now, so if you see anything strange or that doesn't work, let me know.

SAA2007 came and went. Everyone knows that I'm no good at liveblogging or semi-liveblogging, so don't expect an exhaustive report - potentially better sources include ArchivesNext and Spellbound Blog. Here are my personal highlights, which is just about the best that this here boy archivist can pull off. The pre-conference SAA Research Forum. While I only got to see the second half of the day, this is where the meat was according to those who were there for the whole thing. The Description Section steering committee meeting. This was probably the most instructive for me as I'm the incoming chair. Hacking away on my remarks most of the week and successfully pulling off our session. Jennifer Schaffner from OCLC/RLG Programs substituted for Merrilee Proffitt and did a swell job. She's a great person to discuss all these crazy ideas with for two reasons - she's established in the profession and new to OCLC! I eagerly await her posts at hangingtogether.org. One of these days soon I'll put up my slides and notes, and some of my remarks I owe to the brainwork of dchud (naturally, I give him credit).

I'm in the Windy City for SAA2007. I'll be pretty busy the first few days in town, but remember, if you want to find me, just look for the glasses. Also, make sure you come to the Description Section meeting and Session 503 on Friday!

It was one year ago today that I made ArchivesBlogs available to the public. Time sure seems to fly by fast! Since then there have been a lot of changes - layout, platform, and hosting - but still, I remain involved for the long haul. Thanks to all who provided suggestions, submitted blogs to be syndicated, and any other guidance along the way. ArchivesBlogs now syndicates nearly 100 blogs in 9 languages!

It's a bad pun, but what can you expect from someone who neglects his blogs as much as I do? I've been busy, somewhat, and one of my latest forays has been getting a grip on Python, an absolutely wonderful programming language. I actually enjoy writing code again, which is more than a bit scary. I was sick of the mangled scripts and workflows I came up with at MPOW to handle converting MARC data to HTML and other such nonsense. Writing Perl made me feel unclean. After playing around with Ed Summers' pymarc module, I began hacking about and putting my own hooks into the code here and there. I longed for MARC8 to Unicode conversion, which is a necessary evil. Digging around, I came across Aaron Lav's PyZ3950 module, which had its own little MARC code. After bugging Ed via #code4lib, and hassling Aaron in the process, Ed began incorporating the code and I started some testing. Just a short while later, the conversion code worked.

ArchivesNext recently discussed the possibility of having some "Archives 2.0"-themed events this summer, and I think it's a great idea. Now, we may not be able to throw something together in time for SAA, but it seems like the idea of at least meeting up informally is percolating. There's a wealth of opportunities available for archives and archivists to improve access to their holdings through social software and the like. My vision, as I said in a comment on the post, would be to end up with an unconference along the lines of a Library Camp (or more generally, a BarCamp), maybe with lightning talks if enough of us have something to show off or talk about. Like Library Camp, I'd like to see a "bridging the gap" session where we learn and share ways about how to talk to IT staff and other stakeholders essential to our ideas taking off. I facilitated a such a session at Library Camp East, and although trying at times, it was really instructive.

I'm a bit surprised that this hasn't come across anyone's radar, because it seems awfully damn significant to me. According to this post on the A&A listserv by Michael Ravnitzky, the National Archives and Records Administration released an exhaustive database of box holdings of all the Federal Records Centers. He doesn't really say how he obtained this database, but my guess is he just asked based upon his background and interest in public access to government information - I've come across his name on material relating to FOIA before. The file he received from NARA is a 155 MB Microsoft Access database, and soon after he posted about it to the listserv, Jordan Hayes and Phil Lapsley took the opportunity to host the database, converted it to MySQL, and wrote a few simple query forms for the database in PHP. Hayes also provided some basic documentation on how to use the forms since MySQL query syntax is probably not familiar to most people on the A&A list.