These are rare - very rare, but obviously they do exist: job offers in the field of experimental archaeology. Case in point? The ArcheoBark project, which is looking for someone to fill their vacancy. So if you're looking for a job for 18 months, starting next spring, reconstructing and making bark vessels, you can read more about the job and how to apply here.
One of the fruits of the EuroWeb Cost Action is the freshly-published thematic dossier in the open access journal Ophiussa. Some of the talks presented in May 2022 in the conference in Muro Leccese are collected and published here - and the texts are, at least partly, in English, so don't be scared off by the Portuguese titles in the website and dossier contents.
It's weird how fast a year can fly by - and somehow hard to believe that 2024 is almost done and gone already. A lot of things happened in these twelve months, from the preparation and opening of the exhibition in Bamberg to several conferences (including a NESAT, which is always something special) and workshops for different groups, some demonstrations and of course the European Textile Forum (which deserves its own mention and not just being lumped under "conferences". There was a lot of train travel (including overnight trains), and some loading up the car and going places with big amounts of stuff. All in all, for me, it was a very, very nice year that is now drawing to a close.
So yesterday I've taken care of some administrative stuff, and tried to sort my way through some stacks of old paperwork. Then we finally had a visit from someone to fix some of our ailing window shutters - so with a bit of this and that in addition, that day just flew by. And then I somehow managed not to realise that this blogpost, which was intended to get published, didn't make its way through.
Which means you're getting it today, when more of the sorting and some packing of parcels happened. And now for the post run, so the things will go out today!
Feeling lonely at work is, it seems, not uncommon - even if you're not a solo freelancer like I am. (Funnily, I don't feel lonely - there's usually so much contact with other people via mail, and enough interaction with customers and colleagues, that I don't suffer from this.)
Because feeling lonely is not very nice and not very healthy, the Institute for Life at Work is doing a survey about workplace loneliness. If you're interested, you can read more about their work here, and take the survey about your own work loneliness scale here.
So - one thing that Tropy can do (according to the documentary) is using a controlled vocabulary. Which is nice - because one of the difficulties in having and managing a database is always consistency.
Now I only have to figure out how to a) get a controlled vocab that I want to use to link up with Tropy, and b) figure out what I want from it. One of them is the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus, which might be interesting for me. Another is the ICONCLASS system, which I knew was used by the wonderful IMAREAL database. I've taken a look at it and found that it's too large and too complicated to use for my stuff (especially as it contains so many things that I don't have in any way that it would take too long to re-keyword everything) - but during this, I have discovered that there's a bunch of online databases that use it.
So in case you like databases that use an elaborate and detailed system for their descriptions of art (and who doesn't?), here's the ICONCLASS list of databases. Enjoy!
After looking for so long for a replacement for my dearly beloved FotoAlbum software, I think I have now found the winner: It is Tropy, from tropy.org. There's still a few things I have to find out how to handle in the new software, but I have sorted out the importing sequence (and that's actually rather simple) and will be able to keep everything, including my dates. There will be some more tests to make sure everything will be in the new place as it should be, but then I should be fine with the new software.
Here's a screenshot of the current small test run:
Another thing to take a look at, and figure out, is the lists of controlled vocabulary that can be linked up with tropy, and then choose appropriate ones.
But I'm really, really happy that it looks like I'll be able to shift everything to the new place! It's currently 84,654 images in the database, and while not all of them are fully equipped with keywords and a description, enough of them are to make migration in any other way than one big database export, tweak, and import a nightmare.
All the other programmes I've looked at were either not able to import my things (or, to put it properly, making the migrationary tweak was too complicated for me), or they were cloud-based with very limited storage space (we're looking at more than a terabyte here already, so 50 GB free will just make me snort and move on), or really pricey. Or a combination of several of the above.
I will keep you updated on my progress!
On the journey back home from Uppsala, I stumbled across a nice and helpful website if you're planning to travel by train: zugfinder.net. It lets you search for a specific train (like, say, the EN 346) and shows how much and how often that train was delayed in the past 30 days. That could have been very helpful indeed for my plans!
You can also see what train is where just now, in case you are looking for a specific one.
