Ruth Kitchin Tillman
This post is part of a series in which I write about experiences or specific challenges from my day-to-day work. I’m hoping that these will be interesting for other librarians that work in entirely different areas, for my colleagues who are solving different problems on different systems (or maybe eventually the same one after we migrate), and for those who are thinking about doing this kind…
This post is the first in a series in which I write about experiences or specific challenges from my day-to-day work. Planned posts include descriptions of a bug and how this impacted the coworkers, how I wrote a script to parse log data… I’m hoping that these will be interesting for other librarians that work in entirely different areas, for my colleagues who are solving different…
Even though powerlifting has been a significant part of my hobby life for the past three years, I hadn’t yet managed to write about it on here. It’s come up tangentially, like when I tried to problem solve through the Apple Health/Strong connection or gave context for my first steps with ffmpeg . But even though I’ve wanted to write about powerlifting itself, why I started and…
I’d had this post in my head off and on since I was reviewing last year’s planners in January, but a conversation on Mastodon sparked me to actually write it. It’s nothing particularly novel, but in the last few years I’ve tried to become more intentional about making actual notes about my day in my planner along with…plans. For the past three or four years,…
This is not an OpenRefine tutorial. As I was trying to explain the process I took to read and code my sabbatical research, I realized that it could be best described as getting galaxy brained with OpenRefine and pandoc. I thought it might make an interesting blog post – less as a how-to or advice and more as an example of what real-world problem-solving looks like in libraries, or at least…
OpenRefine has an API . Not just for reconciliation, but an API you can use to perform actions from creating/deleting a project to blanking down columns and mass editing. Even some of the more experienced users I’ve asked were surprised by this. I think if you’d asked me before this month, I’d have said “Maybe?” I’ve spent enough time in the documentation to see…
I’m currently working on a project which involves a lot of spreadsheets exported from our ILS using the same process. To get started with each in OpenRefine, I load the spreadsheet as a project and apply the same 7 manipulations, including the steps for blanking down within records I previously described. These are OpenRefine-specific, not something I could do during export or before adding…
This is the first in what will be a series of posts deriving from my most recent use of OpenRefine. This post is primarily for intermediate or advanced OpenRefine users, so I won’t be going over fundamentals. Beginners who are already familiar with the power of “Blank down” and “Transform” should also be ok. One of the great things about OpenRefine is that you can…
Just in the past week, the following post crossed my mastodon timeline: I have spent several hours writing feedback on this paper, and now I am looking at the references and … none of them exist. Next time I am starting with the references 😠 @mark@mastodon.ocert.at and a friend who’s a journal editor sent me this from bsky: The linked study cites an article which lists me as an…
FFmpeg was always one of those things I wanted to learn. But like AWK, which is also on that aspirational list, it’s intimidatingly complicated and I’ve only had limited use cases for it. Until powerlifting, that is. This March marks three years of powerlifting for me🥳. For those who aren’t familiar, powerlifting is different from Olympic weightlifting. In powerlifting, the…
I’m at the point in my life as a computer user where I can still get excited about a new tool, but I’m hesitant to write about it until I’ve been using it for at least a year. I set up Joplin on January 10, 2025 and I’ve been using it almost daily since. It’s time for a blog post about how I have it set up and how I’ve found it helpful. Joplin: The Beginning…
With Regine Heberlein Authors Accepted Manuscript
Years created: 2024-2025 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: This cat quilt was made for a good friend. I used the basic block from the pattern "Meow–a-pa-looza" by Laura Heisler. The fabric came from a big set of shirting scraps and small pieces I was given by another friend. I added my friend's two cats in the bottom right corner. The two non-shirting cats belong(ed) to…
Two years ago, my colleague Stephen Woods approached me about collaborating on an article 1 extending research he’d already performed about serials use in doctoral sociology work. He and another colleague, John Russell, had developed a methodology for determining “CDRank” based on the number of times a journal was citated across a dissertation dataset and the number/% of…
Years created: 2019 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: A bonus quilt which accompanies the trio of quilts which I made for triplets born in 2019. This large llama, also from a pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, was made for their older sibling who was going from being an only child to the oldest of four. I found some really fun colors for the llama's embellishments. The…
Years created: 2016-2017 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: machine Summary: This was my first machine-quilted quilt, using the walking-foot method. I got it as a kit from another quilt guild member who was downsizing her stash. It's not quite a log cabin but feels log cabin-inspired. I was particularly drawn to the rich medium-tone colors in the kit. The pattern is titled Light and…
Years created: 2019 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: One of three quilts I made for triplets born in 2019. Each repeats a single animal three times. This uses a fox block pattern by Elizabeth Hartman, tripled and embellished with flowers. The other two triplet quilts are: otters and hedgehogs . The actual fox block comes from the Elizabeth Hartman’s North Stars…
Years created: 2019 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: One of three quilts I made for triplets born in 2019. Each repeats a single animal three times. This uses an hedgehog pattern by Elizabeth Hartman on a green background with pieced and applique mushrooms. The other two triplet quilts are: foxes and otters The actual block is Elizabeth Hartman’s hedgehog pattern.…
Years created: 2019 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: One of three quilts I made for triplets born in 2019. Each repeats a single animal three times. This uses an otter block pattern by Elizabeth Hartman on a bubbly-ish water background with other water creatures. The other two triplet quilts are: foxes and hedgehogs . The actual otter block comes from the Elizabeth…
This one’s mostly administrivia, but possibly of interest for those of you who only want a subset of what I post here. As I’ve mentioned previously, this site runs on Hugo with a theme I periodically tweak and/or break. Right now it’s just the right mix of dependencies and simple, static, markdown-based content management. Hugo publishes RSS feeds for the site as a whole, an…
I’ve been a licensed ham operator since December 2020 and active in my local ham radio club since Spring 2021. I enjoy our nets, public service events, fox hunting activities, and occasional special outings like POTA. I sometimes use APRS while hiking. I upload contacts to QRZ. I have not been able to get LotW to renew my certificate when it came back online after the disaster. I’m…
Years created: 2025 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: machine Summary: The lyrics of Rage Against the Machine's 1996 "Bulls on Parade" have been in my head quite a bit as I've watched budgets and bombs over the last couple years. I raided my fabric stash and inscribed what I was thinking and feeling into this quilt. It's going to my church for now, as a hanging. WEAPONS NOT FOOD, NOT…
author’s photograph of the land grant mural in Penn State’s Old Main With the recent (and I believe deeply misguided) decision by the university’s administration to close 7 of our Commonwealth campuses , I’ve seen a lot more recent references to the land grant which led to our founding and how this is turning our backs on our “land grant mission.” While I concur…
Early this spring, Ex Libris released the Summon “Research Assistant.” This search tool is Retrieval Augmented Generation, using an LLM tool (OpenAI’s GPT–4o mini at time of writing) to search and summarize metadata in their Summon/Primo Central Discovery Index. We did a library-wide test mid-semester and decided that it’s not appropriate to turn it on now. We may do so…
Years created: 2020 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: machine Summary: Another mini quilt from in 2020. There were only so many places we could walk and all but one of them took us past this neighbor. Their blue fence had a gorgeous circular gate. A row of prayer flags hung between their main house and an outbuilding. I combined the two in this very small quilt. I used some scrap…
My coworkers don’t want AI. They want macros. Let me back up a little. I spent April gathering and May refining and organizing requirements for a system to replace our current ILS. This meant asking a lot of people about how they use our current system, taking notes, and turning those notes into requirements. 372 requirements. 1 Going into this, I knew that some coworkers used macros to…
With Stephen Woods Supporting other research by Stephen Woods about citation practices in sociology dissertations. I used WorldCat APIs and Z39.50 queries to determine which journals were held in some manner by which BTAA institutions (and comparing with Stephen’s citation analysis). The project was a fun opportunity to test some methods of querying data. As mentioned in the article, there…
Today mom would’ve turned 80 years old. It could’ve been a pretty epic Mother’s Day celebration. Instead, this summer, we’ll mark 15 years without her. I’m still not as old as she was when she became a mother, my mother. Later this year, I’ll turn 40 and we could have celebrated my being half her age, finally. When I was a kid, I used to tell her “someday…
Years created: 2017-2018 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: I don't have a name for this quilt, but the base block is one I'd call "Big Goose, Little Goose" (there may be a name I'm blanking on). It's just that, repeated and arranged so the big geese form diamonds and the little ones form up around them. I saw a photo online and felt inspired by the idea. I started it in…
Years created: 20??-2017 Piecing technique: hand Quilting technique: hand Summary: This quilt sat partially-finished for many years, I think between 2012 or 2013 and 2017, when I finished it while living in Indiana. I took the repeating star and pinwheel pattern of the "All Hallows Variation" examples I saw on Quilter's Cache and asked myself "but what if it were flowers in a garden?" I saw the…
Earlier this month, Jessy at Library Shenanigans posted some charming onomatopetic instructions for circ workers performing checkins at a freshly-automated library in the 1990s. The “Doot-doot” and “Deedle-deedle-dee” are delightful. They may have been a little annoying. But what struck me about the post is that they solve a problem I’ve been aware of for a good 15+…
Years created: 2017 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: machine Summary: I made this trip around the world quilt to celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary. Blue is my husband's favorite color, so I chose a variety of blues and leaned into a gray/steel contrasting color with some light blue and one light cream (vs white) fabric. I pieced the quilt using a strip-based technique while at…
As should be evident from the title/summary, this post comes with a major content warning for discussion of suicidal ideation. The shortest version is: I decided to try Nasacort for my seasonal allergies. Just three days later, I was planning suicide. Fortunately, my thoughts were disrupted long enough for me to realize there was something wrong, stop using it, and fully recover. I am sharing this…
With Gala Campos Oaxaca
Years created: 2008-2011? Piecing technique: hand Quilting technique: hand Summary: This is an old one, so old that I'm unsure of the date. I know that I made it in the first few years after I was married. Micah and I were on a date in the coffee shop at Barnes and Noble, where I was browsing the quilt pattern books. I was taken by this one, the "American Beauty" pattern by Evelyn Sloppy from the…
Years created: March 2020 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: I made a lot of mini quilts in the early days of the 2020 lockdown. It was a chance to try creative experiments despite my wildly varying levels of capacity. I had checked out a book of Kaffe Fassett quilt patterns shortly beforehand and used a template to make this quilt with some batik scraps I had on hand. I…
I manage this site and several of my others using Hugo, a static site generator based on the “Go” language. I’ve learned a little bit about Hugo themes over time, not as much as I used to know about Wordpress, but enough to whip up a few mini site themes from scratch and heavily modify the academic theme I use on this one. A little knowledge is, of course, dangerous. As I posted…
Years created: 2021-2022 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: This was my first Mariner's Compass quilt. It is of the few quilts I've made straight from the pattern, "Atlantic Compass," and the accompanying fabrics. I created this quilt for one of my aunts who has a lifelong love of the mid-Atlantic shore. Additional pattern details: “Atlantic Compass”…
For years, I’ve thought “I should really put pictures of my quilts online.” This dates back to the days of a digital camera – and I did painstakingly load pictures from it onto my websites at the time. But the poor light in my early apartments and the technology available and the sheer scale of the project always led to my abandoning the effort or even failing to begin. But…
Years created: 2024-2025 Piecing technique: machine Quilting technique: hand Summary: I created "Winter Diamonds" templates based on other quilts I'd seen. Each square has a central wedge of background fabric and two wedges filled out with improv strip piecing. I cut strips from a set of fabrics, 0.75" to 2" wide. I tried marking all corner triangles, though my execution was a little uneven.…
Author’s note: This talk is even better paired with my VALA 2024 talk: The Interdependent Library System . There is a little overlap. I’d like to share a little of my background, experiences which have shaped the direction of my research and what I’m going to say today. I’ve been at Penn State for seven and a half years now. I work a lot with our Blacklight catalog and the…
Something bad has happened and it is once again time to make a statement. Or, more likely, if you’re the member of a professional organization, to demand that the organization’s leadership make a statement. As we’ve endured the first month of a second Trump presidency, I’ve been reflecting on the last time around. In early 2017, I was in a digital collections role and…
UPDATE: Only a few months after I wrote this, I opened Apple Health and suddenly saw a much higher number by my workout. Is it correct? No idea. How is it being generated? I haven’t yet tried to match these numbers to time, weight moved during the workout, etc. (Traditional Strength Training still just asks for calories, as described below.) Content note: this post discusses the…
January 21, 2025 marks the 500th anniversary of the small gathering of Christians who chose to re-baptise each other, setting off what would become the Anabaptist movement. As a Mennonite, I’m an Anabaptist. So are Church of the Brethren and Brethren in Christ, with whom we often find ourselves teaming up, as well as our cousins the Amish and the more distant Hutterites or the more modern…
After last week’s talk on making use of the period between now and fundamental shifts in cataloging, regular expressions (regex) came up during the Q&A as one of the things I think it’s helpful for catalogers to learn. Afterward, one of the attendees emailed me asking for more specific recommendations on how to learn them. I’m sharing the resources I pulled together, since I…
full copy of my slides with speaker text as annotations Good afternoon, everyone. When finalizing a date for this, I really did not think enough about how it’s only a week after the national elections and how the fraught leadup and outcomes could impact my writing this or your attending. So thank you for being here, or watching after. I hope that what I’ve brought will be useful to you…
Updated April 22, 2025 to note that this week several of us noticed that now WorldCat.org is also forcing people to login with a WorldCat account to see the “All Libraries” list This piece was originally intended for submission to one of several academic/technical library publications as a “communication.” However, in February 2023 my family experienced two overlapping…
This post continues a series on MARC Misconceptions, exploring the mismatch between what we want from our data and how we’ve designed it. These may caused by failings of MARC as a data standard, the content standards and practices we’ve developed over time, or our own assumptions. The first post in the series was about the “Incorrect ISSN” subfield, 022$y . In this post,…
I’ve been thinking about this series for a while: MARC Misconceptions or, really, the mismatch between data and desire. Specifically, I’m going to explore very specific cases where I’ve run up against the difference between what’s in our MARC and the kinds of questions we want to ask it. These may caused by failings of MARC as a data standard, the content standards and…
Author’s note: This talk is followed by my Code4Lib 2025 talk: Scaffolding Possibility: Systems, Stress, and Small Acts of Care . Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ruth Kitchin Tillman and I’m delighted to be speaking here today. I’ve been going to libraries since a few weeks after I was born and worked in them since I was 16. For the last 7 years, I’ve been the…