The Evil Blog

Yesterday was my last day at the Danish State and University Library. What a great time it’s been – but an opportunity even more awesome has presented it self to me; on which I’ll elaborate very soon.

This is Kamstrup, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off

My time at the library has been awesome. The work atmosphere is relaxed and creative – but with a bunch of top notch people that can really kick into the high gears when needed. If you are a Java developer with a passion for open source and want to hang out with a bunch of top notch code slingers you will feel right at home there – I know i did!

It comes as a surprise to many that the State Library has a small army of computer scientists in their stables – but indeed that is the case. Consider (just some of) the tasks that it’s undertaking:

• Archiving the Danish internet
• Digitally recording and archiving all Danish radio and TV
• Developing a semantic repository for long term preservation of digital objects
• Delivering a web site that provides uniform access to an array of widely different sources
• Hosting and development of the search engine, Summa, powering said website
• Hosting Summa-powered search engines for public libraries

I could write many a blog post about the magnitude of these tasks, but I shall leave it at this. But trust me, it takes quite a big more than someone who took a weekend course in PHP and another guy who happens to know that SQL is not an auction site

Unfortunately for me I just missed out on Code4Lib conference this year – I am pretty envious of Toke, Mads, Jørn, and Michael who are going there this year – I am there in the spirit with you guys!

The winds of change were gently filling my footsteps with snow flakes - walking to my car from the State and University Library for the last time