Some of you havent heard much from me in years, but wont be especially surprised by this email. Others have more recent acquaintance with me and wonder what that association has gotten them into. For a few, this is our first introduction. My name is Jason Nemrow and I am a technical person with an ethnographic interest in the people and culture of the Shetland islands. You may remember me as the man who was attempting to attend Shetland College last year to gain a Masters degree in Orkney and Shetland Studies. In the intervening time, I began and continue to pursue a Masters degree in Information Technology Network Management through Western Governors University in the USA. I have also recently changed employment so as to gain further technical experience in networking and computer server management toward a goal and project that I hope to explain below. At the conclusion of my degree work in a few months, I must propose a capstone activity that demonstrates mastery of principles of information technology management and leadership skills learned during my course of study. I have developed a preliminary plan for an activity that aims to collect, store, and provide ready access to digitally-rendered spoken and transcribed artifacts of the Shetlandic culture. In addition to informing you of this activity, I hope to solicit support, partnership, and assistance from you and any others that you feel might be helpful to this effort. Already, a significant collection of artifacts has been entrusted to the Shetland Museum. Sadly, many of these artifacts are practically inaccessible beyond the museum walls. As part of this activity, I aim to bring together a networked infrastructure, a computerized database system, and a group of interested volunteers to digitize these artifacts in spoken and transcribed forms so that they may be readily accessible to all who desire to make use of Shetlands cultural past. Another part of this project is to begin an effort to digitally collect personal spoken and transcribed artifacts of Shetlands current population. Although the recording of the voices and stories of the oldest Shetlanders is an obvious desire, I also want to bring together the thoughts, feelings, and cultural expressions of the younger people of the islands. Part of my vision for this project is a cross-generational effort that will help strengthen familial ties and unify communities through the collection of their cultural commonalities and sharing of time and talents together on this project. My desire with this letter is to create the beginnings of a working group around this project. My rough thoughts on vision and implementation can be found at shetlandic.info, which will ultimately serve as the URL of the database itself once it comes on-line in a few months. My hope is that some of you will feel inclined to make whatever contribution to this effort that you wish and forward this email onto those of your acquaintance who might have compatible inclinations as well. Thank you in advance for your patience and interest! Jason Nemrow [email protected]
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 11:34:33 +0000
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