My dissertation, entitled: Annotation of Musical Scores: Interaction and Use Behaviors of Performing Musicians (advised by Gary Marchionini and Helen Tibbo) was a qualitative research study that seeked to gain a deeper understanding of the interaction and use behaviors of performing musicians. Through qualitative data analysis of 25 musician interviews, and 193 musical scores (or parts), representing over 25,000 separate annotations, this project uncovered the motivations, necessary knowledge, and methods by which musicians annotate and thereby internalize the instructions set out in the score. The aggregate data from the interviews and data analysis provide the basis for understanding annotation’s utility for future users, and the development of more robust and useful music digital library tools and systems.

This research also has the more general and theoretical applicability for those interested in how humans interact with structured, largely symbolic and formalized information.

My dissertation is downloadable. (Large PDF file)

Future papers, derived from the dissertation, will focus on an augmented annotation framework, the collaborative and coordinative purposes of annotation on performative artifacts, and preservation initiatives related to intangible cultural objects like music, drama, dance, and new media.

Major research interests:

• Preservation of intangible or variable new media materials including digital art, video games, and scientific data.
• Role of collecting institutions (museums, libraries, archives) in preserving, curating, and providing access to these intangible materials.
• The means and methods of human information interaction, particularly with those information artifacts that are not textual in nature.

Current research projects fall into three categories.

1. Creation process of new media artifacts. This research is based on the idea that coming to a better understanding regarding the ways particular artifacts are built and created will lead to more robust, reliable, and authentic representations within digital repositories. The two communities I focus on, seeminly disparate, are Video Game creators (like artists, programmers, producers, designers); and Scientists.
2. Human Information Interaction with specifically notational artifacts, like musical scores (hence, my dissertation); architectural drawings, and dramatic scripts. Right now we are focusing on the ways in which actors, directors, and stage managers interact with dramatic scripts for the purpose of performance. Our hope is to augment the annotation model developed in my dissertation.
3. Representation of contextual or "augmenting" information. Specifically, I am using my "Organization of Information" classes to build a Liner Notes Markup Language. My hope is that this project will be provide an impetus to digitize and make available the information contained in these valuable cultural resources.

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(Under Review). “State of the Archive: A Review of Video Game Archives within the United States.” Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T). Columbus, OH (October 24 – 29, 2008).

(Under Review). “Supporting Cultural Context: Development of The Liner Notes Document Model.” 2008 ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). Pittsburgh, PA (June 16 – 20, 2008).

(Under Review). “The Working Scientist and the Realities of Data Curation:  A Qualitative Study Addressing Attitudes and Needs.” 2008 ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL). Pittsburgh, PA (June 16 – 20, 2008).

(In Press). “Digital Library Development, Collaboration Among Musical Performers, and an Augmented Model for Annotation.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology.

(2007). "A Methodology and Model for Studying Boundary Objects, Annotations, and Collaborative Practices: Musicians and Musical Scores." In, Proceedings of the 70th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), Vol. 44, Milwaukee, WI (October 18 - 25, 2007). (PDF Presentation :: Paper)

(2007). "Digitizing & Providing Access to Contextual Cultural Materials: The Liner Notes Digitization Project. [Poster]" In, Proceeding of the 2007 ACM / IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Volume XX, Vancouver, British Columbia (June 17 - 23, 2007) (Large PDF Poster :: Abstract).

(2007). "Annotation Functionality for Digital Libraries Supporting Collaborative Performance: An example of Musical Scores [Short Technical Paper]" In, Proceeding of the 2007 ACM / IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL), Volume XX, Vancouver, British Columbia (June 17 - 23, 2007) (Paper :: PDF Presentation).

(2007). "Evaluating the UT Digital Library Curriculum." Invited presentation at the 3rd Annual Digital Libraries Workshop, "Developing a Digital Libraries Education Program," at the ACM / IEEE Joint Conference for Digital Libraries (JCDL). June 17, 2007. Vancouver British Columbia. (PDF - Slides)

(2007). “How Do You Hold a Moonbeam In Your Hand?! Collection and Preservation of the Ephemeral.” Invited Participant (along with Carrie Bickner-Zeldman, William Stingone, and Josh Greenberg from NYPL) in the “Preserving our Digital Legacy and the Individual Collector” panel held at the 2007 South by Southwest Interactive Conference. Austin, TX (March 12 – 15, 2007).  

(2007). “Using Folksonomies and Collaborative Cataloging for Visual Collections: Learning To Love It.” Presented at the 25th Annual Meeting of the Visual Resources Association. Kansas City, Missouri (March 27 – 31, 2007). (PDF version PPT presentation)

(2007). “User-Defined Classification on the Online Photo Sharing Site Flickr…Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Million Typing Monkeys.” In, Proceedings of the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) Special Interest Group in Classification Research Workshop, “Social Classification: Panacea or Pandora?” Austin, TX (November 4, 2006). (link).

(2006) (with Kim Chang & Helen Tibbo). “Personal Email Management on the University Digital Desktop: User Behaviors vs. Archival Best Practices.” In Proceedings of the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), Vol. 43, Austin, TX (November 3-November 8, 2006) (link).

(2006) (with Marisa Ramirez). “Digital Self-Archiving and Archival Theory: Theory and Practice in the Minds of Carolina Project.” In Proceedings of the 69th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T), Vol. 43, Austin, TX (November 3-November 8, 2006) (link).

(2006). “Heroic Frogs Save the Bow: Performing Musician’s Annotation and Interaction Behavior with Written Music.” In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Music Information Retrieval (ISMIR), Vol. 7, Victoria, British Columbia (October 2006) (link).

(2006) (with Jonathan Furner & Martha Smith). “Collaborative indexing of cultural resources: Some outstanding issues.” In Proceedings of the 1st Annual Conference on Digital Humanities; Vol. 1, Paris, France (June 22-29, 2006) pp. 176-178. (abstract)

(2005). “Like a Wave Upon the Sand: Representation and Preservation of ‘Born Digital’ Art.” Paper to be presented at (im)permanence: Cultures in/out of time, held at Carnegie Mellon’s Center for the Arts in Society: Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. October 13 – 16, 2005. (PDF-overview)

(2005). “Action and interaction in music and new media art: Exploration of musicians’ performative and interactive decisions as evidenced by annotated musical scores.” Presented at the Association of Computing in the Humanities (ACH) 2005 Annual Conference. Victoria, British Columbia. (June 15 – 18). pp. 189-192. (PDF-slides)(PDF-words)

(2005) “Digital Preservation of New Media Art Through the Exploration of Established Symbolic Representation Systems.” Presented at the ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries’ 2005 Doctoral Consortium. Denver, Colorado. June 7 – 11, 2005. (PDF-slides) (PDF-words)

(2004) “Intellectual Access to digital art objects: Image attributes and art historical knowledge representation,” presented at the Visual Resources Association (VRA) 2004 Conference: Portland, Oregon. March 8 – 10, 2004. (PDF-words) (PDF-Slides)

(2004). “Email management is not a natural act,” presented at the Society of American Archivists (SAA) 2004 Annual Meeting: Boston (Panel Session: Managing the Digital University Desktop), Massachusetts. August 2 – 8, 2004. (as Megan Barrett) (PDF)

(2004). “Minds of Carolina: Pilot study ramifications,” presented at the Society of American Archivists (SAA) 2004 Annual Meeting (Student Paper Session): Boston, Massachusetts. August 2 – 8, 2004. (as Megan Barrett) (PDF)

(2003) "Preservation of the 'Information Arts'," presented at the Association of Computing in the Humanities / Association of Literary & Linguistic Computing (ACH/ALLC) 2003 Conference: Athens, Georgia. June 5 – 11 2003. (PDF-slides)