Competencies

Competency 5: Databases

NoSQL Comic

Oliver Widder (Geek & Poke)

COMPETENCY STATEMENT

Each graduate of the Master of Library and Information Science program is able to…

…design, query, and evaluate information retrieval systems;

Page Contents

IMPORTANCE OF THE COMPETENCY TO ME

In order to work with information, it needs to be saved, stored, and found. It has to be archived somewhere safe that it can be kept until it is needed, and then it has to be able to be retrieved again. Libraries have been working with these three essential elements of data handling since approximately 2600 BC ("History of Libraries", 2015); librarians through the ages have come up with effective, efficient solutions for archival and retrieval.

Datasets have these same essential needs as books, and in fact the same sort of metadata that allows books to be retrieved–an online catalog–is necessary for datasets. These metadata are kept in databases, so understanding how databases are built and how they work is helpful for those who need to create the metadata and use the catalogs. SJSU's iSchool ensures that its students have the basics.

By now humans are fairly practiced at creating databases, but as the size of the datasets being stored grows (Computer Sciences Corporation, 2012), the database programs have had to evolve to handle the load. Databases started with simple, navigational databases, moved to relational databases, then to object-oriented, and are now entering the era of NoSQL ("Database: History", 2015). I was trained on and have built relational databases, and I can navigate relational SQL databases; NoSQL will be my next challenge.
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WHAT WORK PREPARED ME TO UNDERSTAND AND PERFORM THIS COMPETENCY?

I have been working with databases since I took a break in undergraduate school to work at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies as a secretary. As the only person in the small Hopkins-Nanjing office who knew how to use a computer, I ended up building a small database in dBase III to hold student records (for probably thirty students). I also entered and maintained those records and was quite passionate about keeping them accurate and up-to-date. A couple years later I had a summer job where I helped build a database in R:Base for DOS.

I didn't have direct contact with databases again until I was working at LookSmart, where I would dig into the MySQL database while testing to see what was working and what wasn't. I had mastered basic MySQL commands by the time I took "Information Technology Tools and Applications–Advanced: Introduction to PHP/MYSQL" (LIBR246), and I use those commands in my job now at Cytobank. "Information Retrieval" (LIBR202), required of all iSchool students, refreshed the basics of relational databases for me.
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EVIDENCE

R:Base for DOS database manual

R:Base for DOS menu code

One summer while I was an undergraduate at George Mason University, I worked at a private investigation firm creating a database for the clients. Here I present the user's manual that I wrote, as well as the database code that I co-wrote with a colleague. This demonstrates that I have been working with databases since the 1980s.

(The company for which this was written closed over ten years ago; however, because it had to do with security investigations, the name and location, as well as the name of the co-author of the database, have been redacted. I share the code with the understanding that it would have been replaced many years ago.)

Database management mid-term questions

Database management mid-term answers

At George Mason University, as part of my computer science degree, I took a class in database management (INFS311) from Murray R. Berkowitz. I present the mid-term take-home test along with my test results, showing that I was thinking in terms of database concepts as early as 1987.

Paper: "Evaluating My Database"

The group I was in built two databases in "Information Retrieval" (LIBR202), both in DBTextWorks. I no longer have access to this software, but I tested one of the databases and wrote an informal evaluation of the results as an assignment. This gave me some experience with pre-coordinate and post-coordinate indices, about which I would learn more in "Vocabulary Design" (LIBR247) and "Beginning Cataloging and Classification" (LIBR248).

Assignment Instructions: "Assignment 9″

Assignment 9 PHP

Assignment 9 MySQL

As an assignment in "Information Technology Tools and Applications–Advanced: Introduction to PHP/MYSQL" (LIBR246) I created a small PHP program that reads data typed by a user through a web interface, stores it in a MySQL database, and calculates a bill. It's a very small application, but it demonstrates both my mastery of PHP and of MySQL commands.
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CONCLUSION

I have worked with databases most of my career, either directly as a developer or as a database user. They will continue to be integral to my work as a data curator, and I hope to learn NoSQL soon in order to better manage big data analysis.
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REFERENCES

Computer Sciences Corporation. (2012). Big data universe beginning to explode. Retrieved from http://www.csc.com/insights/flxwd/78931-big_data_universe_beginning_to_explode

Database: History. (2015, March 17). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database#History

History of libraries. (2015, February 7). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_libraries

Widder, O. (2011, January 27). How to write a CV [Online image]. Retrieved from http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2011/01/nosql.html

Last updated: Friday, April 17, 2015