“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” ~ Neil Gaiman

This is my all time favourite quote around this time of year, and this past year can be perfectly summed up by it. I don’t know what 2010 will bring, as none of us can predict the future. I only hope that I will accomplish my  goals with integrity and grace. There are some big things that I will be attempting to tackle throughout the new year, academically speaking. It’s my one-year academic plan.

My KMDI portfolio piece
I have decided to take on the ODBS (On-Demand Book Service) as the concept behind my portfolio piece. It definitely has many elements involving knowledge media design, and I feel like my involvement in the project was just beginning to gain momentum when the course ended.I have promised various stakeholders an open-ended proposal in the new year which has been sketched out in my notebook. The most important thing for me to do is to pace myself; I will not begin work on this until May, although it is important that certain details get nailed down before then, such as a faculty advisor from KMDI. Ideally, someone who can give me a leg up on the systems side of things.

My Reading Course on Knowledge Organization
Taking on a reading course on Knowledge Organization or good o’fashion ‘classification’with Jens-Erik Mai was an exciting prospect. What is daunting is the ‘substantial paper’that he’d like me to produce by the end of it.  I am fascinated by the ‘art’of classification, and learning about the impact — both positive and negative — on the users, and ultimately the purpose that it was designed for. The line of inquiry seems kind of abstract and theoretical, and yet it may be the only way to address a broad issue that I consider has having high relevance to what I want to pursue.

My thesis on music knowledge sharing
Having just completed an ethnographic research course on this very topic, I have in my hands a pilot study that lays the groundwork to my thesis. My interest in music knowledge is unwavering, and while my instincts take me across the board to a variety of potential applications of such research, I am focusing on understanding the information behaviour that is unique to music knowledge. How is music knowledge transmitted? Store? Found? Discovered? What’s unique about ‘music info need’that represents issues that are not represented by the existing body of literature in information science? What can information science tell us about music education that has been overlooked? Most importantly, where are there overlaps in the field of music education and information science, and where are the potentials for collaboration?

Research Methods
None of the above will really get underway until I complete my research methods, one of the last course works that I am required to complete. There is a research proposal element to it however, and I will try to incorporate at least one of my ideas above as part of the course work. Two birds with one stone is the best way to manage a part-time graduate student’s time.