working out some glitches, ie. I hate technology

Another few weeks of the internship has gone by. Progress has, in my opinion, been on and off due to the lovely infallibilities of technology. In essence, I hate the internet and everything to do with it because it never works when I ever need it to. But we persevere! And work has been done. Yay.

I started on the KIA's new-fangled Wikipedia page. So far, if you were to search "Kalamazoo Institute of Arts" at Wiki, there'd be a text-only profile. That is definitely better than nothing, and at least we now have a presence there. It is just one of Wiki's ridiculously comprehensive breadth of articles, but as I figure out how to resize pictures (and make them look good at the same time) and start hyper-linking, traffic/searchability should increase. One of the photos there so far is this one of our downstairs gallery.

The hyper-linking is especially crucial on the site. If a reader is browsing an article containing any shared key words, that word would be hyper-linked to our site. I even know some people (definitely not anyone I know personally like my friends or myself or anything silly like that...) that make a game out of starting on one Wikipedia article and clicking hyperlinks to see where they end up. It's a very interesting feature of Wiki that we could definitely use to our advantage to create traffic and buzz about the KIA and its exhibits.

This blog should also undergo some changes as well. The computer in the volunteer room is fixed and new, however many internet plug-ins aren't available yet. So I haven't been able to do much with it as of now. However, it's my spring break! And I'm in California, thank goodness, where the sunny weather and palm trees are putting me in a good mood to be productive. I have my laptop here with me, so I'm going to keep on working on the Wiki, as well as this blog and continuing my work updating the various tourist sites the KIA profiles.

The internet is a crazy, ever-warping place...which is part of what makes this internin' project so nifty. As much work as Gabi and I get done this semester implementing our plans, the project will never be truly finished. We'll pass off our various passwords and usernames and methods to the next batch of interns, who will (hopefully) continue to maintain these sites as a newly-integral part of the KIA's PR and marketing scheme.

In any case, there's always something new to get done. It's a good thing. Well, I'm off to go revel in weather that is actually above sub-zero (and then some). I know Gabi hasn't been able to post on here due to some...technology issues, but I'm going to see if I can work those out and get her back on board here. We'll see how it all goes!

-Laura