by Cedric Rose
As the culminating experience practicum for my Master of Library and Information Science degree, I am working on a digital collection of documents connected to the evolution of Patricia Renick’s Triceracopter: Hope for the Obsolescence of War. The finished library will illuminate the connections and processes–physical, social, and conceptual–concealed in the finished work. Along the way I’ll ruminate on issues and concepts related to digital libraries (DLs).
Triceracopter is a hybrid of parts with far-flung origins in space and time: part three-horned Rhinoceros-like creature that last walked the earth 66 million years ago, part war-damaged helicopter, the final manifestation of a series of forms that imprinted further forms under the hands, intellect, imagination; and will of a DAAP professor and sculptor whose life included shock treatment for a misdiagnosis of schizophrenia (Chapman 2003), decades of teaching art, and emergence as an internationally recognized artist.