by Doc Kinne, KQR

Doc Kinne (KQR)

I was already set to be in Cambridge at the end of the month at the AAVSO Fall Meeting and a thought came to me that I might be able to spend the rest of the preceding week at Headquarters working at...something. As we've seen on the web, organizations like the AAVSO constantly need something done.

I emailed and made the suggestion to Aaron Price. Aaron saw the value of the idea and brought up the possibility to Arne who suggested several possibilities. The one that ended up working was scanning in and archiving past editions of the AAVSO Alert Notices. I jumped at the chance.

AAVSO members are aware of the broad foundation that must be laid in order to make scientific discovery possible. We can liken the scientific world to that of theater in a lot of ways. While the Carl Sagans and Steve Squyers are the stars of the show, the reality is that they can do nothing unless the usually anonymous person who raises the curtain at the beginning of the show does her job. A good many of us in AAVSO make the observations we do in the belief and the hope that the raw data we've contributed will enable an astronomer somewhere and someday to figure something out.

In that vein, the important work of the Alert Notices wasn't just putting them onto the AAVSO website. In our world of wave and waves and waves of data to drown in, it was even more important to index, abstract and catalog the content of the Alert Notices. This is where the NASA ADS system came in. The other part of the project would be to enter the Alert Notices into the ADS so their content could be found and used by researchers. Astronomers, more than some people perhaps, are sensitive to the fact that data is useless unless it can be efficiently found. So, while my friends back in the Ithaca, NY area thought I was more nuts than usual ("You're spending a week's vacation doing WHAT??"), I knew that I'd be doing important, if largely unsung, astronomical work.

Headquarters - now I have to say the old Headquarters, I guess - has a massive library of astronomical books as part of it. There were a couple of workstations set up in that room indicative of the space problems that the AAVSO was experiencing. Kate's office, for example, was in the library. Needless to say, the AAVSO library has thousands of books on nearly every facet of astronomy. For someone who had debated as to which Masters to get, an MSc. or an MLS, it was a dangerous place! At a visit to Headquarters a couple of years ago during a Fall Meeting I mentioned to Elizabeth that if I ever came to work for the AAVSO my office couldn't be in the library. I'd never get anything done!

Kate and Gamze at work in the Library

The first thought we had with regard to the Alert Notices was to scan them in as images. Initially it was thought that that would be easier, and on the face of it, it probably would have been. I strongly thought, though, that an OCR of the text would be more valuable. Everyone else agreed, but no one had confidence with regard to the OCR software. But, we tried it.

I'd tried OCR software years ago myself and was far less than thrilled with its utility. So, after a few scans everyone was very pleasantly surprised when the software worked wonderfully! That doesn't mean there weren't mistakes the scanning made, of course. The vast majority of the Alert Notices I worked with had been written by Janet way back when. Janet signed all her Alert Notices: Janet A. Mattei, Director. One of the most amusing mistakes made was when the software signed Janet, Janet A. Mattei, DISSECTOR.

Actually working at AAVSO is a surreal experience. I've been in academic libraries that are more noisy than AAVSO Headquarters during the day. These folks work! They don't fool around! They seem to like what they do and they spent a good bit of concentration doing it. I'll tell you, it was impressive and inspirational. I know I probably did more work per unit time during the last week of October than I normally do. Just don't mention that to my boss!

The library room in the old Headquarters was a natural meeting room and that's what it was used for at times. With me working in the library that week I was privy to the first news regarding the new Headquarters acquisition. Elizabeth swore me to secrecy on pain of never being able to access the AAVSO light curve database again!

The price of Boston area real estate never fails to shock me. As Arne was explaining the real estate and remodeling possibilities to incoming Council members I jokingly said to Arne, "Arne, I'll sell you my house in Groton, NY for what I bought it for. You'll have as much space as you have here for a fifth the price, and have darker skies! All I'd ask is for a two year working stipend at the AAVSO." Arne just paused and looked at me. "You're not saying, 'no,' Arne," I said.

"No," he replied, "I'm not saying no!" It was obvious that while the deal with regard to the new Headquarters was something that had to be quickly taken advantage of if we were to acquire it, all possibilities were analyzed with regard to this large buy.

Faster than I'd wanted, the end of the work week and the beginning of the conference was upon all of us. I wasn't done with the Alert Notices. With over 200 of them to scan and abstract no one expected me to be able to finish the job during my week at Headquarters. The problem was, I wanted to finish the job!

I asked Aaron if it would be possible to gain remote access to the directory where the Alert Notices were stored. I knew it was technically possible, but I wanted to get a thought as to how much of a pain it would be to set up. Aaron said it would be simple. I then sprang my idea of seeing if I'd be allowed to take the Alert notices home with me. I could continue with what I'd been doing at Headquarters at my home lab. Aaron said that it would be fine to ask, but cautioned me that the answer might well be "no."

As the conference ended, I made my pitch to Elizabeth who rather enthusiastically said "yes!" I was thrilled, and carefully packed the two binders of Alert Notices in the car, making several notes which I gave to Elizabeth and taped to the library shelves where the Alert Notice binders were kept telling all and sundry where they were and how to get ahold of me should they have concerns or questions. Since then they have been treated like the original pieces of AAVSO history that they are, and I have steadily, if slowly, been hammering away at scanning them in and archiving them into the ADS.

My week at headquarters was among the best "vacations" I've had. The entire staff, from Arne on down, made me feel part of the team while I was there. While it may be argued that the staff put their best foot forward in the week that I was there, I'd venture to say that its difficult to put your best foot forward constantly for an entire week, and that by and large the staff at Headquarters is hard-working, dedicated, and produce one of the best working environments I've seen. They should not only be proud of what they've helped to create - one of the most respected astronomical datasets in the world - but how they've gone about creating it.

It was a great week, and I hope to do it again.