About Robert Chrystal

“[Librarians] are often the most informed people when it comes to technological change—
its limits as well as its advantages.” - The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 20, 2010

Skilled Librarian

Robert has a Masters degree in Library and Information Science with a concentration Digital Libraries
from Drexel University. He works as a Librarian II at the Rosedale Branch of the Baltimore County
Public Library. He has extensive knowledge of both print and electronic media (see Digital Librarian qualifications below).

Expert Metadata Creator and Analyst

Whether you have an existing web presence or have just begun, Robert can organize, map, custom
tailor metadata, and optimize your website for major search engines. He will create a personalized
road-map for your website's success.

Creative Multimedia and Web Designer

Bringing together the skills of web design with his artistic expression as a musician and composer, Robert specializes in creating Multimedia Presentations and Web Sites for artists, composers, musicians, non-profit organizations, and information organizations/libraries. He has extensive experience with content management systems.

Composer, Arranger, Music Director and Performer

Robert is an accomplished musician and composer, with a music career spanning three decades. His piano career began at the age of five with "Teaching Little Fingers to Play" and has evolved internationally over the past fifteen years to include composing (art songs, liturgical service music, contemporary and inspirational music), arranging, and choral directing. He currently directs the Connections Choir at the Church of the Redeemer in Baltimore, MD, and manages the composing, recording, and online presence of baritone singer Chris Jones, as well as recording his original songs on his own YouTube channel.

DIGITAL LIBRARIAN QUALIFICATIONS

• Consumer of Digital Information
  • Find, store, and synthesize digital information
  • Identify and evaluate digital repositories
• Organizer of Digital Information
  • Understand the standards and technique of information organization
  • Experience with Metadata indexing, controlled vocabularies, and social tagging management
• Provider of Digital Information Services
  • Use open source software to creation digital repositories
  • Provide digital reference services to patrons
• Manager of Information Organizations
• Special Skills
  • Metadata Specialist for Digital Libraries
  • Understanding of digital copyrights and digital collection licensing
  • Completed projects in metadata evaluation
• Special Courses
  • Digital Libraries
    • Metadata Standards
    • Searching and Browsing Interfaces
    • Intellectual Property Rights
    • Digital Preservation
  • Digital Library Technologies
    • Content Description Technologies (XML, Metadata, XSLT, hand-coding)
    • Systems Technologies (Dspace, Greenstone, Fedora, E-Prints, Drupal, Joomla, and other CMS)
    • User Interface Technologies (Connecting Information to Users, Mashups, Emerging Technologies)
  • Content Representation and Indexing
    • Controlled vocabularies
    • Thesaurus creation
  • Web Design and Development 
    • HTML, XHTML, CSS
    • Graphics and image manipulation
    • Web Design Software
  • Digital Reference Services
  • Human-Computer Interaction
    • Heuristic evaluation
    • User-centered design
    • Usability studies
  • Information Architecture
    • Rapid Prototyping Tools
    • Mock-ups
    • Website Evaluation and Development

“[Librarians] are often the most informed people when it comes to technological change—
its limits as well as its advantages.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 20, 2010