Student Newspapers-digitization.

I’ve gotten back one quote so far. Now I’m looking into finding grant money. I just spoke to the regional archivist and he says there isn’t any money out there right now for newspaper projects.

The interface we want is like what Gettysburg College has for their Gettysburgian.  You can browse issues, or do keyword searching.

Kudos to  Special Collections and College Archives at Gettysburg College!

Scrapbook preservation!

I just met with a group from our communications department.  The William Smith College centennial is coming up and they decided to photograph the WS 50^th anniversary scrapbook and a scrapbook from a member of the first class in their entirety.  I will work with the photographer to protect the material.  This will be great!  They will do a webpage, and I’ll be able to link to the scrapbooks from my finding aid! 

Student Newspapers-digitization.

I just finished pulling together the student newspapers that hadn't been microfilmed yet. (1990-2006) What an interesting project that was. Our serials clerk gave up trying to track them a few years ago, though she was saving them. One year there were 4 "Issue No. 8"'s. Another year they didn't change the Vol. number until the 3rd issue. Another year they seemed to number the issues on a whim. I ended up with 146 issues and 1358 pages. In addition they changed the size and format 4 times since 1999.

I just sent my stats off to two vendors to get quotes. I asked for microfilm costs, scanning costs, OCR and indexing costs, plus the cost of scanning, OCR and indexing the years we already have microfilmed. (32 rolls) I'll be interested to see what I get.

The vendors I approached were Hudson Microimaging and Biel's Information Technology Systems.

We are also looking at the cost of scanning the yearbooks. I got an offer from Indus MIS,Inc. to do a sample yearbook. I just sent e-mail to ask where to send it. The William Smith centennial is coming up so we'll do the first vol. (My supervisor, Sara Greenleaf's suggestion.)

I made all these contacts at the WNYLRC Digitization Expo, so that was a very fruitful day.

I'll keep you up on the information I get back.

Creasing jig

Thanks to the demo Andrea Riethmar did for the College Archivists Roundtable (see 6/12/2006) I just glued up a creasing jig for folding phase boxes. I wasn’t able to find the same “greyboard” she used, but bought some ph neutral book board at the Art Store in Southtown Plaza. I had to glue up two layers to get the same thickness she had, but it looks like it should work. I used a triangle to make sure it was all squared up. I can’t wait until tomorrow to try it out. Those phase boxes should just fly off the “assembly line”.

I also bought dividers for measuring and marking the width of the books, but couldn’t find a locking set. They are pretty tight so I believe with a little care they should work fine. I’ll report back.

Where are those student workers when you need them. :-)

Our communications office just moved to a new building.  You know what that means. 

"What are we going to do with this stuff?"

"Why not send it to archives?"

I'm toying with the idea of letting it just sit here until I have student workers to do the inventory on it. 

It's going to be a great addition because it's photographs and art work.  But 12 boxes all at once!  I'm so glad I learned the difference between libraries and archives so I don't even have to consider doing item by item cataloging.  

Phase boxes and encapsulation

I was lucky enough to attend a RRLC College Archvists Roundtable meeting last Thursday. We met at the University of Rochester Rush-Rhees Library where Andrea Reithmayr, Rare Book Conservator, showed us their techniques for making phase boxes with a tab and slot closures. She also demonstrated encapsulation with the ultrasonic welder. We left with handouts with instructions and suggestions.

Thank you Andrea!!! I came back loaded with information on how to improve and streamline our box making. I’m looking for the materials to make a folding board, which will make everything much easier for my student workers.

As always, there is much to be learned by getting together with other archivists.

My thoughts on Jordans question.

I haven't tested out your situation specifically, but I believe you can get the indents you want by using <c02> under the description <dsc> part of the EAD. The trick is to put it with your <c01>, after the </did> before the </c01>. Then the style sheet should format it for you. You can go as deep as <c06> but I haven't so I don't know what it looks like in my style sheet.
Here is an example from a resource list  I am working on. 

<c01 level="file">
   <did>
    <container type="Box"></container>
    <container type="Folder"></container>
    <unittitle>Photographs, </unittitle>
    <unitdate></unitdate>
    </did>   
<c02 level="file">
   <did>
    <container type="Box"></container>
    <container type="Folder">h3c7</container>
    <unittitle>Includes Geneva Hall, </unittitle>
    <unitdate>undated</unitdate>
    </did>   
</c02>
<c02 level="file">
   <did>
    <container type="Box"></container>
    <container type="Folder">h6b</container>
    <unittitle>Includes Middle Building, Merritt and Trinity Halls, </unittitle>
    <unitdate>undated</unitdate>
    </did>   
</c02>

</c01> 

 Let me know if this works. Or if anyone else has suggestions we'd all love to hear them so please leave a comment.

EAD Stylesheets

As an answer to the previous question…

Once you have your EAD xml file ready to go you need to go back to the Transform Clips.

Parse and Validate: This usually goes pretty smoothly.  Problems I have run into are:

• There were & in the text and they just won't work.  I do a find & and replace with and. That usually works.
• After much searching and grinding of teeth, I find that I wasn't paying close attention and after editing something I just clicked for the next click and put it in the middle of the one I was editing.  Also doesn't not work.

 Make HTML

•  The first Finding Aid I did (a very short one) I tried out the different stylesheets to decide which I liked best.  I ended use with eadcbs6.xsl.  I run them using  msxsl as the Transform Engine. Why? Because it worked when I tried it.
• After deciding on a stylesheet, I went into the stylesheet and edited it for my situation.  The sheets are in \eadcb\shared\styles
• You can read down through and it will tell you where to put your unique info.
• I used the school colors for the bgcolor (background color) in each column. 
• You can put in a GIF file for you logo or other graphic.

I hope this helps.  If anyone has more specific questions, just add a comment.  

Adding RSS feed to blog.

I got this great e-mail. (I'm not including sender info because I didn't get his permission.)

Dear Linda-

I saw your post on the Archives listserv about EAD, which lead me to your blog and the home page for your Archives.

First-I think it is FANTASTIC to see someone in Archives blogging about the types of things we face. Just as you, I am a "lone arranger", and found some insightful posts on your blog.

The EAD finding aids you've done look great! I've also invested some time in EAD. I have no trouble encoding the finding aids themselves. My problems have come from dealing with the XSLT style sheet. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to share some info. on how you got your style sheets up and running?

Thanks for any assistance you'd be kind enough to offer. PS-you should set up an RSS feed for your new blog. I think a lot of other people in Archives would subscribe to your blog.

It's g great suggestion, but I haven't figured out how to set up an RSS on wordpress. The option to subscribe was always at the top of the page on Bloglines. If you can tell me how to do it, please comment here. Until then, if you have an RSS account on Bloglines.com or other reader just add lcb48.workpress.com to your list.
I'd love from you. Let's get a discussion going.

Reunion

Boy was I wrong about just sitting.  One of my loyal student workers, Brian Schubmehl, is working reunion, and he is sending everyone he talks to down here. I've had folks looking at yearbooks, looking up old friends, working on class scrapbooks, offering to donate items, just chatting.  What a great day it turned out to be.  Thanks Brian.