Newsletter: February 2009
Finishing up this year’s work
Anna Fariello, Anna Craft, and Tim Carstens have been meeting to discuss the current State Library grant. We’ve gone over details of the grant to itemize tasks to be accomplished during this academic year. We are on track with finishing our stated obligations and will be including more detail on the project’s progress over the next few months.
Database entries: Upload process
For those of you following the saga of Hunter’s Digital Collections upload process, you will remember that we had to take several steps backward to correct 100 images mismatched to data in some unexplained glitch. While CONTENTdm did help with this, it was still a time consuming process. As a result, the Hunter has streamlined its upload process to eliminate places where we could go off track in terms of losing qualitative control over images and metadata. The “fix” of the scramble is complete but caused a backlog of items to upload. You will begin to see the fruits of our efforts in the numerous new items that are were uploaded to the database this month. Look for more next month…the digital “pipeline” is flowing! The following is detail on images that were uploaded this year and this month.
Database entries for the year
In the current project year (2008-2009), so far, the project has added 342 images to the database. (This year’s project target is 1,000 items). These include:
This brings the project’s cumulative total to 3,275 in the digital collection database. We will have more qualitative detail for the upcoming Advisory meeting in March. Thanks to all the HPs who made contributions.
Database entries: Museum of the Cherokee
The Museum of the Cherokee Indian contributed 57 images uploaded this month. These include historic photographs of many craftsmen, including: Johnson Catolster, Goingback Chiltoskey, Mary Ulmer Chiltoskey, Watty Chiltoskey, Nancy George, Will West Long, Julia Taylor, Maude Welch, and Edmund Youngbird; as well as some of Goingback Chiltoskey's woodwork.
Database entries: Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual
The database has 13 new images from Qualla, including photographs of metalwork by Arch Miller and scans of promotional basketry pamphlets on the Taylor family. The entire rivercane basket collection has been photographed and metadata forms created, but conflicting information on specific baskets have caused us to go back and double check information. Expect more rivercane next month.
Database entries: Southern Highland Craft Guild
The project uploaded 127 new images from the Guild. We have new Craftsman's Fair images from the 1950s, including up-close photographs of Lawrence Boone, Oscar Cantrell, Goingback Chiltoskey, Emma Conley, A. Ben Hall, Jack Hall, Shadrach Mace, and Willie Smith. Anna F. and Anna C. met to discuss how to name the Craftsman's Fair images and came up with a convention that displays these together, in chronological order, if a viewer uses the Browse function. The Guild also submitted correspondence between Clementine Douglas and Rebecca Ashe, Grace Cornell, Mrs. R. G. Douglas, Allen Eaton, and Ruth Reeves. These letters date from the 1920s to the 1940s.
New on the website: Craft Category
We have taken a couple of passes on re-formatting the Craft Category field as mentioned in the last couple of newsletters. This task was undertaken by Metadata Assistant, Serenity Richards. Serenity has done a terrific job and now this category is back on the Search page. The revision also allowed Melissa Young to add several See more boxes at the end of various web pages, using this field.
Scroll to the bottom of the page:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/crafts/ironwork.html
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/crafts/rivercanebaskets.html
or the bottom of any pages on The Crafts section.
New on the website: Cherokee basket weavers
Anna F. has finished two more biographies of Cherokee basket weavers. These include:
Emma Taylor
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/people/emmataylor.html
Julia Taylor
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/people/juliataylor.html
I will be concentrating on more biographies over the next month. Nancy Bradley, Rowena Bradley, Agnes Welch, and Edmund Youngbird are in the works. Vicki Cruz, Director of Qualla cooperative, has been helpful in lining up basket weavers’ relatives to add to information found in Qualla’s records.
New on the website: Basket glossary
Last year the Craft Revival project posted a series of glossaries from the Southern Highland Craft Guild that were available as print handouts at the Folk Art Center. The guild had developed these over the years and they were quite good. Each listed terms specific to a particular craft practice. Four of the 5 glossaries were posted a while ago, but the basket glossary was held out because it was originally published in a book. Jason Woolf tracked down the authors and publisher and has secured permission for its use. I have reformatted the glossary and Melissa put it onto the project site. You cans see Baskets: Glossary at:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/crafts/glossary_baskets.html
All of the glossaries are now listed on the Resources page as well. See them at:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/resources/index.html
New on the website: About the Project
Anna F. has been going through some of the older web pages and updating them. Kate Carter went through our files and was able to update the team lists listed in the About the Project section of the website.
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/about/projectteams.html
Also a part of the About the Project section, last month we added project Events and Exhibits. We’ve since improved those with added captions and pictures.
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/about/events.html
In the works: Lesson Plans
Suzanne McDowell is contacting area teachers to write new lessons plans to be added to the site. She is working primarily with teachers recommended by Vicki Cruz and Cherokee Studies faculty so that the project’s lesson plans will reflect the contributions of the Cherokee to the Craft Revival.
In the works: Project Launch
Anna F. and Suzanne are meeting weekly to move the Project Launch into reality. We are working with 2 target groups: K-12 teachers and museum professionals. After discussions at the last Advisory meeting, the group decided to host the “launch” in Asheville. Deb Schillo enthusiastically volunteered the Folk Art Center as the venue, a move that was welcomed by Tom Baily, Managing Director of the SHCG. By hosting the launch in Asheville, we hope to maximize the impact of spreading the word about the project and its use. We considered that if we held the launch on campus in April as originally discussed, students and faculty would be distracted by the end-of-semester deadlines and exams. We also recognized that the project was already well known among WCU faculty and a launch in Asheville would reach well beyond campus boundaries. Our tentative dates for the launch are May 21 and 22.
Advisory Meeting
The next Advisory Meeting will be held on March 19th here at the Hunter Library. If you are an Advisor or Partner and have not contacted Jason at craftrevival1@wcu.edu, please do so.
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Anna
Hunter Library | Library Insider | Last updated: 3/3/09 Melissa Young