Newsletter: January 2009
IMLS grant
Anna Fariello has spent much of the month completing a Library/Museum Collaboration grant that was submitted to the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Unlike our State Library funding, this grant does not focus on adding to the online collection and, instead, focuses on building sustainable, digital capacity within the Hunter Library and the region. We will not know whether or not the Hunter is awarded this grant until early fall. If we are successful, the three-grant will begin in October.
Database: Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual historic photographs
This month we have new images from Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual and the John C. Campbell Folk School. At Qualla, Lucas has scanned historic photographs of basket weavers including Eva Wolfe, Emma Taylor, and Julia Taylor, plus baskets from each. These photographs were made by the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. Several of them document the various steps in the basket making process.
Database: Qualla Arts and Crafts Mutual rivercane baskets
We are almost finished with uploading all of the rivercane baskets in Qualla’s collection. A few more need to be added—waiting to clarify some questions in the descriptive metadata—but, otherwise, the rivercane baskets are photographed and uploaded.
Database: John C. Campbell Folk School
From JCCFS there are new photographs of carvings by Murrial Martin, Hayden Hensley, Hope Brown, Nolan Beaver, Sue McClure, and W.J. Martin. Anna F. finished photographing selections from the Brasstown Carvers collection at the folk school last fall. One last thing we are doing is checking that we have a representative piece from all known carvers; otherwise, the Brasstown Carvers are complete. Anna Shearouse is working on the finding aid for the Folk School. We hope to have the last two finding aids—JCCFS and Penland—up before the end of the month.
Website: HL Special Collections
George Frizzell and Melissa Young have finished a major addition to the website. This is a new travelogue from Hunter’s Special Collections, accessible from The Story portal. A previous section—Taking the Train—showed the region as it looked in the 1910s. This section—Following Wagon Trails—shows the region as it looked in the 1890s. Check this out at:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/story/wagontrails.html
Both sections are linked to the Craft Revival story with an introductory page explaining how mountain workers made their way through the region via wagon or train.
Website: Exhibits and Events
To better document the project, we’ve added photographs of the project’s different events and displays that have occurred over the 4 years of the project. These are available under the About the Project section. Anna F. and Melissa are working to improve the navigation of this section. Look for changes next month. In the meantime, you can see past Events at:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/about/events.html
and Exhibits at:
http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/about/exhibits.html
Home Team: Craft Category
Anna Craft and Serenity Richards have been working on cleaning up the Craft Category field. This is an important local field, allowing for complete searches using simple lay terms, such as “pottery” and “textiles.” While this field has been around since the start of the project, it was applied too broadly to be functional. We have limited the use of this term to two instances: images of objects and images of people making particular objects. We will be adding Craft Category back onto the Search page as soon as the clean up is complete.
Home Team: Creator field
Anna C. is adding a second Creator to historic photographs of craft objects made by known makers. This way the maker’s name appears alongside the photographers. This is something that Vicki Cruz at Qualla Arts pointed out, and we agreed: that it was confusing to see a basket with the name of the photographer beside it. We now have both names—search on Rowena Bradley as Creator to see an example of this—and, of course there is a more detail in the Description field.
Home Team: Quality control
The Home Team has been experimenting with various means of transferring information through the Hunter Library digital “pipeline.” We abandoned our use of DVDs after we realized we were burning and tossing up to four DVDs during the process. We are experimenting with using flash drives and laptops to move data through the upload and quality control process to the end, when the master CDs and their corresponding information are indexed and stored. Anna C. has created a spreadsheet that allows us to sign off on various checks. Kate Carter is indexing the preservation CDs.
Qualla exhibit
Jason Woolf has set up a small exhibit on Craft Revival-era metalworking in one of the exhibit cases at Qualla Arts and Crafts. The exhibit includes interpretive panels on the Craft Revival project, historic metalworking from the Mountain Heritage Center, hammered copper, and information on Arch Miller, a Craft Revival-era metalworker. The exhibit was mounted in conjunction with a series of classes sponsored by Qualla Arts and Crafts, the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, RTCAR (Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources), and the Yellowhill Community Club, the community in which Miller lived.
Partners/Advisors
Jason will be contacting you about a meeting in March. In the meantime, all project Partners should submit anything you’d like to have uploaded before the end of the academic year. Please contact us if you have any questions, or if you would like to discuss additions to the collection.
Project Launch
We are planning a major project launch that will take place in May. The purpose of this is to spread the word about the database and demonstrate its use to targeted audiences. We hope to engage local museums and teachers, illustrating how they can use the database and website. Working with Anna F. on this project is Suzanne McDowell, Deb Schillo, and Jenny Moore. If anyone else would like to be involved, please contact me.
Anna
Hunter Library | Library Insider | Last updated: 2/2/09 Melissa Young