NEWSLETTER March 2006
ADVISORY
The month began with the project’s spring Advisory meeting, at which time we reviewed the grant in draft form. Attending the meeting were representatives from the Southern Highland Craft Guild, one of our Year II Heritage Partners. Bil Stahl welcomed Deb Schillo, Librarian, and Ada Dudenhoeffer, Director of Public Relations. Since that time Deb has worked with me to outline the SHCG’s participation over the next two years. Also joining the board are two members of the WCU faculty, who will become active members of the project team in Year II. Education Professor, Mary Jean Herzog will take an active role as the project’s teacher liaison, involving western North Carolina teachers in developing the K-12 online component of the project website. History Professor, Scott Philyaw will also be working with us as the new director of the Mountain Heritage Center.
GRANT DRAFT
The main business of the spring meeting was to review the grant application. There were a few changes and suggestions that were added to complete grant, submitted to the State Library on March 22nd. We are in the process of posting the grant to the Library Insider page. (Starting from www.wcu.edu, click on Hunter Library to About the Library to Library Insider to Craft Revival. This gets you to the all posted documents. You can get there directly via: http://library.wcu.edu/libraryinsider/index.htm)
CONNECTIVITY
We continue to be plagued by the fact that Content dM requires solid connectivity and, except for our on-campus partners, this has been a problem throughout the year. The Systems Dept. has been addressing this on a case-by-case basis. We anticipate that next year, we’ll double our off-campus partners and this issue will become a more pressing concern. Taking a pro-active approach, we are planning to begin Year II with site visits to all new Partner sites, so that Systems can more fully assess the technical needs of each partner before new equipment is ordered and installed. Hopefully, this will lessen the frustration felt by all in terms of not being able to access Content dM.
SCANNED ITEM DATES
Over the past month a couple of questions came up about the dates of items scanned for the project. While I’ve answered these questions individually, I might make note here that the dates we have selected—1890s to 1945—are the dates decided upon for the Craft Revival itself. We may, however, scan items from any time period if they reflect on the Revival or the time period. We are not limited to scanning only items that were produced during this time period. The Mountain Heritage Center, for example, has several items that were made after the Craft Revival period, but were made by craftsmen who were active during the Revival. Items such as these can be included in the project with the descriptive field clarifying this situation. If this doesn’t sit well with anyone, we might take this up as a point of discussion at our next advisory meeting.
DESCRIPTION FIELD
This is the primary field that will convey information to our readers. Please think of this field as an interpretive or explanatory label, rather than an internal record. Use full sentences. Begin with the most important fact first, then continue on with less important information, such as the condition of the piece. As you write, think about why the piece is important to the Craft Revival story. What does it say? Simply saying “brochure” doesn’t tell the reader much. It would be better to explain that the brochure outlined, say, the courses taught during a particular summer. In the case of a material object, it would be helpful to say how the item relates to the Revival, that it was similar to or different from typical pieces.
CONTROLLED VOCABULARIES
Note that we have added a number of items to the controlled vocabulary lists. The procedure for adding is going very well. Partners can suggest new vocabulary by typing their suggestion directly into the database. These items are then reviewed and compared to Library of Congress subject headings by Brian Sealy, the Hunter’s Metadata Librarian. We have recently added Cornhust craft, Missions, and Fiddles to our lists. To make input less confusing, Melissa Young has added spacers to the Content dM field list so that metadata is now grouped, separating information about the original creation of an item from the creation of its scanned image. This should help eliminate some confusion.
COMPOUND OBJECTS
We are now scanning multi-page documents—or multiple views of the same object or object set—using the Compound Objects function in Content dM. This makes “leafing” through brochure pages much simpler. Take a look at the compound objects in the database and see how you like it. Melissa sent around directions earlier this month. We’ll be posting those directions to the Library Insider page as well. To see a sample of a Compound Object, go to:
http://wcudigitalcollection.cdmhost.com/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/p4008coll2&CISOPTR=197&REC=1
SCAN LOG
We are receiving duplicates images and data, which is a waste of time for Partner sites as well as our staff team here. We are suggesting you keep a list of items as you scan them. To make that easier, I’ve attached a sheet you can print, punch holes in, put into your notebook, and use as you scan. The Scan Log is not meant to hold important data, but to be used as a check sheet. As you make the master, access, etc., you can simply check them off to keep track of what images you have scanned and where you are in the process.
CHECKING YOUR WORK
Melissa has organized Partner scans in a way you can check what you’ve submitted and see how they look in the database. Use these links below.
COMPLETING A SCAN
It is important to remember that one scanned item consists of many parts: a Master, Access, and Thumbnail image as well as the data entered into Content dM. It is confusing and time consuming when we receive incomplete scans. Sometimes we are halfway through the review process before we notice that we are re-doing duplicates. This is another reason for the Scan Log. Before you send your dvd, please check to see that you’ve saved three image files for each image and the log file (made automatically by the software).
UPLOAD FOLDER
As soon as you burn your gold cd and dvds, empty the Upload folder into a new folder and date it. That way you have a running record of everything you’ve scanned. Before you begin a new scanning session, check to see that the Upload folder is empty.
MEDIA
Please remember that the gold cds are for Master images only. These archival cds are not just gold in color, but have no printing on them. Unfortunately the last batch of regular cds and regular dvds we ordered were gold in color (just to confuse us!). The Upload folder is saved onto a dvd. I have ordered a reel of dvds for each Year I Partner that should hold them through the entire project. Please pick up the reel at the next meeting.
PROJECT TARGET NUMBERS
We are beginning to catch up to our Year I goals. As you might remember after meeting with the LSTA site team, we re-set our Year I scan goals at 75 for Year I. We are aiming for 150 to 300 items for each of Years II and III. Partners should note that these are simply target goals. We do hope that your own institutional goals will exceed these figures. To date, we have not set any limitations on how many images can be scanned into Content dM.
WEB PAGES
We will soon be posting new web pages to our project prototype site so that everyone can see how the storyboard, in the form of individual web pages, relates to the database. The first page that I’ve drafted is on Dyeing. Over the next few weeks, I hope to finish some of the more obviously needed pages, starting with Carding, Spinning, and Blacksmithing. You can see the Dyeing page at:
http://www.wcu.edu/libtestbed/testthings/craft%20revival%20idea%202%20march%2016/dyeing.html
To see how the page and database interface, simply click on the links. Links off the main page take you to individual biographical records (click Louise Pitman), definitions of terms (click indigo and/or madder), pre-set database searches (click 1930s), and related items (click Browse).
WEB REVIEW
We are now working with mStoner, a nationally known web design firm, to review our site. This is the same firm that the university hired to re-design their website. mStoner will be evaluating the site’s system of navigation, website standardization, and the site’s capacity to expand in terms of size and complexity. We are also outlining needs for Year II usability testing and have included funds for this in the Year II grant application.
STUDENT WORK
The students have finished creating Resource lists for the website. These include regional cultural organizations that relate to the project, national craft organizations, and national magazines. These lists have been added to the prototype site. The students are currently working on revising the Training Manual, and completing the Artisan Reference Files. They are also adding some general works to the original bibliography that George Frizzell drafted and adding annotations to important books on the topic.
STUDENT RECRUITMENT
We will be recruiting two graduate students and two undergrads to work on the project during the next academic year. At least one of these students will be working primarily in Cherokee. If anyone wants to recommend these positions to students or potential students please do so. I will be drafting job descriptions soon. The graduate positions come in the form of an assistantship; the undergrad positions are wage. Students will receive training in digitizing and data input and practical experience in grants management.
FINAL YEAR I ADVISORY MEETING
After taking a poll of the group—and checking Bil’s calendar—we’ve come up with Wednesday, May 17th as our next—and last--Advisory Board meeting of the year. It was the general consensus that there was not enough time for the morning session, so we will begin the meeting at 9 a.m., rather than 10. Heritage Partners and the WCU Project Team will meet again at 1:30 for a hands-on session.
Anna Fariello
Project Leader
March 31, 2006
Hunter Library | Library Insider | Last updated: 4/10/06 Melissa Young