Newsletter: September 2008
Yearend Report
September is the month that the project must file its end-of-year report with the State Library, covering the period from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. The report is complete and is available on the Library Insider page. Along with the report, we’ve submitted a tally of scans that were uploaded during the previous year and numbers that are in the database to date. At the close of Year III, the project’s total was 2,910 with 1,288 submissions having been uploaded during Year III. Heritage Partners completed their targets for Year III, both in terms of number of scans and completing scans of specific items in their collections. The initial grant for the project promised between 2,500 and 3,000 scans to be uploaded. Thanks to everyone for your hard work.
Project site visits
Project Director Anna Fariello and Metadata Librarian Anna Craft made site visits this month to three project Partner organizations, Museum of the Cherokee, Qualla Arts, and the Southern Highland Craft Guild. One purpose of these meetings was to introduce Anna C. to Heritage Partners; the other was to flag items for priority scanning. Ginny Daley joined us to talk with partners about finding aids for their collections and to flag specific items. Anna F. presented a short program to Qualla staff on object handling and registration of incoming objects to the permanent collection.
Metadata template
Anna C. and the project’s technical support, Computer Consultant Robin Hitch have been developing a metadata template in Word that includes drop-down boxes with controlled vocabularies. To avoid confusion, we’ve tried to make the template look as much like the ContentDM Acquisition Station as possible.
ContentDM
We are aiming to eliminate the off-site use of ContentDM Acquisition Stations in order to eliminate problems we’ve been having with metadata mis-matched to incorrect images. After hours of trouble-shooting on our own and with ContentDM technical support, the Home Team decided that the only way we could make any headway on this problem is to eliminate variables, so the only uploads into ContentDM will be done from the Hunter Library. The Home Team has also split up all records in the database and are checking each image against its metadata to make sure that there are no other scrambled records in the system.
Equipment
Robin has been loading software on the computer workstation for the Museum of the Cherokee. In a meeting with archivist Bo Taylor, we talked about where to locate the new workstation, to be installed this week. Robin has been making her way around to individual partner sites to install new external hard drives on project computers. These units hold a terabyte, equivalent to 1,000 gigabytes. So Partners, you’ll be able to hold all those huge tiff images. Robin also recently repaired Penland’s computer, replacing the DVD burner.
Web additions
Anna and Melissa have uploaded a few more web pages.
New on the site is Park Fisher, friend of John and Olive Campbell, who taught at the Folk School in the early 1930s. You can read about him at: http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/people/parkfisher.html
There is a new page on Rivercane Basketry and an introduction added to the basket Pattern Index. You can see the Pattern Index at: http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/crafts/basketindex/index.html and the Rivercane Basket page at: http://craftrevival.wcu.edu/crafts/rivercanebaskets.html
Jackson County’s Heritage Plan
The Craft Revival Project was added to Jackson County’s Heritage Plan as part of the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area initiative supporting regional cultural preservation and interpretation. After Anna’s presentation, a committee of heritage and tourism professionals voted the project into the plan. The Craft Revival Project is one of only two WCU activities included in the plan, which aims to provide guidance to local governments and community organizations to help develop tourism appropriate to the region.
NEH funding program
Anna and Jason attended a Research Administration program on funding opportunities at the National Endowment for the Humanities. The program outlined a new NEH grant initiative that supports the development of new courses in the humanities. Anna and Dean of Library Services, Dana Sally, are talking about funding opportunities for next year.
Cherokee Studies
Anna attended the September meeting of the Tsalagi Institute, a WCU initiative to develop and strengthen the university’s Cherokee Studies program and links to the Cherokee community. The project was also included in the Tsalagi Institute Newsletter.
Outreach
Jason set up a display at the Cherokee Student Association fair in September and at the Jackson County Green Energy Park’s “Art in the Park,” an event attended by 200 people. Anna and Jason are being interviewed on WWCU radio, which will air at halftime during this Saturday’s game, starting at 1 p.m.
Congratulations Jason
Project Assistant, Jason Woolf passed the WCU History Dept’s comprehensive exam, a requirement for a Master’s degree in History. Jason is planning to graduate in December and continue on the project through June. Congratulations Jason!
Jane Eastman: Project Advisor
Joining our project as an Advisor is Jane Eastman, Associate Professor and interim department head with Western Carolina University’s Department of Anthropology and Sociology. As director of WCU’s Archaeology Lab, she teaches the summer field school that has conducted numerous digs on campus and in the region in advance of construction projects. Her research interest focuses on Cherokee archaeology, primarily ceramics and foodways. She holds a PhD from UNC at Chapel Hill and is currently of the Director of WCU’s Cherokee Studies program.
Andrew Denson: Project Advisor
Also coming on board as a project Advisor is Andrew Denson. An Assistant Professor of history, he is author of Demanding the Cherokee Nation: Indian Autonomy and American Culture. His current research focuses on Native American historical memory, researching how southerners, both Indian and non-Indian, have commemorated the South's Native American history.
Now that we’ve got such a great team in place, we are long overdue for a meeting. Will be back in touch…please tell me if you want to be taken off this list.
Anna
Hunter Library | Library Insider | Last updated: 10/1/08 Melissa Young