Excuses, THATCamp, Metadata, The Center, And More Archiving!

Hello readers! My apologies, again, for the delay in posting! I worked a lot of hours last week, plus school, so I have not really had time to sit down and write! So here we are now, nearly 5 days late. I'm a terrible person!

Let's recap shall we?  

Saturday February 16, 2013 I had the opportunity to attend THATCamp (The Humanities and Technology Camp) which was held in downtown Orlando. THATCamp is an "Unconference" where "humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot." It was really interesting! They had several time slots and three rooms. At any given point and time there was essentially three presentations being held. I unfortunately was only able to attend two presentations because I had to be at work at 2:30pm. The two presentations I was able to attend were: The UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research Projects and H-Net 2.0.

The UCF Center for Humanities and Digital Research presentation discussed two particular sites. The first was The Charles Brockden Brown Archive. This presentation discussed the creation of an electronic archive. From the conception of the idea to the creation of the archive, and all those involved in between. The whole archive was created by a small group of researchers, but required national collaboration. This gave me the idea of having the GLBT History Museum of Central Florida look into ways of possibly collaborating with other national GLBT history museums. Who knows, maybe one day there could be an online archive for the history of the GLBT Community on a national level!

The second presentation I attended was the DAIS- Digital Archiving Information System. This one was created by graduate students in the UCF Text and Technology Program. Basically this site serves as a one stop shop for digital archives. It not only informs on how to create a digital archive, but it provides access to numerous digital archives throughout the country. Instead of serving as a simple directory to other digital archives, this site provides abstracts of each digital archive in their database. This provides the researcher with enough information to make a decision as to whether or not a particular archive would serve them properly. It is quite the feat and seems very promising!

The other presentation I attended was that of H-Net 2.0. Dr. Cassanello skyped the creator of the site, and he gave us an overview of the history and evolution of the site. This site has peer-reviewed essays, discussions, book reviews, etc. all on a scholarly level. In the past it was primarily updated by e-mail. By doing this, it provided access to people in countries that would normally not be able to contribute due to limited internet. For example, countries in Africa. Unfortunately though, as technology has changed, the site had to change as well. E-mail has become a dying form of communication and the site realized they were loosing subscribers and thus had to revamp their means of procuring information. It is now a site that is no longer updated by e-mail, but set up more like social media. The new site looks to be very promising.

Tuesday February 19, 2013 I met with Laura Cepero who is a metadata editor for RICHES of Central Florida. She gave a presentation about metadata, OMEKA, and the RICHES Mosaic Interface. 

Metadata at first seems complicated, but is actually pretty interesting and I'm sure easy once you get the hang of it. It is essentially a means of describing digital items (documents, letters, photos, etc) with key words so that researchers can easily find them. I like to think of it as more of an advanced form of the hash tags used on Twitter. 

OMEKA is a site that you can host your own archives on. Many of the University's digital archives are hosted by OMEKA (The university however, has their own servers, thus they have more storage space than OMEKA provides). OMEKA provides different templates and all the tools one needs to create their own digital archive. It's pretty much amazing! 

Speaking of amazing, let's talk about the RICHES Mosaic Interface! This is really an awesome feat! "The RICHES Mosaic Interface is the central internet location for content created through the RICHES projects and links to sources on Central Florida available from other repositories around the state." Basically, it displays a satelite image of Central Florida, and as you zoom in, and click around, you can discover the history of the different areas of Central Florida! One of the more complete areas on the site is Sanford. It is still relatively new and has a lot of room to grow. One of the cool features of the site is that it is able to "harvest" information from other repositories with compatible sites!

Thursday February 21, 2013 I stopped by the storage unit and picked up 6 of the 9 boxes of The Center collection. I was able to go through 5 of the 6 on Thursday alone! Which was quite an accomplishment if I do say so myself! My finding aid is now about 17 pages long, and it keeps growing! I've made a lot of progress, but still have much to do! I am almost done processing the special collections, the next step will be to process the exhibits. I also need to rehouse the Brian Arbogast collection. I hope to get a lot of work done during spring break which is apparently next week! I am currently sitting in the RICHES office and about to get to work! I will post another update on Friday (for real this time!)

Until then,

-Kyle the intern

Access vs. Censorship

Well hello readers! My apologies for not posting last week! I kinda fell into a slight depression of sorts. I started feeling very overwhelmed with my internship, classes, and work. This was also amplified by the fact that one of my roommates is moving out which means my rent is increasing. Needless to say I had a slight panic attack. Oh and it did not help that I started an entry for last week, and my phone wiped it! Alas, my sap story is over, let me fill you all in on what I've been up to!

So last week was a pretty eventful week. I sent the board my report on how much it would cost to rehouse the Arbogast collection. It was approved, and the supplies were ordered. They even shipped surprisingly fast! They shipped on Monday the 11th and were there yesterday when I was processing the Bruce Ground collection!

This week I started the processing of the Bruce Ground collection. Bruce Ground was the owner and operator of Out and About Books and Gifts off of Mills Avenue in the ViMi district of Orlando. His collection is very unique, in that it is not just a bunch of files and correspondence. His collection is a myriad of things. There are books, posters, photos, scripts, invoices, etc. I must say though the most haunting thing I found in his collection was a binder of medical records. I found this to be quite odd until I started flipping through it. As I flipped through it, I soon came to realize the significance of this binder. It became clear when I reached a portion of notebook paper that had a daily log of medicine. It was essentially the chronicle of one living with AIDS. I literally got goosebumps browsing through it. It was.... so haunting. As I proceeded deeper into the collection I came across another binder, but this one was filled with documents pertaining to a discrimination lawsuit. I opened this binder and realized that this was a discrimination lawsuit filed by the same person who had AIDS. He had informed his employer that he had AIDS and was thus fired soon after.

Upon reflection about these two items I realized how significant they could be to a researcher  If one wanted to know what it was like living with AIDS in the mid 1990s, they can go through the medical records of one who did. Furthermore  if a researcher wanted to know what the attitude of the general public towards those living with AIDS was, one can look at the binder with the documents pertaining to the discrimination lawsuit filed against his employer. Information like this is incredibly valuable to not only researchers, but to everyone. It helps bring an awareness to the general populace about HIV/AIDS. Hopefully with such an awareness, people will be encouraged to practice safe sex, and get tested regularly.

Now, you may have been wondering why I did not produce a name with this case. It is simply because I do not feel entirely comfortable posting a name. That is until I have a conversation with Bruce Ground (the creator of the collection) and the museum. This is something that actually came up in my meeting with Dr. Beiler yesterday, and that is the issue of Access vs. Censorship. Ultimately what it boils down to is, museums need to have a policy regarding issues of censorship. They must decide what they display, and how to display it. I met with my acting supervisor from the museum, Alan, yesterday (Thursday 2-14). Alan is a lawyer and informed me of some things regarding censorship. He told me that when it comes to documents pertaining to people, if it is a document spouting negative remarks towards an individual, then you would censor that persons name (the one receiving the negative remarks). Unless, that person is a public figure, then you would not censor their name. That being said, for now out of respect for the individual, and those close to him, I will keep the name anonymous until I know further details, and hear otherwise.


I think that about sums it up! I need to revise my finding aid, present that to Dr. Beiler on Tuesday, and do a quick overview of what all I have in the RICHES office. After that, I will return the Bruce Ground collection to the archives (storage unit). I will then start processing The Center collection on Thursday. That collection will probably take the most amount of time, because it is in about 6-8 boxes!


Until next time,
-Kyle the intern

Creating a Finding Aid

Greetings readers! My apologies for not getting this up sooner! I managed to get a sinus infection and an ear infection, which caused me to fall behind a bit!

Well this week was rather slow in the world of my internship. I primarily did a lot of reading on shared authority (which is very interesting!) and on how to create finding aids for a collection. I also spent a significant amount of time researching approximately how much it would cost to rehouse the Brian Arbogast collection. It's a lot of work, and at times can be a bit overwhelming, but I am enjoying every moment. I have my weekly meetings with Dr. Beiler that help me stay calm and focused.

Thursday I went through the rest of the Brian Arbogast collection and made notes of possible series for my finding aid. Basically it's divided up a little something like this: 

Repository:     The GLBT History Museum of Central Florida

     Record Group:     Brain Arbogast collection

          Series:     GLAAD

              

                 File Unit:     LA chapter correspondence

                                      WA chapter correspondence

           Series:     ILGA

                            1991 Pride Parade

And so on. I will present my initial finding aid to Dr. Beiler sometime next week. I will also have a full report of approximately how much it will cost to rehouse this collection in archivist quality materials. I have been given a budget of about $150. Which is doable, I just have to make sure I find the right materials.

Digressing back to the finding aid, this is one of the most frustrating things about the internship. It is frustrating in that it is constantly being revisited and edited. It is also frustrating because I have to keep the mentality that this is for future researchers use, not mine. So though things may make sense to me, the archivist, I need to constantly bear in mind the researchers use. So it ends up being a constant battle of checking myself; making sure I am not doing what I want, rather that I am doing what the future researcher needs. It is also difficult because I am constantly second guessing myself. I find that I ask myself, "Should I make that a series? Or, should it be a file unit to GLAAD?" Fortunately Dr. Beiler is there to help me when I do this. She is able to go over my work and help me see things that I am doing right and the things that need to be done differently.

I apologize for no epiphanies or anything of the sort in this week's entry, I am into the more tedious work now and as much as I'd love to, I can not really go through all of the finer details of the collection. Though it was interesting to come across things pertaining to Disney offering protection against discrimination to the GLBT community (which would not have happened had it not been for GLAAD, which would not have happened had it not been for Brian Arbogast). I also came across documents pertaining to the first Gay Days at Disney, the first pride parade in Orlando... all of these things that Brian Arbogast had his hand in. At the end of the day, as I was putting the boxes away, I found myself thanking him for all that he has done for our community in Orlando. He is truly an inspirational figure in the Central Florida GLBT community.

Until next week,

-Kyle the intern