Week 1: The Sky's The Limit

Today was my first day at the University Archives.  Despite some confusion as to where I was going (it was my first visit to the VERY large OSU campus), I found my supervisor's office and set up my desk.


The first few hours included a tour of the facility, learning how to drive the forklift, becoming familiar with the location numbering system, and reminding myself not to look down!  The archives stacks are over 30 feet tall and each aisle is 175 feet long.  Here are some pictures:

Module B of the Stacks

Long aisles

A student worker on the lift, raised all the way to the top

After a bit of shelving to familiarize myself with the finding aids, location numbering, and vehicle operation, I finally pulled around 10 boxes and items to begin my project.  Among these items were a fur sleeping bag, a coat, tools and equipment, and photograph supplies.  After returning to the office, I began to play with the department's brand new Nikon digital camera.  I broke for lunch and when I came back, I was ready for more.


I began with a box that contained two rubber dry bags.  They had been improperly stored and were difficult to photograph.  Additonally, they were sticky and smelled badly.  Nonetheless, I snapped a few pictures and eventually found the ones I would keep.  I did some minor photo modification (removing spots on the white matting board used as a background and including a filename tag) and then uploaded the file through Media Manager to the online collection.  The metadata was simple to input, as there were already automatic text fields where I could enter all of the information (i.e., title, format, description, notes, etc.).


The second box that I did (and the last box for the day) contained a very interesting Kodak film developing kit.  I went through the same steps as the dry bags but we incorporated another element to the metadata.  We had discussed earlier in the day that with Media Manager, there wasn't a known way to add multiple pictures to the one set of metadata.  The Kodak kit was so interesting and we really needed to take multiple pictures to fully show the artifact's different components.  I suggested we open a Flikr account and add a link from the metadata Notes field to the external photo set.  Unfortunately, Flickr only allowed 100 photos and we knew that we would want to continue to do this with other pieces in the collection.  I tried Photobucket instead, and we were able to begin an account that allowed 5,000 photos to be uploaded for free.


I added several other photos to the Photobucket account and organized them into an album with the title (Kodak Film Tank) and the filename (byrdartifact 428_1).  I added brief metadata to each photo, describing the item and including the title and filename on each photo.  Then, in the Notes field, we included a link for the users to access the external content.


I was very excited that I was able to use my Photoshop and HTML skills today.  It also was nice to use some of the Web 2.0 elements that are so popular to enhance the accessibility to the collection.  Though this collection is not publicly viewable right now (we are waiting until we have a few more entries), I think it will be extremely successful in increasing the awareness of what the Polar Archives contains.


When discussing the purpose of the project with my supervisor, she mentioned that the number one goal was to increase the collection's "discoverability."  The Byrd Polar Research Center Archives is popular throughout the world and my supervisor frequently gets requests from museums and libraries to loan the artifacts for exhibition.  Though there are a few very commonly requested items, such as the Flight Suit and Sun Compass, my supervisor realizes how little is known about the entire collection.  This site will hopefully make all of the artifacts accessible for possible loan and/or research.


In: 8:30 a.m.
Lunch:  12 - 1 p.m.
Out: 4:15 p.m.
On-site hours completed: 6.75
On-site hours left: 93.25