4/17/17 Final Project Update

This week Loganne and I are deciding whether or not to change one of our pieces of technology because we don’t know if we will have enough information for it. I went home for Easter break and didn’t have as much time as I expected to work on the website. … Continue reading

This week Loganne and I are deciding whether or not to change one of our pieces of technology because we don’t know if we will have enough information for it. I went home for Easter break and didn’t have as much time as I expected to work on the website. Loganne and I are going back to our archivist on Wednesday to get some more information and for me to get some more pictures for the website. The hardest thing for Loganne and I right now is finding time to get together to work on the project. Between classes and both of us working, it’s hard to get together to work.

The Final Countdown #4 – If I add brackets will it work?

Coding is hard and B.Pauley is the bomb.com. I’m actually pretty sure those were the words I used verbatim when working on the timeline this past week, trying to make everything look the way we wanted it. I truly do not know what I would do without Dr. Pauley and his coding genius because my […]

Coding is hard and B.Pauley is the bomb.com.

I’m actually pretty sure those were the words I used verbatim when working on the timeline this past week, trying to make everything look the way we wanted it. I truly do not know what I would do without Dr. Pauley and his coding genius because my menial knowledge of CSS coding what getting me nowhere.  It was to the point where I was typing anything I could think of and adding brackets to see if it would work!  Ultimately we got it figured out, (thank you Bens!) and the timeline is near-perfection now. I have a couple more slides to finish typing up, still waiting for some information, but it is uploaded on our website now if anyone wants to check it out.

Once that mess was finally fixed, Mary Haynes and I turned our attention back to scanning. We FINALLY finished all of the books for this project after two long nights in the archives, and can now focus on the website itself and getting everything polished.

It is strange to think that we are getting towards the finish-line with this project, it has felt so all-consuming. We only have to edit our interviews and get pages posted, but other than that we are pretty much there. I ironically called this series of posts ‘the final countdown’, but now it’s starting to feel real and I don’t know how I feel about that.

April 17th Update

At long last, the timeline has been posted on our project site! However, I’m not entirely happy with the way it displays on the page. The timeline itself seems so… Read More

At long last, the timeline has been posted on our project site! However, I’m not entirely happy with the way it displays on the page. The timeline itself seems so small and surrounded by massive amounts of white space, which cuts off or distorts some of the content inside the timeline. After a conversation with my incredibly patient brother-in-law (who writes and reads code on a daily basis like it actually makes sense), he told me that my problem with the way the timeline is displayed has nothing to do with the embed code from Timeline JS. Apparently the timeline is displaying in the space that the WordPress page has given it, which isn’t very much. I know roughly where to look to change that (probably), but I don’t think that we have the permissions to actually do it. That said, I’m just happy the timeline is completed and on the site!

Savannah is still taming Juxtapose, but throughout this week and weekend the two of us will be able to craft the pages we’ve planned for individual yearbooks. We’re rapidly approaching the end of this project!

Final Project Update: Week Four

With one week left to go, there is a lot of work left to be done on the site. Last week I made a lot of progress with the tools that I will be using, and expect my two StoryMap JS presentations and Timeline JS to be finished in the next few days. I am […]

With one week left to go, there is a lot of work left to be done on the site.

Last week I made a lot of progress with the tools that I will be using, and expect my two StoryMap JS presentations and Timeline JS to be finished in the next few days. I am also considering using Juxtapose JS to enhance the depiction of subtle bibliographic details of the books that I’m working with. Once these tools go up on the site, all that will be left will be the text, as well as some more static pictures of each individual book. While I wanted to include an interview on the website as well, with Dr. Poste’s surviving daughter, making contact has been a real challenge, and I’m, unfortunately, running out of time. To make up for this shortcoming on my site, I’d like to record at least one interview with either the current Special Collections Librarian, and/or the former. The current Special Librarian has a working knowledge of what the library was like when Dr. Poste was a professor of library science, and her predecessor would have actually worked with Dr. Poste, however briefly, and was around the library while he was dealing in antique books. With any luck, I’ll get an interview yet!

Today, I staged another photo shoot with my beautiful books… I just can’t seem to help myself. There is a space on my website that is meant for a large image to be displayed at the top of each page, and I have been keeping the default image there as a placeholder until I could come up with a better one. While I originally wanted to use a picture from the college archives, ideally a building like the old library in which Dr. Poste would have worked, I couldn’t find any of decent quality, so I decided that I would have to stage my own headlining photo. Thankfully, the Livingston County Historical Society allowed me to borrow a WWII captain’s hat to pose with Poste’s donations so better convey the “soldier librarian” theme that I’m trying to push. We’ll see how it turns out!

Project Update!

Date: April 17, 2017 Current Status: Almost panic mode? Initially on our project, we had been having no issue meeting the deadlines. However, at this point, we’re trying to not… Read More

Date: April 17, 2017
Current Status: Almost panic mode?

Initially on our project, we had been having no issue meeting the deadlines. However, at this point, we’re trying to not only deal with our schedules, but, also the schedules of our interviewee and performer. Personally, I am finally 100% done with senior seminar! I turned in my paper this morning, and to be perfectly honest, I want to be happy, I want to jump for joy. But, there’s still one last daunting assignment that’s dragging me back to Earth: my Medicinal Chemistry paper. This paper will be done by Friday; then I will have 100% more free time! That means that this week end will hopefully result in a successful interview and possibly a performance recording.

This is all I have for now!

-A.B.

Week 4: Progress

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass Upon meeting with Dr. Pauley this past week, I was able to hone in on what I am… Read More

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” – Frederick Douglass

Upon meeting with Dr. Pauley this past week, I was able to hone in on what I am actually trying to convey as my message to my final project. I am switching gears just a little bit. I’m still doing the project over Notes on the State of Virginia, I am just focusing my project to show the books in the different Oklahoma universities and public libraries. This collection of copies and editions that reside in Oklahoma surprised me, if I could be quite honest. I figure the book is popular amongst the historians/history professors, students, etc. who are interested in Jefferson or maybe they really want to know more about Virginia in the 18th century. Either way, I’m just glad to say I finally feel comfortable with my project.

This week is my finals week, and I’d be lying if I said I’m looking forward to my Microeconomics final on Wednesday. It’s actually stressful enough to give me heart palpitations.

Pertaining to my project, I now have a more narrowed-down list of Notes that reside in the different surrounding universities. Once I know I have a completed list (my goal for Thursday), I will then create my Google map of Oklahoma and plot the different copies at the varying locations. I will also start my timeline at this point.

The end is very near, but once I survive my finals, I can focus all of my attention on finishing this project the way I would like.

add insult to injury

It’s one thing to have the knowledge that someone, somewhere on Gold Side Cabinet 2017 screwed up and misspelled your name. I get it, Haynes is a little unusual, and yeah, that underwear brand does spell it without the Y. It’s a bit annoying when you find it misspelled in the College Night program, but… Continue reading add insult to injury

It’s one thing to have the knowledge that someone, somewhere on Gold Side Cabinet 2017 screwed up and misspelled your name. I get it, Haynes is a little unusual, and yeah, that underwear brand does spell it without the Y. It’s a bit annoying when you find it misspelled in the College Night program, but hey, at least they included your double name at all, right? It’s even kind of alright when the production book does the same thing, because, hey, they didn’t call you Mary.

Sure, they probably should have someone double check with all the people they’re including in the program for spelling. In fact, I’m fairly certain I wrote my name on at least ten sheets of paper at different times that got turned into different Cabinet members. Actually, shouldn’t someone have checked on that? I really would like it if someone checked on that from now on.

These were the thoughts that ran through my head as I scanned the College Night 2017 book, digitizing it and the name “Mary Hanes Furman” to be put up on the internet for all of time.

We have finally digitized the last of the books. It’s quite a feat, considering that Greek Week was upon us and both Savannah and I took active roles in the events for our sororities. We managed to make time to disappear into the archives on Tuesday night, when I digitized the Gold 2017 book while Savannah plucked away on the timeline. Savannah is an actual goddess and found time to go back on Thursday and scan the Purple 2017 book.

For the first time, I wrote down thoughts about the book as I was digitizing it, so I have plenty of details for this one.

I’ve now digitized something like six books. You’d think that I’d be getting better as time went on, but this book seemed to prove me wrong. Multiple times I would accidentally hit scan, and spend the next thirty seconds yelling at the computer, “I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO SCAN!” while frantically shutting the scanner so that our retinas were not blinded by the bright light. After digitizing six or so books I can also say that each book takes about 2 to 2 and a half hours to scan in full, with maybe five to ten minutes for the program to go through the three step saving process.

Here is the experience I had as I scanned the Gold 2017 book:

Firstly, I witnessed different parts of the making of the Gold 2017 book. I know that they painted what was once multi-colored scrapbook black, and had even suggested they cover the spine of it (where the paint was already cracking, a week before it had to be turned in for judging) with something like black electrical tape. They did not heed this advice, and now, only two months after College Night, the ribbon that they had glued to the edges of the spine is already peeling off and bringing the black paint with it.

Besides that, though, the book is really not a bad book. In both of these 2017 books, the sides decided to put the pages of it in plastic sheets, much like those you protect pages with in a binder. This has been a trend for several years now. Another trend is stapling packets of each individual song together and putting them in their own plastic sleeve, rather than hole-punching and including them as part of the book. It was amusing to see the long string of almost identical-looking scans, as they included different packets for the vocal sheet music, the accompaniment (for which on one song required so many sheets of paper that a staple did not go though it, and they had to use an alligator clip).

This staple packet existed for every single song in the show, except for one song called “Royal Proclamation.” This was a rap, for which the composers of the show made a back track on an audio spinning software on a computer. Because of this, there wasn’t any sheet music. Instead, I found a CD (I thought I had taken a picture of it, but apparently I didn’t). This CD was in a broken case, with a homemade cover that featured the two composers, with crown emojis on each of their heads and the phrase “#it’s lit” followed by a fire emoji written on one side, in what appeared to be the red Snapchat writing feature.

That CD is possibly the most amusing thing I’ve seen out of a College Night book yet.

On the side of the project that does not deal with scanning: I finally found a theme that both Savannah and I like. Unfortunately, it seems to not be letting me change the title color of the site, despite the fact that when I go in to editing mode it tells me I have, in fact, changed it.

Hopefully in the next week we’ll get the rest of the pages for the site written and uploaded, as well as the tweaking of the finer details on the site itself.

Update: April 11

Hey all, Kinsey here. Dakota and I were working in the archives one day, poring through the cookbooks and trying not to drool, when an idea hit us; what if we had an About page? We don’t mean an “About the Project” page or a simple “About Us” page. We did in fact have the …

Continue reading “Update: April 11”

Hey all, Kinsey here. Dakota and I were working in the archives one day, poring through the cookbooks and trying not to drool, when an idea hit us; what if we had an About page?

We don’t mean an “About the Project” page or a simple “About Us” page. We did in fact have the latter in the works—just a page briefly stating who we are, all that fun stuff—but it looked strange. Barren, even. There wasn’t much about us to tell that we could relate to the project. We had our majors, hometowns, and class years, and that was about it. It had stagnated.

But this project is all about examining the role of cookbooks—specifically, the Pamela Allison Cookbook Collection—in the Asheville community, right? So why not present ourselves in the same way that the authors and contributors of these cookbooks do—through recipes? We often found ourselves comparing our research to our own experiences in the kitchen, both by ourselves and with family.

So, while we wait for the rest of our prospective interviewees to reply to us (if they even will at this point), we’ve been working on our own miniature cookbook as a form of “About Us” page that we feel fits the theme of the project more than a dry old About page. It’s currently live and accessible through the site menu. Dakota has been incredibly busy with the rest of the project, so she will be able to add her own information soon, but we didn’t want to hold off too long.

In terms of other plans, we’re moving slowly but surely. A couple of the interviewee-shaped brick walls have crumbled and we’ve been able to get through, but mostly just for initial contact. We might need to restructure our project a bit if we can’t get ahold of everyone, but we can figure it out if it comes to that. We’re also working with data by now; Dakota’s efforts with hand-entering publishing data are now in a spreadsheet ready for work. (Thanks, Dakota!) My next mission is to construct a map showing the spread of publishing data for the Southern Appalachian division of the Pamela Allison Cookbook Collection. Dakota noticed some themes when she was entering the data, and ended up discovering that there were a few presses dedicated solely to publishing community/local cookbooks. We look forward to sharing with you!

some things should die

There are many regrettable things in this world. Neon printer paper is one. Elmers glue sticks, unless you are a drag queen, is another. Glitter also makes that list, in many people’s opinions. All of these things were found in the Gold Side 1994 Production Book. We are in the … Continue reading

There are many regrettable things in this world. Neon printer paper is one. Elmers glue sticks, unless you are a drag queen, is another. Glitter also makes that list, in many people’s opinions.

All of these things were found in the Gold Side 1994 Production Book.

We are in the thick of digitizing. We have reached books that reflect the modern ones, and even have one with a wooden cover. Despite the knowledge that the 90s can generally be regarded as a time of trends that need to be forgotten, I was not prepared to open the 1994 books and be hit with the evidence so thoroughly.

The book was full of neon A4 paper that was falling off of the larger construction paper it was glued to- so much as nudging the paper was enough to dislodge what had once been attached. At one point, I accidentally brushed the book, and a flurry of glitter was sent flying towards Savannah.

Another challenge present itself before we even began to scan the Gold ’94 book. The book, we noticed, was bound in an unusual fashion- it had screws in the binding. Screws, as it turned out, that furrowed into each other. One of them was something like a pipe, and the other half screwed into it complete a little rod that kept everything in place.

These screws were plastic. They were unwilling to let go of one another. It took a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, a ruler, a lot of googling, and two sets of hands in order to get them undone so that we could scan the pages of the book. After we finally got the pages out, the rest of the scanning process involved me picking up pieces of paper and trying to place them in their original places on the page (or as close as I could get them).

In other news that doesn’t need to die, our IRV got approved! That’s about it that’s happened this week.