Elias Tzoc blog!

Today -September 30- is the official last day for this 5 months project!
It all started last year (2008) when Jacky Johnson and I learned about the OHC grant opportunity. The grant was awarded in April 2009, in May we reviewed some students’ applications and hired 2 students; the actual work started on June 1 – September 30!

The collection contains three types of materials: documents (about 765 PDFs), 68 images, and 27 videos (about 40 hours). Users can explore the website by browsing the collection (either by type or tagcloud) or by using the autosuggest search box on the homepage!  The slideshow on the main page uses SlideShowPro for Flash –which is a great application, fully customizable and easy to use.

Another addition to this collection is the “curriculum guide” page –here you can find lesson plans for elementary-middle-high-college levels.  This was part of workshop that Jacky thought this past summer.

It was a great experience -as usual with some challenges and unexpected surprises- however, we’re happy to see this project completed. In the next few days, we’ll doing a couple of presentations about this collection –e.g. one at the ASALH 2009 Annual Meeting in Cincinnati, OH and another one on Saturday October 10, at the Freedom Summer Conference at Miami University.

…hasta pronto!

In January 2009, Jacky Johnson -Western College Archivist- and I submitted a grant proposal to the Ohio Humanities Council (OHC) to digitize the Freedom Summer collection currently housed at the Western Memorial Archives.  The primary materials include journals, diaries and letters written by the college students and civil rights participants in the training in Oxford, Ohio.

Currently, users who want to access the collection must visit the Western Memorial Archives and browse the collection manually.  However, in April we received the award letter and the work is already in progress.  By the end of September 2009, we plan to launch the Freedom Summer Digital Collection (FSDC).

In the last two weeks, I’ve spent some hours working on the project planning and workflow. Obviously, I’ve been consulting with colleagues, testing file settings, and contacting students who will help us scan documents and convert videos.

The FSDC will provide users to:

a)  search –either at the collection or page level
b)  browse by topic, name, or place
c)  print transcript of manuscripts or video interviews

The digitization project aims to create a dynamic and friendly website for students and researchers as well as help preserve the originals.