Digital Collections Project – Final
Report
Over a two week
span, I pulled photographs, documents, and other artifacts from several plastic
bins and organized them by family. While most of the images were well organized
(Wackowskis in this bin; Coynes in that bin), there were at least two bins in
which the families were mixed. After finding and pulling the materials, I
digitized them with a camera mounted onto a tripod. I then rotated the images,
deleted the duplicates, and cropped out the background.
Once I had
edited the digitized items down to the items I wanted to use for this project,
I went back through them and added metadata to the title, caption, and date
field in Adobe Lightroom. This would allow the information to travel with the
images, and limit the amount of re-entering metadata across various platforms.
I got my names, dates, and locations from the images themselves (several family
members wrote this information on the back of the photographs), as well as by
talking with family members, including my mother and my grandmother, about the
people in the photographs and the items in general.
Once the
metadata had been added, I started uploading the images to ContentDM, where I
learned that ContentDM doesn’t accept metadata from an outside source (such as
Adobe Lightroom), and I had to re-added the metadata, this time in Dublin Core
fields, as opposed to the International Press Telecommunications Council
standards of Adobe. Upon learning that, I pulled the metadata out, one image at
a time, and started adding it into the correct Dublin Core fields.
I copied the exported
metadata into a Google Doc, which I could access from any computer. This also
helped with my spelling, as I am a notoriously bad speller, and Adobe Lightroom
doesn’t have a built-in spell-check program.
I was given some
more best practices for metadata while uploading and re-adding my metadata,
which allowed me to go back through and edit that metadata. I decided to keep
my titles very short, and add lots of description to the description field.
This keeps the titles from becoming unwieldy. Unfortunately, this means that
there are several photographs with the same title. I also learned how to add a
language to the language field in ContentDM, though I think that the language
field abbreviations could lead to more confusion, not less.
While uploading
the images, I had my family look at them. I had told my family that I was doing
the project, and they wanted a copy of the images. I copied them onto a flash
drive, and my uncle showed them on his big TV over Thanksgiving break. Grandma
was thrilled, and she was able to give me more information, about who several
people were. I took notes and went back and changed metadata. I even added some
of her comments to the metadata, as her comments helped explain who the person
in the picture was. Although, “Oh my god! That’s Eddie! Sophie’s husband!”
didn’t give me much to go on.
 |
|
Figure 1: The Saorstát
Éireann (Irish Free State) passport of Martin J. Coyne, Sr., issued in 1925.
Family lore suggests that this was not his first visit to the United States. This passport appears to have only been used the once. (passport has yet to be added to the Omeka collection) |
Title: Saorstat Eireann Passport, 1925
I
chose this title for all images of the passport because it is descriptive of
what the item is. I put a lot more information in the “Description” field,
including transcriptions and translations.
Subject: passports
I
chose this subject heading as the item is a passport. Other possible choices
include “history,” “Irish Free State,” and “travel.”
Date: 1925 September 11; 1925 October 07
I
chose these two dates as the passport was issued on 11 September 1925 and the
U.S. visa was issued on 07 October 1925. I decided against including his
birthday, as that is not important to the artifact at this point in the story.
Coverage: Saorstát Éireann; Irish Free State;
Ireland
I
chose to use the “historical” Saorstát Éireann
and Irish Free State as well as the preferred Ireland as the passport was
issued by the Saorstat Éireann (Irish
Free State), not by either the Republic of Ireland or the United Kingdom.
Language: ga; en; fr. (Irish Gaelic [Gaeilge];
English; French)
I
included these three languages as the passport was issued in these three
languages. While this is a controlled vocabulary, I think that the
abbreviations make it less helpful to the human end users, but more helpful to
the machines. In much the same way that “text,” “volume,” and “unmediated” in
RDA can confuse users.
Transcription: as the passport was issued in three
languages, and in not even 8pt font, I decided to transcribe each page, so it
would be keyword searchable in the description field. I transcribed the Irish
Gaelic and the English, but decided against transcribing the French. I
transcribed first the Irish Gaelic and put the English in parenthesis.
Type: text
I
chose this term as this item contains text.
Format: unmediated
I
chose this term as you don’t need anything extra to view this passport. I used
RDA terms as the DCMI terms did not appear to have non-digital type/format
vocabulary.
Source: Irene W. Coyne Photography Archive
This
is what I am calling the collection of photographs in the basement.
Rights: Copyrighted. Contact Megan Bennett.
This
was suggested by Dr. Oguz.
 |
| Figure 2: Talbot Avenue; Easter, 1956 |
This picture is
a picture of the Miara-Wackowski Family at Easter, 1956. They are standing on
Talbot Avenue, near where Nellie Wackowski lived. From left to right, back:
Irene Wackowski, Sophie Miara (wife of Mike Miara, Nellie Wackowski’s
youngest brother), Nellie Wackowski, Blanche Miara (wife to Stanley Miara,
Nellie Wackowski’s eldest brother), Ronnie Miara (son of Blanche and Stanley
Miara), and Stanley Miara (eldest brother of Nellie Wackowski). From left to
right, front: Mercedes Wackowski (sister of Irene Wackowski), Donna Miara
(daughter of Blanche and Stanley Miara), and Connie Wackowski (sister of Irene
Wackowski). It is believed that Mike Miara (youngest brother of Nellie Wackowski) took
the photograph.
I received this
information by emailing a copy of the image to my grandmother (Irene Wackowski),
who promptly identified everyone in the picture, as well as where and when it
was taken.
Title: Easter Sunday
I
chose this title, as it is descriptive. I decided against adding any more
information into the title field, as that information is found in the
“Description” and “Date” fields.
Subject: Easter
The
picture is of the family gathering together to celebrate Easter.
Date: 1956 April 01
(I used the timeanddate website, tabled for 1950-1999).
This
photograph was taken on Easter Sunday, 1956.
Location: Braddock, Pennsylvania
I
chose this location as this is where Nellie Wackowski and the Miaras lived.
This was entered into the “Coverage” field, for geographical coverage. I added
“Pennsylvania” to the preferred “Braddock” to differentiate which Braddock.
Type: Still image
This
is a still image, as opposed to a moving picture.
Format: photograph
I
chose this, as a photograph is the type of still image. I used RDA terms as the
DCMI terms did not appear to have non-digital type/format vocabulary.
Source: Irene W. Coyne Photography Archive
This
is what I am calling the collection of photographs in the basement.
Rights: Copyrighted. Contact Megan Bennett.
This
was suggested by Dr. Oguz.
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