Week 2 : Meeting Everyone and First Day Experience

 Hello Everyone! 

I hope this past week has been amazing and has served us all in positive ways. Tuesdays are meeting days with the whole team. We all met around Ten in the morning for our first day of digitization training. Going into this I was quite nervous, I always am when doing new things, but meeting everyone was an incredible blessing. My program directors and my peers were so easy to get along with and are some of the kindest people I've met. To me it really shows how a groups love of History can bring us all together to make things happen. 

Our introduction to digitization was through homework and videos assigned to us regarding the importance of oral history practices, Transcription training modules, and a Metadata training video prior to our first in person meeting. All of these resources were very informational and aided in this weeks hands on metadata experience. We started off with an explanation and view into the family history of Claude Buchanan a direct relative of Sarah Boye. We had the great opportunity to actually get a full detailed timeline and explanation of Mr. Buchanan's life and all of the artifacts he left behind from his days in the United States Military. We also  got to see personal documents from his youth  regarding his marriage and family life and even his plans for a steam powered motorbike he designed himself amongst some of the other artifacts that we had.

It was explained to us, that as a guide on how to digitally archive we would be aiding Mrs. Boye in the scanning of the remaining pieces left behind by her late family member, with according metadata sheets to follow. With instructions in hand and many pieces to be digitized we all set off on completing as much work as we could. I paired up with one of my peers and together we worked on filling out metadata forms and scanning postcards collected by Mr. Buchanan from around the 1930's to the 1950's. the postcards, as shown below are of varying landscapes and objects pertaining to Orlando, Florida. This was the focus of work we did. 

Reflecting back on the work I completed and the time it took, I have realized that having my laptop would have been a better and more efficient option than hand writing all of the metadata sheets. I found that my partner was scanning faster than I could write and that I was falling behind. I naturally type faster in comparison to my handwriting so for the future, I will have a digital device with me to do digital metadata sheets. I learned after we had all completed our digitization assignments that the physical metadata sheets were ultimately going to be scanned and made into digital copies. I have filed this into my memory so that I can do my work more efficiently. 

Here's a picture of all of us working on our respective scanning projects. I was very happy that the environment we were in facilitated the ability for us to talk about all the interesting things we were doing while working together. Communication flowed like none of us had ever been strangers and really helped break the tension and first day jitters.

I learned so much that day and, I am happy to say that this first step into experiencing what archiving is like has only solidified my desire and drive to continue moving forward with this as a career path. 

Until Next Time.!