Preperations for Metadata!

As of late I have been separating the Chaffey Letters Book I as well as the transcript for each of the letters. Chaffey Letters Book I is finished and is ready for metadata. The transcripts have opened my eyes to many insights about the Chaffey brothers. It’s very interesting to read what they had to say and understand more and more about them and their dream “colony” from 135 years ago. After I separate Chaffey Letters Book II as well I will be able to, one by one, work on metadata and let them go live on the Claremont Digital Library. We shall see how soon that day comes.

chaff letters-transcript.jpg

till then,

Alfonso

One Word

This week I was asked how I would describe my fellowship in
one word. It took me a while to think about just one word that encapsulates my
entire experience working on the CLIR Water Project. Each day is a little
different, and since I still consider myself new to this position, I am still
learning new skills all the time. For example, just this week I have learned
how to create metadata in CONTENTdm and how to upload items onto the Claremont
Colleges Digital Library. With this in
mind, how could I narrow down my experience into one word?

In the end, I came up with “detail-oriented,” which is not
even technically a single word. However, it seemed to best fit my feelings
about everything I do here. Whether it is how you handle fragile documents or
how you create comprehensive metadata, it is important to be detail-oriented.
At every step of the digitization process, it is of utmost importance to take
your time and pay attention. Every detail matters.

Consequently, many of my tasks feel a bit like mental
juggling. However, I enjoy this element of multitasking while working as a CLIR
CCEPS Fellow. Although it might not look or sound that exciting to digitize
documents and create metadata for them, my mind is always whirring with a
thousand factors to make sure every detail is perfect.