“I mean, they say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.” This quote, attributed to anonymous and ubiquitous English street artist Banksy, is a surprisingly profound viewpoint on memory and mortality, and it got me to…
Tag: theory and practice
Gather ‘Round and Download the Tale: A Primer for Digital Storytelling in Archives
The storytelling urge is an ingrained part of human behavior spanning back to our earliest conversant days, when “This plant bad, that plant good” wasn’t just helpful advice for staying alive, it could also pass for a rollicking tale around a campfire. Among the myriad ways we’ve progressed here in the 21st century is in…
“So We Can Throw These Out Now, Right?”: What We Learned From Microfilming Newspapers and How It Shapes Our Digitization Strategy
Recently, I attended a workshop for a topic mostly unrelated to my work in digital collections. At introduction time, I gave a nutshell view of what I do by saying my group digitizes Baylor’s special collections and makes them available online. Despite the whole thing taking about 15 seconds and being intentionally generic, I’ve done…
Go With the (Work)Flow: How Things Get Done in the RDC
One thing we’ve learned about digitizing Baylor’s unique collections is the importance of front-end planning for the overall success of a project. It’s the crucial step that separates a “well, that went smoothly” project from a “nightmare of epic proportions” project. The challenge with workflow planning is that it’s the least glamorous part of almost…
The Education of a Digitization Projects Group: A Dispatch from TCDL 2012
When the Digitization Projects Group isn’t busy saving the world (one scan at a time), we’re taking time to recharge our creative batteries and hone our technical skills at various conferences, symposia and workshops. This past week, half of the DPG (our Manager, Darryl Stuhr and myself) traveled to Austin for the Texas Conference on…
Mrs. Neff’s Portrait: Or, The Things We Scan That Aren’t Online
If you’re a regular reader of this blog,* you know we feature items in this space that are drawn from our digital collections that we believe are unique, interesting or otherwise worthy of added exposure. And for that purpose, we have more than 35,000 objects online to write about – more than enough to keep…