Plug into history with Digital Initiatives!

This is the DI logo that I created last fall. Apologies for not updating recently.
I just wanted to share this!


My job at Digital Initiatives will be ending soon and I am going to miss it very much. I have had such amazing opportunities working at Ohio University Libraries. I was tasked with creating the graphics for the Alden Library smart phone applications, working on the inventory of the Lynn Johnson Photography Collection, working on the Ohio Fellows project, the E.W. Scripps disquisitions, generating the idea for the @maggieboyd1873 twitter account, and many, many, many other wonderful and interesting projects.

Graduating from college is turning into a big transition, but I feel that DI has given me some important tools and skills that I may not have necessarily learned from sitting in the classroom. I am currently looking for my next big career move, and I would like to thank everyone for their continued guidance and support! Wish me luck!

Sincerely,
Sarah Kaplan

Digital Initiatives has moved! We are now located in the Media Production room on the 3rd floor of Alden Library. We have been organizing and setting up shop. It is really exciting and you should come visit us sometime :)

Our new front door (Room 322) outside of the faculty commons.

The far side of the room

Janet's cubby hole and a few items still yet to be organized

The other side of the room

Besides moving locations physically, we will also be upgrading our website soon and I can't wait to let you know when these changes take place. We will be using CONTENTdm v6 with Sandbox, and graphic design updates are currently in progress for this transition.

Signing off for now,
Sarah Kaplan

Microblogging

One idea that I especially like and have talked about with my colleagues is transposing a historical diary or journal with daily entries and turning them into tweets (microblogs). One example of this is Margaret Boyd's diary. Boyd was the first woman to enroll and graduate from Ohio University (1868-73). There is another diary that struck my fancy, which was written by the student Samuel Bright in 1866. While Bright is not well-known (an average Joe), it is particularly interesting and sometimes funny to read his entries. One issue with turning these historical diaries into microblogs are the limitations and restraints on characters (twitter has a 140 character limit).

Excerpts from Samuel Bright's diary

I propose to create a microblog with a historical looking theme as if it is being written by the author (Boyd or Bright). Each journal entry could be posted on the corresponding day of when the original was written (example: May 8, 1866 would be posted on May 8, 2012). However, modernize the "posts" by using txt slang such as U instead of You, 2 instead of to, or b4 instead of before. This way, the same message is getting across to the audience, but in a shorthand format.

While this idea may seem unconventional, I think that it would be a great way to interact with the younger "technologically driven" generations. While I find history interesting, most adults and children need subjects to be a bit more interesting, a bit more fun, a bit more interactive, a bit more humorous, and faster to compete with their ever wandering attention span. Another way to integrate this idea into the general public would be to allow the viewer to access the microblog from their mobile smart phone. One could either subscribe to the RSS feed manually, or subscribe to a text messaging service which would then deliver one diary entry per day (almost like a "What happened today in history?" newsfeed).

Signing off for now,
Sarah Kaplan

Introduction

Per reading the "23 Things for Archivists," this blog will focus on exploring new and emerging technologies that would be useful for digitizing historical items, but also look at promotion ideas for sharing special collections with the general public.

To introduce myself:

My name is Sarah Kaplan, and I am a soon-to-be graduating senior at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. I have worked at Alden Library (Ohio University Libraries) since June 2010, and have found the experience extremely rewarding. For the last year, I have worked in Digital Initiatives under the direction of Janet Carleton to digitize items from the Archives department. While I have worked here, I have also created graphics and PR for Digital Initiatives and the Alden Library Smart Phone Application.

It is my hope, that with this blog, I will not only keep adding to my educational experience, but also entice future Bobcats to apply for a position within Digital Initiatives (positions are available through student employment, PACE, or Federal Work Study).

While I spent the first few years of college in the School of Visual Communication studying publication design and photography, I switched my major to a Bachelor of Specialized Studies degree in Multimedia and History in the spring of 2010. While I am still very much passionate about visual communication, the Specialized Studies major is a much better fit for my personality. The B.S.S. allows me to explore 300-400 upper level classes from any department in the university, which I would not have been able to take otherwise. The B.S.S. made it possible for me to combine my previous degree with other interests, such as the history of baseball, the history of Judaism, Japanese culture, the sports industry, art, recreation, and plant biology among many others. Having such a vivid curiosity for a multitude of interests and a broad spectrum of topics to choose from can be a gift, but also a bane when trying to choose a direction to follow.

Working at Digital Initiatives, as the Collections Access Assistant, has given me a more defined outlook on what it means to be a visual communicator. Not only are you creating work to be enjoyed in the present, but some day that work will define the past. Besides creating graphics, I scan documents, photographs, and 35mm negatives for library patrons. Through these items, I have been able to glimpse fibers of the past such as university history (buildings and people), individuals who have impacted the university or community, works of art to be enjoyed, or fashion and hair statements to chuckle about profusely.

I hope to keep this blog updated over the summer as I complete each task in the 23 challenge, while continuing my work at Digital Initiatives. My summer is also made up of working for the Southern Ohio Copperheads baseball team, taking my Tier 3 Alternative Agriculture class, and a drawing course in the School of Art.

Signing off for now,
Sarah