{"id":9393,"date":"2020-11-16T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2020-11-16T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9393"},"modified":"2020-11-16T11:16:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-16T16:16:36","slug":"the-c-span-chronicles-season-2-part-v","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9393","title":{"rendered":"The C-SPAN Chronicles: Season 2, Part V"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I hit a milestone.<\/p>\n

I photographed the last document for our C-SPAN digitization project.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it feels to be done:<\/p>\n

\"\"

None of these babies belongs to me.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

To be honest, it was hard to imagine ever getting to this point. You plan a whole project with a two-year timeline and that two years feels very far away.\u00a0 Even at the beginning of 2020, it seemed impossible to think one day I\u2019d photograph the last page! But to have been through all this time, in the midst of the pandemic and workplace shutdowns, a world in upheaval, and having a baby (oh yeah, I had a baby!) and be able to close the book on this phase of the project is surreal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve learned a few things in this process:<\/p>\n

Be flexible<\/strong>\u2014obviously, we\u2019ve all had to learn how to be more flexible this year.\u00a0 Back in March, when GMU sent everybody home, I was still on maternity leave and not sure how we would be able to proceed.\u00a0 With the help of my indispensable team of students and co-workers, we plugged away at what we could from home.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until July when I could start heading back into the office again once or twice a week to resume imaging.\u00a0 These are not hurdles I\u2019d anticipated in the project plan! (Leslie Knope would be so disappointed in my poor master planning.)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Sorry I let you down, Leslie.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

But even without all those extreme circumstances, this project would have taken flexibility.\u00a0 Issues come up, workflows have to be revised and adjusted, extra checking or redoing needs to be implemented.\u00a0 These things are normal parts of the process. Even the best planner can\u2019t anticipate everything.<\/p>\n

Learn along the way<\/strong>\u2014I\u2019ve been doing digitization for years now, but I still run into questions I don\u2019t know how to answer! Sometimes technology acts up and it takes a lot of research and experimenting to figure it out.\u00a0 Sometimes, I have to crowdsource how to solve a problem by asking others and surveying the professional community.\u00a0 Either way, it\u2019s good to acknowledge what you don\u2019t know and try to learn! I certainly learn a lot each time I undertake a new project, and C-SPAN is no exception!\u00a0 This lesson is going to be even more important going into the last phase of the project\u2014building an Omeka S site, a new experience for me!<\/p>\n

Persevere<\/strong>\u2014The truth of the matter is that digitization requires A TON of repetitive work.\u00a0 Gathering metadata is repetitive, imaging is repetitive, processing is repetitive, redacting is repetitive (even this sentence is repetitive).\u00a0 It\u2019s very easy to start hitting your head against the wall just to feel something (okay, that\u2019s a bit of an exaggeration).\u00a0 In other words, it is common to lose sight of the end goal and\u00a0 the importance of diligently completing every part of the project to the best of your ability.\u00a0 But those things are the most important!\u00a0 You have to keep up your stamina and take the enjoyment you can when you get the parts that are something of a slog.<\/p>\n

Get help!<\/strong>\u2014Truly and sincerely, the completion of this phase of the project has been a team effort! My students spent many hours amid their classes and summer breaks to dig deeply into those repetitive tasks I just mentioned. My co-workers made that flexibility possible (especially through the “having a baby” part) and helped me work through a series of bumps in the road. C-SPAN provided the documents, but also so many resources to help us along! So three cheers for everyone! The best news is that YOU can help out too! I encourage you to go out and find a way to help YOUR local archives. If you benefit from digitized images, give back to the process! I assure you, any archives would be grateful to have you. (Plus, you\u2019ve learned so much from dutifully and carefully reviewing all my posts on digitization, right? *wink, wink* So you\u2019re practically an expert!)<\/p>\n

\"\"

Any archivist when you say you want to volunteer.<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Finally, the last lesson\u2014If you\u2019re the only one in the office and you\u2019re alone in a dark, windowless lab with the lights turned out so you can take good pictures of old documents, I would not advise listening to ghost stories unless you want to be perpetually paranoid that there\u2019s something RIGHT BEHIND YOU.<\/p>\n

As always, thanks for listening, and stay tuned as we finish up the last phase of the project!<\/p>\n

Follow SCRC on Social Media and look out for future posts on our Facebook<\/a>,\u00a0Instagram<\/a>, and\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0accounts. \u00a0To search the collections\u00a0held at Special Collections Research Center, go to our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0and browse the finding aids by subject or title. You may also e-mail\u00a0us at\u00a0speccoll@gmu.edu<\/a> or call 703-993-2220 if you would like to schedule an appointment, request materials, or if you have questions. Appointments are not necessary to request and view collections.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I hit a milestone. I photographed the last document for our C-SPAN digitization project. Here\u2019s how it feels to be done: To be honest, it was hard to imagine ever getting to this point. You plan a whole project with a two-year timeline and that two years feels very far away.\u00a0 Even at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101020,"featured_media":9398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557,558,461,1],"tags":[455,289,348,571,421,753,853,795],"class_list":["post-9393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-collections","category-digitization","category-the-c-span-chronicles","category-uncategorized","tag-archives","tag-brian-lamb","tag-c-span","tag-correspondence","tag-history","tag-metadata","tag-redaction","tag-viewer-mail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Babies.png?fit=931%2C276&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Ep5i-2rv","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8291,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=8291","url_meta":{"origin":9393,"position":0},"title":"The C-SPAN Chronicles: Season 2, Part I","author":"Kelsey Kim","date":"February 22, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Welcome back to the C-SPAN Chronicles!\u00a0 I am your host, Kelsey Kim, the newest addition to SCRC, and the new C-SPAN Project Archivist. 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I\u2019m your host (again), Kelsey Kim, C-SPAN Project Archivist.\u00a0 Today on the blog\u2026\u2026..more about the C-SPAN project! Almost fooled you that this was about something else, right? Surprise! At this point, I imagine you\u2019re thinking something along the lines of \u201cThis again? What more could she possibly have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Collections"","block_context":{"text":"Digital Collections","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=557"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cspan.jpg?fit=1200%2C428&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cspan.jpg?fit=1200%2C428&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cspan.jpg?fit=1200%2C428&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cspan.jpg?fit=1200%2C428&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/cspan.jpg?fit=1200%2C428&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8922,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=8922","url_meta":{"origin":9393,"position":2},"title":"The C-SPAN Chronicles: Season 2, Part III","author":"Kelsey Kim","date":"November 1, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not much of a cocktail party person (I prefer Netflix in my PJs), but occasionally, I manage to drag myself out of the house in the evening for some light socializing.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve ever been to any sort of party, you know that the one question you can always\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Collections"","block_context":{"text":"Digital Collections","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=557"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Alive-1.jpg?fit=744%2C294&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Alive-1.jpg?fit=744%2C294&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Alive-1.jpg?fit=744%2C294&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/Alive-1.jpg?fit=744%2C294&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9467,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=9467","url_meta":{"origin":9393,"position":3},"title":"The C-SPAN Chronicles: Season 2, Part VI","author":"Kelsey Kim","date":"February 8, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Hello! It\u2019s me again\u2014Kelsey Kim: cereal lover, ghost story enthusiast, C-SPAN Project Archivist (today, I\u2019ll be primarily focusing on that last one).\u00a0 We are still hard at work making the C-SPAN collection available to you, plugging away at the tasks of refining and redacting to present it as best we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Digital Collections"","block_context":{"text":"Digital Collections","link":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?cat=557"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cat.jpg?fit=1200%2C769&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cat.jpg?fit=1200%2C769&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cat.jpg?fit=1200%2C769&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cat.jpg?fit=1200%2C769&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vault217.gmu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/cat.jpg?fit=1200%2C769&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8648,"url":"https:\/\/vault217.gmu.edu\/?p=8648","url_meta":{"origin":9393,"position":4},"title":"The C-SPAN Chronicles: Season 2, Part II","author":"Kelsey Kim","date":"July 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"You can read Part I of Season 2 here. 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