Digitization

As promised, I bring you the second half of my TLA Digitization Expo presentation, already in progress ...

Shortly after I started at The Petroleum Museum, the Development Director Luanne Thornton forwarded an email to me with an invitation to apply to the Rescuing Texas History grant. UNT's Portal to Texas History would offer mini-grants (ranging from $25 to $2500) to organizations with at-risk local history materials. According to the email announcement:

This project promises immeasurable benefit to cultural heritage institutions by preserving at-risk historical materials. These items are in danger of being lost forever, but with the generous support of the Summerlee Foundation, UNT proposes a solution that will help prevent damage from continued handling, while making these valuable historical materials widely accessible to all Texans.

I have previously mentioned the Portal to Texas History on this blog here.

Through this grant, the Museum received enough funding to digitize 368 images (with UNT responsible for metadata). We sent several small collections of photographic prints and negatives from the Museum's Library & Archives Center, all dealing with Texas from the late 1890s through the 1950s. Peruse the Museum's collection of images at UNT's Portal to Texas History here under the Recent Additions tab.

The purpose of the Portal to Texas History is to make materials available to the public, from academic university researchers to report-writing fourth graders to the amateur history enthusiast. This, in turn, is the purpose of museums, libraries and archives. These organizations are here for the public's benefit.

Soon after receiving the Rescuing Texas History grant, the Museum was recruited to participate in the Train to Share grant program, a project administered by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Learn more about the project here.

The Petroleum Museum has partnered with the Confederate Reunion Grounds in Mexia, Texas, and the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. As a state-wide team, we will attend a series of 5 workshops to learn how to plan, create and complete a digitization project. Then we'll digitize and make accessible 1000 digital objects. Our project title is "Earth, Wind, and Fire: Texas Energy Resources." The grant covers workshop expenses plus $3000 (over the 3-year timeframe) per team. (I actually just returned from the fourth workshop, Principles of Controlled Vocabulary and Theasurus Design, in Lubbock, Texas.)

This partnership has allowed even further collaboration. You see, the online module of The Petroleum Museum's collection managment database was cost prohibitive. So, the Museum has signed a Memo of Understanding with Texas Tech. The University will provide storage and access to their online module (DSpace) while the Museum will enter data and create the digital objects.

With the fifth workshop around the corner, things are getting in gear to get the project off the ground. As of now, I have identified three small photographic collections to include in the project. Those images have been catalogued and scanned. I will be trained on how to use DSpace in June. After training, I'll start posting those images online. Also, with the grant monies, I plan to purchase a network server for the Library & Archives Center for image storage and database access.

So that encompasses the digitization efforts at The Petroleum Museum. I am very excited about sharing images from the Museum's collections with the public online. Leave a comment to share what you think!

Accomplishments

Last Wednesday afternoon I found myself at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio in front of a group of library professionals talking about the digitization efforts at The Petroleum Museum. I was at the Texas Library Association's Digitization Expo. For more information about the annual conference, check out the TLA website. I had made the 5+ hour drive (through rain!) from Midland to San Antonio to talk about my experience with the Train to Share project, couched within the context of my other digitization activities at the Museum.

The presentation "Tales from the Trenches" began with an overview of the Museum itself and what I, and Lauren, have accomplished in such a short time. I wanted to share that information with you today.

As Director of Archives & Collections, I am responsible for the Museum's Library & Archives Center ...



Top: Entrance to the Museum's Library & Archives Center
Bottom: Processed Archives Storage

... as well as the permanent collection.


Top: Object Storage in The Vault
Bottom: Object Storage in The Pit

Soon after I started at the Museum, I realized that we needed to get intellectual control over all of the collections. I began with an inventory of the Library - with over 2000 published titles and periodicals, some of which are out of print!

Above: The Reading Room

Lauren came on board soon after I did and started working on the backlog of archival collections. Even though it may not look it, she has certainly made a dent!

Above: Archival Storage

Once the Library was inventoried, I began working on cataloguing the permanent collection into the Museum's collection management database. The database had been, until then, primarily used for the Library Holdings and Archival Collection, but was underused for the Permanent Collection. Over the course of several months, we entered over 3000 object records into the database. While doing so, I also rehoused the object files in acid-free, archival folders, labeling them consistently.

Above: Archives & Library Object Files (what the Museum Object Files looked like)

Above: Museum Object Files after Cataloguing and Rehousing

Now, Lauren and I are working on cataloguing and scanning our large photographic collection. (Estimates for this collection range from 250,000 to 400,000 images.) The photographic prints and negatives in the collection reflect the history and culture of the Permian Basin and includes images of the ranching heritage of the area as well as the petroleum industry. This collection is a wonderful asset to the Museum!


Top: Photograph Print Storage
Bottom: Negative Storage for Rubin Collection

Lauren works on scanning the images, in line with standards we have in place, while I catalogue each image into the database.


Above: Lauren scans a photograph.

Even though Lauren and I have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time, there is still a lot to do! Next week, I'll post about the Train to Share project we are working on.

Curiosity Cabinets

Mark your calendars now! May 13th is the next Family Science Night at the Petroleum Museum. From 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., hundreds of children will learn about "ologies" of Science.

I will even man a table there about museology -- or the study of museums -- focusing on curiosity cabinets or “Kunst und Wunder-kammer” (literally 'art and wonder rooms'). These rooms of curiosities reflect the times in which they flourished.


Above: Frans Francken the Younger, Art and Curiosity Collection, early 17th century. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Viena.

The Renaissance saw the world expand -- Europeans travelled to the far off lands of Asia, Africa and the Americas, bringing back things no one had ever seen before. These items, whether shells, animals or clothing, became collector items, just like comic books or baseball cards today.


Above: Taken from Lorenzo Legati, Museo Cospiano, 1677. Marchese Ferdinando Cospi (1606-1686) gave his collection to the city of Bologna in 1657 for the use of scholars.

Collectors then stored these items in cabinets or even entire rooms, organizing them in different ways, from artificial versus natural to place of origin to four elements (earth, air, water, fire). Collectors would often publish guides outlining their methods too.


Above: Etching of Ole Worm's Museum. Taken from Ole Worm (1588-1654), Museum Wormianum; seu, Historia rerum rariorum, tam naturalium, quam artificialium, tam domesticarum, quam exoticarum . . . , 1655.

Head over to The Petroleum Museum on Thursday, May 13th to learn more!

Do you know ...

WHO IS THIS MAN?



Today I received an email from David R. LeMaster, Ed.D. Lt Colonel, USAF Retired who found the above image on the Portal to Texas History at the University of North Texas. (Visit the Portal here. The Petroleum Museum has almost 400 images available on the website.)

Lt. Col. LeMaster writes:

RE: Man with a Guitar (1947 at KECK Radio) Could the man with the guitar be the singer, Rusty Queen? Rusty's daughters (Yvonne and Barbara) went to school with me at East Elementary in Odessa. My father (A.B. Lemaster) was a friend of Ben Neddow, owner of KECK Radio. David R. LeMaster, Ed.D. Lt Colonel, USAF Retired

The Museum's records are a bit sketchy about this collection of photographs, so I am at a loss as to whether or not this is really Rusty Queen. Do you know? Leave a comment!