Overview of the process

1. Overview of the Springer Collection
   1. I’ve been working with a collection of black and white negatives donated to the Center for Railroad Photography and Art by Fred Springer.
   2. Fred Springer traveled through the United States and world taking pictures of trains, train workers, and other buildings and equipment.
   3. This collection is contained in 6 boxes and likely contains around 8,000 images.
   4. A particularly strong collection of steam trains and narrow gauge trains.
2. Scanning
   1. Done by a Lake Forest College student workers.
   2. Overall, the quality of scans was pretty good.
   3. Some minimal cleanup (re-scanning blurring images, scanning “skipped” images)
3. Metadata Creation/Entry
   1. Here is the metadata we are recording for each image:
      1. File Name (Identifier)
      2. Railroad Reporting Mark
      3. Railroad Name
      4. Description on Envelope
      5. Location (City)
      6. Location (State)
      7. Location (Country)
      8. Date Created (yyyy-mm-dd)
      9. Location (Mile Post)
      10. Original Extent (Physical Size of the Original)
      11. Original Format = black and white negative
      12. Type = Image
      13. Creator = Springer, Fred or
      14. Collection = Springer Collection
      15. Scanning Issues [to record technical issues with the scanning process; not for public display!]
   2. Our metadata standards really focused on transcribing existing metadata.
      1. I didn’t attempt to determine the location of a station or the type of train if that information didn’t exist on the envelope.
      2. I made some minimal corrections for obvious mistakes (spelling errors) but relied heavily on the original descriptions.
4. Processing/Quality Control
   1. Make sure the digital file name correspond to the metadata.
   2. Preserve original order and context to the extent possible.

What I learned

1. The importance of metadata in special collections.
   1. Metadata is context specific
      1. Railroad markings
      2. Mile post
      3. “Whyte notation” to classify wheel arrangement on steam locomotives
   2. Metadata should be context independent.
      1. Entering “standard” metadata fields for each item.
      2. Thinking about future (computerized) systems re-using and re-interpreting the data in interesting ways.
      3. Serials podcast daydream.
   3. Metadata creation balances current needs (user groups, uses, resources, staff expertise) and future needs (anticipates a larger world, metadata standardization for computerized processing, etc.)
2. Effective processing requires conceptual and technical abilities.
   1. There really isn’t a distinction between the two.
   2. Hardware constraints (better equipment is better).
   3. It also requires self-reflection. Is this working? Is that scan good enough? Is that worth the time?
3. The art of project management; there are advantages and disadvantages to dividing projects.
   1. Scanning and description were separate processes. Doing both together may have been faster…but it might not have been.
   2. The combined process (scanning and metadata) involved switching between many programs. Lots of opportunities for errors.
   3. The divided process created smaller “chunks” and more levels of accountability but also required duplicate labor (and physical processing)
   4. Also aware that Anne, for example, is managing many different projects and responsibilities simultaneously.
4. More Product, Less Process (MPLP)
   1. A major archival philosophy in the last 10 years.
      1. Essentially, don’t hold all collections to the same “golden standard”
      2. Adequate processing and description is totally adequate – don’t think of it as “cutting corners”
   2. In my estimation, we followed the MPLP philosophy when processing this collection.
      1. The digital scans are of decent quality but were not done at the highest resolution possible. Publication would require re-scanning and editing.
      2. The metadata we created is good but isn’t comprehensive.
   3. Given the nature and size of this collection, the MPLP philosophy fits this collection perfectly. How could we justify a “more process less product” approach to this collection?
   4. However….I must confess that I still had some emotion pulls to abide by “the gold standard” of processing and description.

These lessons in metadata creation, effective processing, project management, and the “more product, less process” philosophy have made this internship a really rich experience for me.