Pocahontas County History Preservation, Digitization, Community

Abstract

18 months into the project, the Pocahontas County Historic Preservation project has moved out of the development phase and into "production." Necessary equipment and software have been acquired, the website, Pocahontas County History: Preservation, Digitization, Community. http://pocahontascohistory.org/community is up and running, the server-side database has been populated, and scanning of historic documents is underway. Accomplishments for 2009 include:

• Launch and population of Pocahontas County History: Preservation, Digitization, Community.
• Archon database populated with catalogued material from the Pocahontas County Historical Society.
• Development of Pocahontas County Historic Preservation Project: A Draft of Digitization Policies, to ensure that we observe all relevant copyright and intellectual property laws.
• Purchase and use of imaging equipment--scanners, camera, copystand, and relevant software.
• Development of procedures, technical parameters, and processes. The procedure for capturing digital images, annotating them, and storing them is robust, and ready to be shared with volunteers and interested parties.
• 100 GB of archival scans have been processed from the Historical Society archives.
• The Preservation Project has provided some assistance to the multimedia Hammons Family project.

In 2010, the project will continue to digitize photographs and documents from the Historical Society's archive, put this material on the Website, and burn digital archives to DVD's for preservation and study at county libraries and at the County Court House.

Even more important, we plan to bring the community into the process, involving volunteers in digitization, and encouraging all interested parties to contribute digital copies of their family albums to the Pocahontas County collection.

Preliminary Work--2008

Initial work on the Pocahontas County Historic Preservation project focused on orientation and training, prioritizing projects, and identifying and obtaining the necessary equipment and software. The following list summarizes the work described in a report presented in January, 2009.

• Training and Orientation:
  • I spent a morning shadowing digitizing work in the Pocahontas County Clerk's office, and several more days familiarizing myself with the Laserfiche commercial software they use for digitizing and project management. I determined that our project would be better served by lighter-weight open source software designed for academic research and archive projects.
  • A visit with John Cuthbert and Michael Ridderbusch of the West Virginia University Archives for advice on how to manage archives and collections, and insights on the digitization process. Joe Geiger of the West Virginia Department of Culture and History provided me with contacts concerning materials preservation and management.
  • These meetings led me to search for current resources on archives, collection management, and digitization, to become conversant with current techniques and issues. I was a able to develop a library of Internet resources on these topics.
• Equipment Procurement: For the project, we purchased a Mac Book Pro laptop computer capable of processing large data and image files, and a RAID-capable 1 Terabyte external hard drive for archiving digital materials. Nearly all the software used for the project will be open source, but copies of VMWare Fusion and Windows XP were also purchased.
• Project Prioritization: The initial goals and objectives listed the Pocahontas County Historical Society Museum, a Hammons family multi-media project, the audiovisual materials at the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace, the David Sharp Collection, and the Pocahontas County Clerk's office records. Of these resources, we selected the Historical Society's Museum for the pilot project because portions of it are already curated and organized. Some materials have already been cataloged and most have been sorted.
• Web Development: After creating several Web prototypes, including a CSS/HTML flat files with simple server-side includes and various Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS), I determined that Drupal best suits our needs, and will provide a customizable, extensible framework for the project. For the digital archive management software, I selected another Open Source CMS, Archon, the Simple Archival Information System.

Historic Preservation Project, 2009

Pocahontascohistory.org--The Preservation Project Website

Early in 2009 I constructed and launched a project website, Pocahontas County History: Preservation, Digitization, Community. It uses the Drupal content management system (CMS), including a MySQL database. Currently, there is a Preservation Officer's Weblog, for announcements and updates, a search-engine-optimized text copy of Historical Sketches of Pocahontas County, West Virginia by William T. Price (1901), and the text of Reverend Price's rare Civil War diary, "On to Grafton." It is now a simple matter to upload text as index-able online books, and to upload photographs and photo albums. Drupal's CMS makes it feasible to have multiple contributors to the site, so as the project matures, more people and history-oriented organizations can add their content to the website.

In addition to the Drupal CMS, Pocahontas County History hosts an online digital library management tool, Pocahontas County WV Historic Preservation Archive. The CMS for this is is Archon, the Simple Archival Information System. Currently, the Collections area is populated with the catalogued materials from the Pocahontas County Historical Society archives.

I'm pleased to report that one historical researcher has already used the Pocahontas County WV Historic Preservation Archive to find and request materials for a project. Mr. Paul Cunningham of Highland County is writing a history of the Presbyterian Church in McDowell, VA. Pocahontas County author William T. Price was a minister in that church during the 19th century, and kept a diary during that time. Mr. Cunningham and his wife, Jane Cunningham, are engaged in the laborious process of transcribing that hand-written document.

Equipment Procurement 2009

This year our purchases were exclusively digitization tools. We purchased a portable flatbed scanner to capture images of small flat papers and photographs, and photographic negatives. A digital camera, macro lens, and camera copy stand were purchased to digitize large format papers such as old newspapers and scrapbooks, and museum artifacts. Specifically:

• Epson V500--An inexpensive, semi-portable flatbed scanner. Compatible with the laptop purchased last year, it is suitable for scanning materials in an office, museum, or home, making it feasible to digitize materials for the library
• Nikon D5000 Digital SLR Camera (Camera Body), and a soft camera case, and a 4 GB SD card.
• Nikon AF-S Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED Macro Autofocus Lens
• Bessler high-quality camera copy stand kit: Beseler Kit consists of copystand, CLA light arms, CL-600 copy lights, and two 5-inch Reflectors

Digitization--Planning

In the course of planning and discussing website development and digitization of historic materials, questions about what can legally be copied, and what can legally be shared on the Website arose. We have developed a draft policy for the project, which is now available as Pocahontas County Historic Preservation Project: A Draft of Digitization Policies. (A copy is appended at the end of the paper version of this document.) Going forward, we need to identify which materials we have legal right to digitize, and obtain permission to use new materials people wish to share with us. Fortunately, several libraries have made available "Deed of Gift" templates suitable for our use.

Digitization--Technical Issues and Work Flow

There is considerable controversy in how archival digital materials should be collected and catalogued. It is important to select data types that will remain in long-term use, and media that will be physical long-lasting and still in common use for the foreseeable future. Without benefit of a crystal ball, we have settled on ".tif "files scanned at 600 dpi (the format and information the Vatican uses on its rare book collection), which will be copied onto multiple hard drives, and also written to DVD's, with copies placed in all the Pocahontas County libraries, as well as the Court House, and with any other organizations that would care to house copies.

In addition, where the material can legally be shared on the Internet, smaller .jpg files will be created and made available through the Pocahontas County Digital Archives using Archon on a remote server.

It is critical that information describing each document be collected at the time the document is scanned or digitally copied. That information must be kept with the digital file, either through metadata management systems such as Archon, or, in the case of flat files on hard drives and DVD's, through index files that couple the information gathered with the name of the file the digital image is given at its creation. While there are many "photo album" programs that do this, there is no formatting standard yet. I have elected to keep index.txt files with a master list of scanned image files matched with their descriptions. This information can be loaded into spreadsheets, word processing documents, some photo album software, or Web browser-readable files, and I believe it is most likely to be convertible by software yet to be developed.

Digitization of Pocahontas County Historical Society Museum Holdings

The Pocahontas County Historical Society Museum archives have been the first digitization candidate. The materials scanned so far are the oldest, including correspondence from the 1840's. They are clearly in the public domain, are of considerable interest to our community, and are among the most fragile. Approximately 100 GB of files have been scanned and indexed. This represents just a small subset of the materials catalogued in the Pocahontas County WV Historic Preservation Archive. Clearly, the digitization of the Historical Society's resources will be an interesting long-term project.

I have scanned a few family photo albums, and devised a system for tracking the scanned images and their descriptions, and producing a copy of the images for the album owners to keep for themselves.

Hammons Family Multimedia Project

Dwight Diller, Elizabeth (Gail) Hatton, and B.J. Gudmundsson are creating a multimedia publication of stories, music, and photographs of the Hammons family. I have provided some organizational assistance, and am compiling an index for the transcribed stories.

Plans for 2010 Historic Preservation Project

Continue Digitization of Historical Society Records; Develop Hard Copy Resources

Digitizing the Pocahontas County Historical Society Records is a vast project. I will continue to work on this, and I plan to have a set DVD's burned for the county libraries and the County Clerk's office this spring. It will not be a final or complete transcription, but will be a tangible work product. I hope it may inspire interested people to volunteer with the project, and learn how to scan and annotate local history materials.

Expand Web Site

I plan to update Pocahontas County History: Preservation, Digitization, Community on a regular basis with a weblog of activities to keep stakeholders up to date on project progress. I have plans to transcribe more documents, such as Osborne Wilson's Civil War diary, to Drupal "book" format.

I am copying the Historical Society scanned tif's to smaller jpg files, creating annotated "photo albums," and uploading the document and photograph files to the Website. I will then be able to link these public files to the Pocahontas County WV Historic Preservation Archive.

Involve the Community in the Digital History Preservation Project

I plan to make an effort to engage the community in the Digitization and Preservation project this year. The digital image capture and annotation process is well-defined and not difficult to learn, and I hope that local history enthusiasts will be interested in joining (and eventually taking over) the project.

Several people have generously offered their family photo albums for this project. The genealogical and historical information in the community should not be underestimated. I hope to encourage more people to have their family photos, genealogical materials, old letters and diaries digitized, and to then share the digitized materials (but not the precious family mementos themselves) with our project. I will be inviting family reunion planners to contribute photos, guest lists, and stories to the project.