Cornell Center for Materials Research Archive Project
Ashley Rindsberg: June-October 2002 log Since I last wrote an update-report, there have been a few changes within the project. First, Matthew Vernon, the student who filled my place during the summer, finished a good deal of the long Center annual reports. Ivan has transferred some of these onto DVD, though he's mentioned that there is some difficulty with the writing process. At the scanning level of things, Ivan wrote a database-naming program in Access which generates file names from an input of relevant data. These data are: document number, date-created, author, full title of document, archivist, date scanned, and document source. The program has a button Make Short Title which cleverly removes semantically empty or redundant words from the title. There is also a Make File Name tab which generates the name, and, below that, a Copy File Name which allows the user to export the generated filename from the Access program to the scanning program where it will be used to name the scanned document. In addition, Ivan's program has a box to check if the document is completely scanned, and, accordingly, a reference number for the DVD volume it is written on to. I have not worked with this program to any great extent, but from the few times I have it is very effective, and is able to incorporate all the relevant metadata, without having to do so manually with each scan (which is hugely time-intensive). At this point, I've been relocating some documents and beginning to talk with the library's digital archivist to deal with some of the problems we face with older documents that are stapled, printed on carbon-sheets, damaged, faintly printed etc. We have decided that given the sea of documents, and the relative scarcity of time, it's best to begin with the old documents (ones from the late 50s and early 60s) which are particularly important and interesting. Obviously, these are the documents which have the above-mentioned physical defects, and present some problems. I've also been working on compiling a short history of the Center (which is forthcoming). It's allowed me find some of the older documents and get a grasp of the Center's timeline and important changes. Arne Hessenbruch addition:I just wanted to add that Helene Schember, Ivan Johnson, and I have discussed the best method for getting the files scanned at Cornell on to the server for this website. The aim is for someone at the Cornell Center for Materials Research to upload the files using WebDAV and for that same person to administer access to those files directly - that is to say without the involvement of me or anyone else here at the Dibner Institute, MIT. We are currently working to come to an agreement on the copyright issues involved. This page was last updated on 21 October 2002 by Arne Hessenbruch. |
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