Still Scrapbooking Away

What a wild and crazy week it's been for me! In between writing papers and trying to get sleep, the most relaxing thing that I think has happened this week has been my time in the archives.

I'm still scanning scrapbooks, which, while it may seem repetitive (and believe me, some days it can be), I've gotten into the rhythm of scan, crop, repeat. It's almost second nature to me now. I only have one more scrapbook to finish scanning - it's almost completely done, in fact, and I haven't finished it only because there are pages stuck together that I cannot pull apart by myself without fear of ripping the pictures. Once I'm finished with these scrapbooks, I don't know what I will do with my time. There are things that I can look up from the scrapbooks, for sure, but there's also more to scan. So after next Monday, I might be posting about something else.

This week's scrapbooks were Phi Kappa Theta, again (there are three of them, after all). I have really enjoyed looking through these pictures and learning more about Spring Hill's past.

I can't wait to see what comes up next.

This week's playlist has been the newest Fall Out Boy album, American Beauty/American Psycho. I'm not normally a fan of Fall Out Boy, but this album is really, really good - I cannot find a single song on it that I do not like.

All On My Own: Completing My First Solo Scrapbook

Yesterday, I completed my first solo scrapbook scanning. I worked on the Phi Kappa/ Phi Kappa Theta scrapbook from 1957 - 1959, which covers their early years on campus and national merger with Theta Kappa Phi. It was in better condition than the Kappa Sigma scrapbook, which made scanning it into the computer much easier for me. I also pulled the images into a digital scrapbook without help from the archivist, which made me feel very proud of my abilities. Finally, I think I'm getting the hang of all the technology!

Phi Kappa Theta Crest

Coming up next: the other two Phi Kappa Theta scrapbooks, and then hopefully some sororities!

My playlist yesterday was the soundtrack to Baz Luhrman's The Great Gatsby. It has a lot of upbeat, peppy music, which is great when you're going a lot of repetitive actions (like scanning a book into the computer?).

Finishing the First Scrapbook

Today, after a brief reminder of the computer passcode (apparently I added some extra parts that don't go), I managed to complete scanning of the Kappa Sigma scrapbook. The book also included a collection of photographs that had not been pasted into the scrapbook and a few newspaper clippings from the Springhillian about brothers and their activities on campus. A newsletter was also included, but due to the creases in the paper, it did not scan well, and so was not included.

After I had scanned all 89 images, the archivist and I sat down and pulled them into a single book, which we can later put onto a website or use for a digital collection. Readers can flip through the scrapbook and look at pictures and captions from the different events held by Kappa Sigma. 

In order to create this scrapbook, we had to pull all of our .jpeg images into Adobe Pro and reorganize them (Adobe likes to put everything in numeric order by the first digit, so it placed the pages as 1, 10, 11, 12, and so forth, instead of 1, 2, 3, 4). Once that was completed, I simply had to click a button and every file was converted into a .pdf, forming the book before my eyes. The book has been saved for future use, and I am preparing to create the first of the Phi Kappa Theta digital scrapbooks next.

I'm really excited that I've got one scrapbook down - there's a nice sense of accomplishment that goes along with finishing a part of the project.

I forgot to add this last week, but my playlist today was two different albums: The House that Dirt Built by The Heavy, and PTX Vol. II by Pentatonix. Both albums are very upbeat, although the album by The Heavy has a jazzy feel to it. 

Even More Scrapbooks: Phi Kappa Theta

Today's plan was (originally) to walk into the Archives, log into the computer, and scan the rest of the Kappa Sigma scrapbook. 

Unfortunately, that was not the case (mainly due to my not remembering what the password was for the computer). 

Instead, I turned to the box of scrapbooks that I had yet to go through, and worked my way through those.

The remaining three scrapbooks in the box were all from a social fraternity called Phi Kappa Theta. The first scrapbook, from 1957, covers their merger with another national social fraternity to form Phi Kappa Theta - until that date, the organization was known as Phi Kappa. The group was founded on Spring Hill's campus in 1955, and played a major role in the foundation of the campus's Fr. William D. O'Leary Memorial Award, which they financed and designed. 

I found Phi Kappa Theta's scrapbooks extremely interesting, in part because they covered such a wide swath of time (the first scrapbook started in 1957, and the last one ended in 1965), and also because they provided so much information about campus life and their brothers. Every single achievement of a brother received recognition in the scrapbook, and the little sisters and the sweethearts also had their major events noticed, too. Everyone's name was underlined diligently in blue ink, and their articles were carefully pasted into the scrapbook's pages. Whoever created these scrapbooks, I am extremely grateful - they are a researcher's dream. Sadly, the later scrapbooks are in somewhat bad condition,  with pages sticking together and the covers almost falling off. I'm glad that I'm scanning these into the computer, so that they'll be preserved for the future, but I hope that I can find a way to save the actual book, too.

I also discovered two other fraternities in my readings today, Phi Omega and Omicron Sigma. Hopefully, their scrapbooks or mementos are somewhere in the Archives waiting for me to find them. 

If you know anything about any of these fraternities and their time on the Hill, please feel free to comment below! I'd love to learn more.

An Introduction to Photoshop: Or, a Lesson in Online Preservation

Today was my first day digitizing the Kappa Sigma scrapbook. The archivist brought me over to our digitization machine, called the BookEye, and showed me how to scan in the pages of the scrapbook. After the pages are scanned in, the images go into Adobe Photoshop, where we cut them to size and clean up the edges so that they aren't awkward to page through. Eventually, these will be saved as PDF files and .jpegs and turned into an online book that looks identical to the physical scrapbook held in the archives on campus.

BookEye Scanner - similar to what I'm using now

Scanning images in, I have now learned, is somewhat tedious. So I have decided that I need to come up with a playlist for scanning, to make passing the time more interesting. Today's playlist was the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy, because its eclectic mix of music from the late 1960s and the 1970s encompasses the feeling of many of the images that I was scanning today. Hopefully, next time I'm in the archives, I will be able to post some of the images that I've scanned! Until then, I'll keep looking into Greek life on campus, and learning more about the tools of the trade. 

Quite literally an awesome mix of music

First Day on the Job: Picking a Project

Today was my first day working in the archives, and, right off the bat, I was asked by our archivist if I had any project ideas. I told him that I was interested in the Civil War, and maybe focusing on the Civil War in Mobile. After being (politely) informed that our Civil War collections were probably not large enough to support a project, we wandered the archives, where he suggested projects for me to work on.

Of the multiple suggestions (and, believe me, there were several - there is always something to do in the archives), the one that seemed most interesting to me was digging into the history of Greek life on my campus. As a member of a newly established sorority on my campus, I found the idea of looking at past fraternities and sororities on campus somewhat intriguing, especially as many of them are no longer on campus any more.

The first box I opened today contained scrapbooks from fraternities on campus from the 1950s and 1960s. On top was a scrapbook from Spring Hill's chapter of Kappa Sigma dating to 1967-68. The scrapbook contained Polaroid photographs of the brothers and their girlfriends or dates at each of their social events, with careful labels of event titles, locations, and dates, and clever captions next to many of the photographs. Also tucked into the back pages were several more Polaroids in their packaging, a copy of the newsletter, and some newspaper clippings. I'm looking forward to going back soon to read more and find out more about what happened in 1967.

I plan to digitize these scrapbooks, so hopefully in the future I will be able to include photographs. I am also going to attempt to keep a running record of Greek organizations that were present on my campus, along with a little bit of information about them. If you know anything about the chapter of Kappa Sigma at Spring Hill College, please comment below! I'd love to know more.

Kappa Sigma Crest

Back from Hiatus! Now New and Improved with Internship!

I can't believe that it's been over a month since I lasted posted! To anyone who's been following me and eagerly hoping for more posts, I'm now back on and posting regularly (apologies for the hiatus - at least it wasn't as long as Sherlock). 

But why am I back, you ask?

I'm interning this semester!

This semester, in addition to classes, I'm interning in my school's archives. I'm super excited about this (and not just because we have lots of really cool things hiding in all the books and crannies...although that's a big part of it). Working this internship allows me to experience one of the possible positions in my field, which is really exciting for me. 

The internship works like this: under the supervision of our head librarian and our archivist, and with advising from the head of my department, I will be devising a project based on the collection within the school archives. I will be chronicling the experience (complete, hopefully, with photographs and other information) here on this blog. 

That doesn't mean that this blog will change format, though. I will do my best to maintain a continuous flow of random history posts, including book reviews and occasional favorites lists. 

I'm super excited for this semester, and I can't wait to get started!