What is it? Well, it is what it is, and what it is is ten, count 'em, ten boxes of photos, slides, negatives, contact sheets, and miscellaneous materials encompassing the photographic history of the Business School, from the 1930s to the turn of the 21st century. Yesterday was my first full day of examining the materials and doing an initial sort, and I got through seven of the ten boxes, and along the way, I went from the sublime to the ridiculous, finding photos of the Honorable Barbara Jordan cheek by jowl with photos of Ken Lay, former CEO of the former Enron! I've begun by dividing the materials up by medium and once that first sort is done, I'll start examining the quantities of the different materials (to address potential storage solutions) and the possible metadata/search tags, as well as making note of images that get the Gold Star for potential inclusion in the Texas Digital Library's McCombs Community.
I also felt it was important to consider the specific needs of the end users, the members of the McCombs Department of Communications, Marketing and Public Affairs. With this in mind, I composed a brief series of questions via Survey Monkey and sent it to the ten members of the Communications team. I will use their responses to guide my decisions regarding the formats preferred, the materials to be cataloged, and materials to be discarded. I've created a spreadsheet to start logging the materials, but I will likely make adjustments to it after I assimilate these responses. Hmm. Does that make me The Borg?
Stay tuned for next week's installment. Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel.
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