Practicum Overview

Welcome to Jeffrey Zarate's Fall 2009 Practicum website. My Culminating Experience Practicum was at the Ohio State University, Knowlton Digital Library between August 31 and October 15, 2009 under the supervision of Lorrie McAllister, the Digital Resources Curator. I chose the KSA Digital Library because I have a keen interest in learning more about digital libraries in the hope that I may be a part of a digital library in the future. This page contains an overview of my assignment.

My assignment was to digitize a collection of photographs donated to the KSA Digital Library by the Columbus Landmarks Foundation. The collection consists of approximately 85 black and white photographs mounted on 15" X 20" illustration boards which were created by Robert E. Samuelson and used for the publication Architecture: Columbus published in 1976.

The tasks I would perform included scanning the images and saving original archival copies in TIFF format, creating access copies that are reduced in size and saved in JPEG format. Describing the collection using an in-house administrative interface that utilizes the Visual Resources Association metadata schema (VRA Core), and using outside controlled vocabularies such as the Getty Art and Architecture Thesaurus, the Getty Union List of Artist Names, the Library of Congress Authorities, and numerous other reputable sources, for example, the American Architects Directory. I would also create a collection overview page and edit existing web pages in .cfm format.

Most of the images on the illustration boards were titled and numbered. In order to identify the images that were not titled, I had to find them in the book. Lorrie also mentioned that there was a title key that accompanied the images when they were showcased at the Columbus Museum of Art around the time the book was published. This required going to the Ohio Historical Society to examine the Architecture: Columbus collection, MSS 839. This collection contained the research material produced for the book. My hope was to find the key that would identify the untitled images. In addition to this, I went to Holy Cross Church to verify an image, contacted St. Vincent Family Center to ask about a statue, and asked the original researchers from the book for some help identifying some images.

In addition, I had the opportunity to create a collection overview page, as well as re-configure the Online Exhibition section of the KSA Digital Library website which allowed me to utilize my web design skills. I was also able to experience some of the larger administrative workings of a large university research library. To continue, please see the Practicum Objectives page.

2009 Jeffrey Zarate. Page last updated March 6, 2011