Week 13: Meet with Mr. Cravero

This week began on Monday with a meeting with Geoff Cravero in his office. The meeting saw him teach me the basics of metadata and adding to RICHES, explaining one by one on how to fill out the main body of information. Some data needed includes a description of what you are loading onto RICHES, specifically on the case I was working on I described the International Day of Peace held at Hillcrest Elementary in 1986. The one that received the most attention was the Historical Background section, where I spoke at lengths about how the event was spearheaded by teacher Anne Sullivan and how the newly appointed Principal John D. Martin spoke at the event. Also, the images I will upload display the event with the principal speaking and peace balloons being released. Considering the event had press coverage, it seems to be a suitable candidate as my first upload to RICHES. Other necessary sections include the "What location does the item describe", in this case Hillcrest, and write a transcript of what was on the images, which was a straightforward transcription of what words are on the original clippings and images. Geoff would go on to add a in-depth guide to metadata on my flash drive and a template to ease my production of it.

A few days later, I was able to use newspapers.com to find some Orlando Sentinel articles from before the 1980's. Previously, I had only been to travel as far back as 1986 to find digital articles on Hillcrest. All articles before that date would have to be found using the far slower microfilm process. Newspapers.com allowed me to quickly find any article published in the Sentinel, as the newspaper outdates the school itself. The first I found was in 1925, the year after it opened, offhandedly mentioning the grammer school. By the late 20s, it begins speaking of a teachers meetings and other small projects at Hillcrest. 1950s articles speak of typical life on the campus, with basketball games, plays, and other school life well recorded. The 1960s, a decade already well-covered in past blogs, has most of its articles concentrated in '63/'64 due to the Hillcrest Fire, but the rest of the decade has entries on the rebuilding effort and bringing the community together.

Next week entails another meeting with Dr. Lyons on Tuesday, which see her help me make the final preparations on my meta data. Also, there is a possibility of meeting one of the people on Friday who hope to share with the Hillcrest History project, which in itself is very exciting.