This week Matt and I scanned the remaining items in the 1947-1950 scrapbook! We ended up using the book cradle for most of the unfinished pages since a lot of the inclusions were booklets or folded up pieces of paper. Using the cradle definitely took some getting used to, but it ended up working perfectly for the photos. It also took a lot of coordination especially since most of the booklets started sliding out of place before we could lower the glass that kept the open pages secure. While the contents of each booklet were captured clearly and in really good detail, a lot of photos are tilted since we couldn’t keep them in place without potentially damaging the page or the item. As a result, the phrase of the day ended up being “we can fix it in post.”
Some of the items we scanned included a directory of all of the students attending Orlando High School from around 1948-1949. It included their names, grades, and addresses. Size wise, it was small enough to fit in someone’s pocket. As we scanned the directory and looked through the consecutive pages, Matt and I realized that this book was a collection of Pat Hudson’s entire high school experience based on the dates of when it was created. The other scrapbooks from Howard’s collection are year-to-year rather than a set of four years.
Another booklet we scanned was a program from a Methodist Church event, which had a week’s worth of events and topics. It also included the names and photos of some of the leaders of the event. At the end of the booklet seemed to be some goals or outcomes from the week written by Pat. This book was difficult to scan because it was actually taped to a page from the scrapbook and was bound with really thick staples that put a lot of pressure on the page when you tried to look through the booklet. Before we even started scanning this booklet, we noticed that the scrapbook page underneath was tearing in the middle where the booklet was placed, so we had to be extra careful when handling and photographing each page. Some of the pages of the program were also stuck together with some sort of adhesive, and because the page and book as a whole were so fragile we decided it would be best to just photograph what we could and not forcefully separate the pages that were stuck.
This week Matt had me set up the computer and camera prior to scanning the scrapbook, and I needed the practice! I took lots of notes about the setup when he originally showed me but I somehow managed to forget everything AND I somehow deleted one of the tools we needed to establish the measurement scale in each photo! We were able to reset the software and everything was fine, but now I know I definitely need more experience on the computer portion of this project before I accidentally delete something more important.
-Kelsey R.